SUBJECT: "Back to the Fuel of the Future: Exploring Ethanol's Lost History"
free public presentation November 16 in LincolnYou may feel very up-to-date when you pull up at the pump to fill your tank with ethanol, but Nebraskans 70 years ago were doing exactly the same thing. How ethanol disappeared, only to be rediscovered, will be explored in a public presentation on Thursday, November 16th, at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q Street, Lincoln. Dr. Bill Kovarik will offer insights into the long, little-known and intrigue-filled history of ethanol in a 7:00 p.m. presentation co-sponsored by the Nebraska State Historical Society and the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Kovarik is professor of communication at Radford University where he teaches science and environment writing, media history, and media law. His books include a history of ethanol in the United States, The Forbidden Fuel: Power Alcohol in the Twentieth Century, and Mass Media and Environmental Conflict (with Mark Neuzil).
"Back to the Fuel of the Future: Exploring Ethanol's Lost History" is open to the public free of charge. For more information call the NSHS at 402-471-3270 or visit www.nebraskahistory.org.
On the 11th of April, 1933 Charles Wayland Bryan, governor of Nebraska, (re-elected in 1931), and the sheriff of Merrick County symbolically filled their gas tanks with a new product: a blend of gasoline with ten percent corn alcohol. The pumps at Earl Coryell's station, 14th and N Streets, Lincoln, were decorated to promote the new gas.
This innovative motor fuel was offered not as a way to relieve short oil supplies or mitigate environmental problems. Rather, ethanol promised economic relief for Depression ravaged farmers and offered increased octane ratings. Ethanol was an excellent anti-knock additive, and entrepreneur Earl Coryell worked with scientists from the then Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (renamed Iowa State University in 1959) to develop the alcohol-blend gasoline.
Ethanol's principal competitor was tetraethyl lead (TEL), a highly poisonous chemical, which would remain the principal anti-knock agent for nearly fifty years. Advanced by the Ethyl Corporation, a enterprise created by Standard Oil, General Motors, and DuPont, TEL was ethanol's, and therefore Coryell's strongest competition.
In 1936 Coryell joined as a complainant in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department, which would ultimately fail in the United States Supreme Court. By 1940, ethanol gasoline had vanished, unable to compete economically with leaded gasoline.
For more info:
- about the presentation, Lynne Ireland, 471-4758 or lireland@nebraskahistory.org OR Kim Weide, 472-3964 or kweide1@unl.edu
- about the history of ethanol in Nebraska, John Carter, 471-4752 or jcarter@nebraskahistory.org