How hard is it to make your own gasoline?

Just going to piggyback off the "when are you going to buy an electric vehicle?" thread. 
 

they got me thinking, when electric vehicles become the norm, the gas station start the shut down, or at least the pumps do. And then what? Obviously those gas stations will be performing electric car duty. So will we have to go back to being moonshiners? Distilling our own volatile concoction in our basement? If so, how can I do it without getting busted by the feds LOL. Because we all know eventually the gas prices are going to spike to only wealthy and hobbyist levels, just like horses are now to horse people. 

The Feds wouldn't be happy that you are not paying road/fuel tax on that self made fuel.  See the irony when compared to electric?  

One largely unanswered question is how will fuel tax be replaced via EV?

In reply to Countingcrowbars :

I think I'll convert to electric before I start pouring my "gas" into a car vs. me.

In reply to Stampie :

I have no problem converting to electric. However I don't know what to do with all those beautiful classic cars that I have. Maybe everything in my stable needs to run on alcohol? Or propane and a turbo

Gas won't be banned.  Probably ever.  Maybe cost $10/gal someday, but it won't be unavailable.  And it's going to take decades to replace the entire fleet of gas cars in this country.

But if you want DIY- go E100.  Or DIY E85 (E100 plus some pump fuel)

I tried distilling for a couple years for my own personal "engine." (and by that I mean drinking).  The whole process of starting with 20 gallons of something and ending up with 2 gallons is frustrating, not to mention the time and attention it takes.  Plus, to burn it in a car you need to get rid of the inherent water that likes to stay trapped in the alcohol molecule.

I think I will be buying electric long before I make vodka for my classics.

For the most part across history, there have usually been sufficient alternatives.  Back in the 70s when they stopped doing Tetraethyl lead, it felt like the apocalypse for people like my parents who could only afford old junk.  At the time we had a 64 Olds and a 68 El Camino.  I remember TV commercials about it with some guy driving around in a green Nova with superimposed gas station signs showing no leaded gasoline available.  Now it's such a non-issue.  For a while people went crazy over ethanol in gasoline like it was the apocalypse, but it's widely accepted, and nearly all the perceived shortcomings have been proven non-issues.  My grandpa had a 29 Model A when he was a teenager, and that was back when Ethylene Glycol was the hot new thing for anti-freeze.  People were afraid of it because it had "ethylene" in the title and the myth of the times was that it was explosive.  Grandpa said he drained his in the driveway and he filled it with water in the summer and kerosene in the winter.  To him, Kerosene was safer than anything with the word "ethylene" in it.  That new anti-freeze snake oil wouldn't cut it for him.

I think we'll probably run into strange supply/demand issues with things like gasoline, E85, and motor oil, but I think people will still be driving their restored Studebakers in 2085.

John Welsh said:

One largely unanswered question is how will fuel tax be replaced via EV?

Well, in a lot of states the fuel tax is well overdue for an overhaul anyhow. Here in CO, it's 22 cents per gallon. It hasn't changed since 1991 which means it has decreased by more than 50% in terms of real numbers. Meanwhile, the average fuel economy of the fleet is going up. So in real terms, the gas tax income has been plummeting for 30 years and something needs to be done regardless of how vehicles are powered. 

In CO, there is a surcharge at the time of registration for EVs. It's not enough, but it's a start. 

As for how to make your own gasoline (or diesel), Top Gear did a documentary on that a few years back :)

The artifacts or archaic technology will increase in price and become the domain of the wealthy or the obsessed just like everything else. Horses, hardwood furniture, sailboats, etc.

you'll pay for gas if you care, or if you'll move to e-rat-rods if you care more about performance per dollar.

Gas is a by product of distilling oil right?

And cars only burn it in the first place because we had all this leftover gas after making kerosene and therefore the gas was cheap?

My guess is we will still need to distill oil long after EVs are the norm. Gas might actually get really cheap...

I'll keep my diesel and start making Bio again.

It'll be a long, long time before gasoline is not available.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

  For a while people went crazy over ethanol in gasoline like it was the apocalypse, but it's widely accepted, and nearly all the perceived shortcomings have been proven non-issues. 

In my experience, a 2-4 mpg drop and (in 1980s-early 90s cars) fuel leaks were an issue but otherwise not too big a deal.  It also decreases the life of the fuel line speced for carbed cars (up to 50 psi), but using the EFI spec line solves that issue.  So not completely without incident but manageable for sure.

alfadriver said:

Gas won't be banned.  Probably ever.  Maybe cost $10/gal someday, but it won't be unavailable.  And it's going to take decades to replace the entire fleet of gas cars in this country.

But if you want DIY- go E100.  Or DIY E85 (E100 plus some pump fuel)

It will get cheaper, not more expensive.  Gasoline is a byproduct of all of the important things we use petroleum for.

That's the real reason to worry about oil running out/getting super expensive due to scarcity: not "can't drive muh RAV4 anywhere", but "can't buy clothes/electronics/medications/consumer products/etc"

So much of modern life is dependent on petrochemicals, and only a small chunk of it is guzzolene.  When enough people drive EVs for demand to drop, the price of gasoline will drop until they find a different use for it.

