Topic: Alcohol Fuel

A historical tangent explores the theory that alcohol prohibition was primarily designed to secure an oil monopoly by banning home-distilled fuel. Similarly, the suppression of hemp is viewed as a move to eliminate a versatile competitor in the textile and energy industries. These legal maneuvers by "robber baron" industrialists are framed as the ultimate conspiracies that stripped the public of energy independence under the guise of safety.

Corbett explains that alcohol fuel was a viable competitor to gasoline in the early 1900s, with a 1909 USGS report confirming fuel economy equivalence between the two. Henry Ford originally designed the Model T to run on either gasoline or alcohol, viewing ethanol as a way for farmers to produce their own fuel. The shift toward gasoline was driven by the falling prices of petroleum and the inability of monopolists to control decentralized alcohol production.