Oct. 19, 2007 - 22:00 MDT

DRUNKEN DRIVING ?

Farmers and refiners have figured out how to foil the dreaded revenooers in recent days.

They call it ethanol.

Here is a short description of how �ethanol� is made.

Corn is ground into meal and processed.

Meal becomes mash when slurried with water, enzymes and ammonia are added to the mash to help convert starch to simple sugar and control acidity

The cooker reduces bacteria levels prior to fermentation.

Yeast is added to the mash in the fermenters to aid the conversion from sugar to ethanol. During the fermentation process which takes 40 to 50 hours, the mash is agitated and kept cool to keep the yeast active.

After fermentation the mash, which which has become beer, is transferred to distillation columns where 190 proof ethanol is separated from the stillage and moved to the molecular sieve.

The ethanol is dehydrated in the molecular sieve to about 200 proof. At this point, another additive, like natual gas, is blended with the ethanol to render the product undrinkable AND THEREFORE NOT SUBJECT TO BEVERAGE TAXES.

This procedure was taken from an article inset in the Business Section of the Rocky Mountain News of October 13, 2007.

Sources quoted as Chicago Board of Trade, Renewable Fuels Association, American Coalition for Ethanol: AAA: Ethanol information and promotion Council.

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From my typically uneducated viewpoint and from what I have read along the way, it seems that most any vegetation can be processed into booze. In some prisons they used potato peelings and other kitchen garbage to make illicit drinkables.

And just thinking about the fuel expended in the trucks hauling the corn to the �ethanol� place, the fuel used to plant, grow and harvest the corn, the fuel used in the cookers at the distillery makes me wonder a bit just how much is really saved ?

The price of eatable corn for our tables has risen, plus the corn used as feed for livestock has suffered raised prices.

So does putting beer, distilled to 200 proof alcohol in your gas tank and blowing it out really save anything ?

Will a cop stop me on the road after I have put �ethanol� in my tank and give my car a breathalyzer test, make it walk the chalkline ? I don�t drink, but my car does - - - does that mean that I am guilty of DRUNKEN DRIVING ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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