In one of my favorite sci-fi books, petrochemicals were generated by scooping from gas planets.  Our two Main Protagonists fall in with some roaming anarchist bikers who smuggle on the side, and around a campfire, drinking some homebrew beer, Protagonist #2 realizes that the bottle she is drinking from is an 80 year old plastic bottle made from oil.  "This is worth a fortune!"  "We know.  We just don't care."

In the book, they ran homemade hovercraft tanks and high speed jets off of ethanol, brewing it up in clandestine factories in the desert.  Not sure where they got all the water needed for that, especially after "the Texans" sucked all the water out of their aquifers...

Tk8398 said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

  For a while people went crazy over ethanol in gasoline like it was the apocalypse, but it's widely accepted, and nearly all the perceived shortcomings have been proven non-issues. 

In my experience, a 2-4 mpg drop and (in 1980s-early 90s cars) fuel leaks were an issue but otherwise not too big a deal.  It also decreases the life of the fuel line speced for carbed cars (up to 50 psi), but using the EFI spec line solves that issue.  So not completely without incident but manageable for sure.

My 1972 Ford was engineered for "gasohol", what we today call E10.

If Ford could figure it out in the early 70s, nobody else really has an excuse.  If they have problems, it is because of indifferent engineering.

(And yes, it ran and lasted just fine on E10, since that is all that you could commonly get in Ohio since at least the mid-80s)

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Technically, gas will more likely get cheaper as the demand goes down.

Actually, gas will get more and more taxed to reduce the demand even further.

The hard part about the latter- even though some want to see EV's being mandated, none of them are willing to double or triple the gas tax- the data clearly shows a relationship between demand and cost.  (not including all stay at home orders and work from home)   So that will *really* determine if my prediction would be right.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

While making E100 is really hard, it's still considerably easier than making gasoline.....  which was the original question.

Booze, or white lightening is at most 100 proof which means it's still 50% water.  So a moonshine still is going to have to get really complex  to get it to 100% ethanol.  
       Living in the corn belt /sugar beet belt we have access to the raw material cheaply. Plus the amount of wood available to burn to generate heat  is massive. I can get all I want for free just from taking bigger logs from tree trimmers. ( no they have no commercial value because sawmills will ruin their expensive blades hitting the metal and other junk in yard trees). 

Gasohol.

stuart in mn said:

It'll be a long, long time before gasoline is not available.

Yup.  Look at leaded gas -- they started phasing that out in the mid 1970s, but it took until 1996 before it finally went away from street car gas pumps.

frenchyd said:

Booze, or white lightening is at most 100 proof which means it's still 50% water.  So a moonshine still is going to have to get really complex  to get it to 100% ethanol.  
       Living in the corn belt /sugar beet belt we have access to the raw material cheaply. Plus the amount of wood available to burn to generate heat  is massive. I can get all I want for free just from taking bigger logs from tree trimmers. ( no they have no commercial value because sawmills will ruin their expensive blades hitting the metal and other junk in yard trees). 

An electronic form of heat will be significantly more efficient than wood.

In reply to AaronT :

Being a true grass roots guy at heart the less it costs the better it is. Free is cheaper than 15-20 cents per KWH.  Well I suppose I would have to buy a box of matches. 

frenchyd said:

Booze, or white lightening is at most 100 proof which means it's still 50% water.  So a moonshine still is going to have to get really complex  to get it to 100% ethanol.  
       Living in the corn belt /sugar beet belt we have access to the raw material cheaply. Plus the amount of wood available to burn to generate heat  is massive. I can get all I want for free just from taking bigger logs from tree trimmers. ( no they have no commercial value because sawmills will ruin their expensive blades hitting the metal and other junk in yard trees). 

Booze is around 95% (190 proof) when distilled.  The distillation process returns ethanol very close to chemically pure - it's removing the ethanol from a low percentage fermentation process and then collecting it in a separate container. 

I can't speak for various other forms, but bourbon is usually aged at about 75% give or take, then some alcohol is lost to the aging process as it simultaneously gets some lovely flavors from the charred barrels.  When it comes out of the barrel it is down to 55% or so, and gets diluted with water to bring it further down to bottle proof.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Not all booze.  Most are regulated on the proof coming off the still as well going in and out of the barrel.  Bourbon is regulated to 160 proof/80% max off the still, and the aging max is 125/62.5% going into the barrel.  Coming out can be whatever it is, but the min bottling for all alcohol is 80P/40%.  

But the 95% is the max of normal distillation- mostly for a column still.  It is *possible* to distill it to 100% (very industrial set up), but for home making, getting a water absorber for the mixture is the way to go.  

Moonshine comes out of the still at 190 proof ?  Honestly?  
   They show moonshiners taking a swallow of it and  nodding?  Not just in movies but also documentaries. 
   Am I that much of a woose  that when I have anything  like 80-90 proof it's like drinking battery acid.  I can't imagine drinking 200 proof. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Not on the TV shows, it doesn't.  That's coming off at 110-140 proof mostly, except for the guys using a tall column still, where they are getting 190 proof.  To get 190 proof/95%, it takes a reasonably specialized set up- something that can be done DIY, but not super easy.  The pot stills need quite a few runs to get to 90%.