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Movie stars on alcohol: Daryl Hannah and Ed Begley, Jr. talk sustainable fuel
Ethanol has big fans in Hollywood. Can you believe the <i>Kill Bill</i> Trans-Am runs on biofuel? Plus: We get a video tour of Begley's garage.
Thu, Oct 01 2009 at 8:43 AM
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Biofuels, Ethanol, Ed Begley Jr.

LOOKING DANGEROUS: Daryl Hannah and her alcohol-fueled "Kill Bill" car. (Photo: Jim Motavalli)

OK, I’ll admit, I like movie stars as well as the next guy. And when two of them, Ed Begley, Jr. and Daryl Hannah, are up in front of the room, it’s sometimes hard to concentrate on what they’re actually saying. In this case, the setting was the Petersen Auto Museum in Los Angeles, and the occasion was the “Alcohol for Sustainable Living” press conference.
 
David Blume, who wrote the book Alcohol Can be a Gas, is a passionate advocate of ethanol fuel for everything from powering hybrid cars and motorcycles to running furnaces and barbecuing tofu. He did nearly all these things (as well as make the fuel in a still) on the roof of the Petersen.
 
Begley’s much-traveled 2001 Prius (one of the first made) was up there to get converted to “flex fuel,” enabling it to burn E100, or 100 percent alcohol. This is simpler than it appears, requiring no more than a 10-milimeter socket wrench and a couple of screwdrivers to install a small device made by Blume’s company.
 
Also on hand was the 6.6-liter Trans-Am from Kill Bill, which Hannah has also converted to alcohol with Blume’s help. It looked incredibly dangerous, and according to Hannah was actually the backup car (the good one went to Michael Madsen). “I’m a big fan of non-petroleum ways of moving ourselves around,” Hannah said, “including electric cars running on renewable energy and biofuels, which is why I was a cofounder of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance.”
 
Begley is, of course, an old hand at this kind of thing, having bought a Taylor-Dunn electric car in 1970. As viewers of Living With Ed are well aware, his home is thoroughly green. MNN was able to pay him a visit, and saw such amenities as a four-kilowatt solar array, a solar cooker, a Toyota RAV-4 EV that’s been in the family for many years, and natural lighting. I missed the bicycle he pedals to power his toaster, though. Here’s Ed showing off his RAV-4:
 
 
Blume outlined some compelling visions of an alcohol-fueled future that would reform our current corn-based production. Ethanol has to get holistic, and take advantage of the system’s epic amounts of waste. In particular, he said that stale doughnuts make great alcohol because of how much sugar (10 teaspoons) they contain. And I loved his vision for a closed-loop “living machine” that would produce alcohol from grain, then use the highly nutritious leftovers to feed fish, whose poopy water is great for growing cabbages. Don’t think it can work? Archer Daniels Midland did it profitably for many years, Blume said, until the program was killed by a CEO from the oil industry.
 
The urgency of renewable fuels was underscored by Hunter Lovins of Natural Capitalism Solutions, who said that GM’s meltdown was a sign that “business can’t go on as usual. Our underlying non-sustainability is behind the collapse, and we’re borrowing $2 billion a day to buy oil.”
 
In contrast, Brazil runs its cars on ethanol made from sugarcane. Lovins said the country was importing more oil than the U.S. in the 1970s, but became net energy independent in 2006.
 
Blume said running cars on E85 ethanol would eliminate the need for imported oil in a few years. He took on every complaint about ethanol, including its lower energy content and the “food vs. fuel” controversy. Our higher corn prices, he claimed, are not based on an actual shortage, since we’ve had a surplus of the stuff for the last several years. Did you know that 87 percent of the U.S. corn crop is fed to animals, and that 20 percent is exported?
 
Like Daryl Hannah, I see a smorgasbord of renewable fuels in our future, and a definite place for living machines with alcohol at their center.
 
Check out the car channel on MNN and read more of Jim's transportation posts. 
 
MNN homepage image includes photo of Begley by Jason Merritt/Getty Images and photo of Hannah by WENN
 

The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.

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Comments: 7
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anonymous
Jocelyn Smith Aug 18 2010 at 3:51 AM

Alcohol consumption contains ethanol effects our stomach and brain and makes your body to dehydrate. They call it alcohol poisoning. I've read this site www.wordse.com that tells facts on effects of alcohol consumption.

