MOTOR FUEL FROM ALCOHOL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 January 1931, Page 7

MOTOR FUEL FROM ALCOHOL

LARGE BRITISH FIRMS INTERESTED

Reports were current in London recently, according to the “Financial News,” that plans were in an advanced slate for the production of a new motorfuel made from alcohol at a price considerably under that at which petrol can he sold. The product is said to be based on the discovery of a method of making alcohol without water-content. A new freezing process is also mentioned in connection with this development. The two companies mentioned in connection with the scheme, United Molasses and the Distillers Company, are by far the most important concerns in the British commercial alcohol industry, and announced oil 23rd September last that they had concluded a working agreement. Tlie two companies each acquired a substantial share interest in the other.

The United Molasses Company controls over one-third of the world's total supplies of molasses, from which commercial alcohol is r/istilled, and early last year acquired a large interest in Solvent- Products, Limited, of Dagenham, which had been one of the most important of the Distillers Company’s competitors in the industry. Tho Molasses Company and the Distillers Company thus control jointly a huge organisation covering the manufacture of commercial alcohol practically from the production of the raw material to the finished product.