Henry ford, you were so close. While the early Ford championed all sorts of methods of making ethyl alcohol, one of those means was hemp. Like I stated a few days ago, one of the magic numbers for hemp is its high percentage of cellulose (the key ingredient for conversion into alcohol or other fuels. Ford created a hemp car that used hemp fibers in construction and ran on ethyl alcohol made from hemp. Momentum was gathering quickly for the natural and sustainable fuel revolution. Then oil, backed by powerful people and upstart companies like Dupont, stormed onto the scene. And you know the rest. Bit of a pisser, but what are you gonna’ do.
Sustainable Innovation
Hemp is to Cotton what Superman is to Bizarro
You might have heard it by now, but cotton is the devil. I know, I know. I am one of cotton’s evil minions. I am wearing the touch and feel of cotton right now! It is the fabric of our lives. I know.
But that doesn’t make it right. I am in the process of trying to cut my steady dependance on the stuff even thought I come from a family of cotton farmers (on the one side. But don’t worry, we’ve moved on to petroleum products for our fortune. Oh crap! That’s tomorrow’s blog.)
The Secret Life of Hemp
Damn you Reefer Madness, William Randolph Hearst, Dupont and racist American government of the 1930’s! Over 70 years later and we in the U.S. are still suffering the ill effects of banning marijuana and all its associates during a period of economic rebound that encouraged greed, paranoia, racism and lax political oversight. (Sound familiar?)
Industrial hemp was going strong throughout the 1920’s. It found uses in everything from paint to cosmetics to food. It is even rumored that the first pair of Levi jeans were made from Hemp in the mid-1800’s. (The evidence was destroyed in the great San Francisco fire.) People have long derided prohibition as one of the stupider achievements of American history, blaming it for (among other things) giving rise to organized crime. Well, if prohibition was stupid you have to lump reefer madness into the same category of dumb.