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anonymous
Solargroupies Oct 06 2009 at 10:13 PM

Burning alcohol is better than burning ARAMCO oil, but let's not forget that burning ANY fossil fuels produces greenhouse gases, CO2 and H2O.

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anonymous
JL Mealer Oct 05 2009 at 12:28 AM

The sad thing is that the Eco nuts and liberal leaning people who act as if they want change will not allow true conservatives (not of the religious right) like me to present the answer to their issues.

JL Mealer
Mealer Companies LLC
http://mealercompanies.com
America's Next Major Automaker
& 100% Self-Regenerative-Fueled
High Capacity Electricity Producing Device MFG

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anonymous
MVG FWRD Oct 06 2009 at 3:33 AM

That's all we need is another automobile Conglomerate! Electric cars have a place in the future, however they are only one piece of the green energy puzzle. Alcohol encompasses much more than just automobiles.

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anonymous
JL MEALER Sep 03 2011 at 7:24 PM

Mealer Companies was not meant to be a conglomerate, but the answer to the problems the leftists type dream of and the transnational power brokers fear.

GM-GMAC shut us down....

JL MEALER
MEALER2012
http://mealer2012.com

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anonymous
Guest Oct 02 2009 at 12:23 PM
Yes, it's true that most of the U.S. corn crop is fed to animals, but this doesn't negate the food vs. fuel argument. The fact is we eat those animals and when their feed costs go up the cost of meat goes up. So higher corn prices do drive up the cost of food, even if it's the the corn itself that we're eating . . . you know, directly. It's still a food vs. fuel issue for that 20% that's exported by the way. That export corn is consumed by somebody somewhere and raising the price of it raises
.... More
the price of their food. It's not like it's only an issue if we raise the cost of Americans' food.
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anonymous
JMcG Oct 03 2009 at 10:37 AM
Corn is always used in the ETHANOL VS FOOD debate because it is government subsidized and a surplus crop. Theoretically when there is a surplus, the price goes down, but not with the government. In fact the oil companies artificially spike the futures market to keep the price high and put Ethanol plants out of business. Other plants like Cat Tails, Jerusalem Artichokes, Fodder Beets, Prairie Grass, Potatoes, Algae. Donuts, waste bakery products etc are all better sources of sugar and starch than
.... More
corn. The secret is bio-diversity in our raising of crops. When mono-farming millions of acres of the same crop (corn) we need Monsanto's pesticides to stop one bug from taking down the entire harvest. It also depletes the soil needing more Monsanto fertilizers. If we grew a diversity of crops, and rotated them, we would not need Monsanto for either their pesticides or their fertilizer. It is all about control by big corporations. With local farmers growing diversified crops, the money stays in the local economy and recirculates an average of 22 times... farmer gets a haircut, barber buys local meat, butcher buys newspaper etc. Finally, all this talk about going to electric cars is a hoax because big oil companies favor NUCLEAR POWER. Currently in the daytime both hydro-electric and Nuclear Plants are running but at night they have to throttle back the Nuclear because of decreased demand. Electric cars is a ploy by mega-corporations to expand the night time market for Nuclear and to maintain their stranglehold on our energy supply. The only way to combat mega-corporations sucking money (and jobs) out of our communities is to SUPPORT ETHANOL as competition and an alternative to gasoline. It is also 98% cleaner eliminating the need for catalytic converters. ETHANOL has an octane of 106 and was added to gas to raise its native 56 octane. It replaced MTBE, Benzene, Toluene and Xylene which are all known carcinogens In BRAZIL cars run on both ETHANOL and gasoline. Even regular gas is 25% ethanol compared to our 10% and you can't even buy a car that runs only on gasoline (low resale value). They have plenty of bio-diversified food, they are energy independent, local economies are employed and the air is clean. The only one losing out is Mega-Oil. You can produce ETHANOL out of your garage or on a community coop level and receive tax credits to do it. Read David Blume's book "ALCOLHOL CAN BE A GAS". DON"T BE FOOLED BY MISINFORMATION. SUPPORT LOCALLY PRODUCED ETHANOL.
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