Why Won’t Uncle Sam Let You Run a Car on Pure Booze?

Climate activists and consumers alike have been buzzing about an entrepreneur who has created a system for producing ethanol in your own backyard. But questions remain as to whether the device, or others like it, can ever be commercially successful. Part of the problem, Times writer Michael Fitzgerald points out, is that it’s illegal in the United States to operate a car on 100 percent ethanol. Given that the government has gone to so much trouble to make sure ethanol is produced en masse, it seems odd that it would keep a law on the books that outlaws using a pure version of it as fuel. Flexible-fuel cars in the U.S. run on an 85 percent ethanol/15 percent gas ratio. In fact, it's illegal to purchase 100 percent ethanol without a government-issued license. Meanwhile, running cars on 100 percent ethanol is not only possible, it's done frequently. The Indy 500 ...