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Aianawa
7th June 2021, 07:40
Did not know this was the reason, from Jon Levi > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irI8NKX9D6M


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irI8NKX9D6M

Emil El Zapato
7th June 2021, 11:40
Did not know this was the reason, from Jon Levi > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irI8NKX9D6M

I've seen boxes of those stocks and have for a very long time wondered if they have any value?

Aragorn
7th June 2021, 11:49
I have moved this thread to Miscellaneous Videos, and I've amended the title with the string "(and other things)", because the narrator talks about a lot more than just the Prohibition. ;)

I too had never heard before that the Prohibition was pushed by Standard Oil with the intent of maneuvering alcohol out of the fuel market, and on the one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if that was really the case, but on the other hand, the petrolhead in me must point out that petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines can easily be converted to run on ethanol. The only thing that really needs to be taken care of ─ but it must be done with great care ─ is the electrical insulation of all parts that the fuel passes through, because alcohol is electrically conductive, while petrol/gasoline is not.

Back in the days of Henry Ford, insulating a (normally) petrol/gasoline-driven engine would have been more difficult and costly. Modern-day petrol/gasoline-powered cars are all sufficiently insulated, because here in Europe, the petrol/gasoline you get at the pump has already contained a certain percentage ─ 10% or 5%, depending on the octane number ─ of bio-ethanol for a number of years, and my 15-year-old car doesn't have any problems with it. But then again, I drive an Opel, which until a few years ago was a General Motors brand ─ Opel and its British counterpart Vauxhall were sold to the PSA Group (Peugeot-Citroën) a few years ago, and earlier this year, PSA itself merged with FIAT/Chrysler ─ and GM had already mandated ethanol-readiness on all their petrol/gasoline-powered vehicles in the 1980s.

But if the narrator is correct and Henry Ford did indeed want to make alcohol-burning vehicles, then he would have already made them alcohol-ready from the start, off the production line ─ it's easier to do it at the factory as part of the normal production process than to implement it as an aftermarket modification. And yet that was not the case. So I'm not so sure whether that information is correct, and by consequence, whether the claim is correct that Standard Oil pushed the Prohibition with the intent of driving alcohol out of the market as a fuel. Again, I'm not dismissing the possibility out of hand, but it seems a bit odd to me.

On a different note, the glass disk was a scientific experiment for generating static electricity. It had a device attached to it with a piece of wool that was in permanent contact with the glass disk, and by turning the disk while it was rubbing against the wool, the disk would become charged with static electricity. I learned that stuff in our physics classes in 8th grade. ;)