Richard Lee in Oneroa last week. “For the cost of ten tanks of petrol, people could join a co-operative to produce cheap, cleaner fuel locally.”

Inspired by ethanol expert and author David Blume, Mr Lee, who worked for the Far North Environment Centre, was on Waiheke last week to speak about ethanol alcohol being produced locally.

Ethanol is made from distilling plants, and in large scale US production, this has been mainly from corn crops. It has seen controversy in recent times due to food crops being replaced by biofuel crops.

Due to the large scale of conventional ethanol production, it had not been previously sustainable. But small-scale locally grown mixed crops are proving to be economically and environmentally viable, according to Mr Lee.

He said the septic disposal fields on the island could be planted in raupo which can then be harvested as a biofuel crop while also creating a wetland.

He calculated that about 700 acres of crops could fuel 3000 cars with a quarter of a tank of ethanol per week. He foresaw a co-operative model working with a budget of $3 million.

“If 3000 cars joined a co-operative at $1000 per car, that would be $3m to pay for converting cars, and the basic infrastructure for the plant to convert the crops to ethanol,” said Mr Lee.

David Blume’s book Alcohol Can Be A Gas sold over 600,000 copies last month in the US.

He says that global warming can be reversed. “Recent studies show that in a permaculturally-designed mixed-crop, alcohol fuel production system, the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere by plants – and then exuded by plant roots back into the soil as sugar – can be 13 times what is emitted by processing the crops and burning the alcohol in our cars.

“With alcohol fuel, you can become energy-independent, reverse global warming and survive Peak Oil in style. Alcohol fuel is ‘liquid sunshine’ and can't be controlled by transnational corporations. You can produce alcohol for less than $US1 a gallon (approximately NZ50c per 1.3 litres), using a wide variety of plants and waste products, from algae to stale donuts.”

Mr Blume says that ethanol can be mixed with petrol to drive engines. “It's a much better fuel than gasoline, and you can use it in your car right now. You can even use alcohol to generate electricity. Alcohol fuel production is ecologically sustainable, revitalises farms and communities and creates huge new opportunities for small-scale businesses. Its by-products are clean and valuable.

“Most of the widely publicised potential problems with ethanol are a function of scale. Once production plants get beyond a certain size, and are too far away from the crops that supply them, closing the ecological loop becomes problematic.“

David Blume is coming to New Zealand to speak at Taupo’s Ecoshow in October about bio-regional production and use of alcohol for transport and electric generation.

For more information visit www.permaculture.com www.ecoshow.co.nz •

Minka Firth