Gratzle and his booze-burning bike
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WITH THE increasing pressure on fuel reserves around the world – and the spiralling costs of petrol – one inventor has come up with a modern take on an alcohol-fuelled motorcycle.
Chuck Gratzle, an agriculturalexpert from Kansas, thinks the answer to the problem could lie in crop-produced alcohol – and he’s built a motorcycle that runs on the flammable concoction to prove it.
Graztle used this idea and converted his Harley-Davidson so that it could run off alcohol. According to Graztle people used alcohol gas a lot during the depression of the 1920s and 30s because it was cheaper to make and anyone could make it.
"They used alcohol to run the model T, stoves, even curly irons," said Graztle. "That was the early fuel, an ancient technology."
Graztle started his project for an Agriculture class, and it took him three months to build an engine that would run off alcohol. Now Graztle uses both alcohol and petrol to run his bike. "Hopefully soon I'll be able to make my own alcohol fuel," said Graztle "you can it out of any trash or wood, and it doesn't take that much to convert an engine so that it can run off alcohol."
Graztle said that the process of making the alcohol isn't fast, but believes that a modern still could make it faster, and cheaper, than for the equivalent amount of petrol.
