Fuel Ghoul

History of the American Whale Oil Industry

Humans have been hunting whales for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence from Ulsan in South Korea suggests that drogues, harpoons and lines attached to boats and flotsam, were being used to kill small whales as early as 6000BC. Petroglyphs and carved rocks unearthed by researchers at the Museum of Kyungpook National University show Sperm Whales, Humpback Whales and North Pacific Right Whales surrounded by small boats filled with courageous people. Similarly-aged cetacean bones were also found in the area, reflecting the importance of whale meat in the diet of their coastal peoples.

 
Also called train oil, the words ‘whale oil’ have come to mean any oil derived from any species of whale, including sperm oil from sperm whales, train oil from baleen whales, and melon oil from small toothed whales. The Americans have hunted whales for over three hundred years – some of today’s largest and most successful energy firms trafficked in whale oil in the late 1800’s. Research Paragon Oil.

 
The towns of Long Island are believed to have been the first to establish a whale fishery along the shores of New England sometime around 1650. Nantucket joined the trade in 1690 when they welcomed Ichabod Padduck from England to instruct colonists in the methods of whaling. The south side of the island had wooden towers erected from which men could stand and survey the ocean – they would use lenses to look for the spouts of right whales. When they spotted such spouts they would sound a signal and small wooden boats filled with eager sailors would row against the surf toward powerful prey. If the whale was successfully harpooned and lanced to death, it was towed ashore, flensed (the blubber is removed), and the oily flesh boiled in cauldrons known as "trypots." Even when Nantucket sent out vessels to fish for whales offshore, they would still come to the shore to boil the blubber – American whalers did this well into the 18th century.

 
In 1715, Nantucket had six sloops engaged in the whale fishery, and by 1730 it had twenty-five vessels of 38 to 50 tons employed in the trade. Each vessel employed twelve to thirteen men, half of them being Native Americans. At times the whole crew, with the exception of the captain, could be natives. Most Captains operated two whaleboats, one often held in reserve should the other be damaged by an angry whale.

 
The Revolutionary War brought the Yankee whale oil industry to a complete standstill in 1778, and it wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that the industry regained its former importance and New England registers listed more than two hundred vessels.

In 1820, the American whaler Maro, with Captain Joseph Allen in command fished off of the coast of Japan and enjoyed much success. The previous year the first Yankee whale ships had visited the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, and subsequently these island's ports were used as places to obtained fresh fruits, vegetables, and men. Dry docks built here were used to repair damages sustained to whaling ships and the success of Hawaii today was founded in the whale oil industry yesterday.

There are records from Sydney Australia harbor master that give the size and description of various whaling ships from 1834. That was the year that the indigenous people of New Zealand raided the 'Whaling Stations' build on a nearby islands. Here in Sydney is an American vessel from New Bedford named the Juno and her 'hold full to capacity with nearly 1000 barrels of oil procured from her whale hunt along the New Zealand coast'.

In 1846, the total American whale oil industry numbered seven hundred and thirty five ships and 70,000 people. By the 1840's, the whale oil refining or flensing was done right inside the ships, which became more industrialized. Bright honey yellow to brown oil was rendered from the mammals’ fatty tissue on the upper-most deck of the boat and barreled below. This precious commodity would be stored in wooden casks until the cargo hold was full, at which point the whaler would turn around and head for home. Some voyages lasted over three years.

 
From 1820 to 1855 this combustible animal oil product was bottled and sold at a good profit in Boston and New York markets; demand increased as the world’s whale population was steadily reduced. Thomas Welcome Roys, in the Sag Harbor bark Superior, sailed through the Bering Strait in late July 1848 and discovered an abundance of "new fangled monsters," which were later to be known as bowheads. Bowheads are large, blue-black whales.  They form white blotches on the lower jaw as they get older.  Males can measure up to 20 m in length and weigh up to 70 tonnes. Their name comes from their upper jaw, which is curved upward like a bow. Whalers called bowheads “right” whales because they were slow and they floated when killed, making them the “right” whales to hunt. 

 

Bowhead whales were prized catches because they yielded a large amount of blubber, sometimes more than 35 tonnes, and large baleen plates, which could measure up to 4m.  In the 19th century, baleen was much sought after because it had many of the same uses that plastic does today. In 1849, the following season, fifty whalers (forty-six Yankee, two German, and two French vessels) sailed to the Bering Strait region on the word of Thomas Roy and the obvious success of his single ship.

The peak period, in terms of number of vessels and whales killed, was reached in 1852, when 220 ships killed 2,682 bowheads. Catches declined, and the fleet shifted to the Sea of

Okhotsk for the 1855-57 seasons, and once that area began to decline, they returned to the Bering Strait region.

During the winter, some of these same vessels would make their way to the lagoons of Baja California. The peak began in 1855, commencing the period of lagoon whaling known as the "bonanza period," when whaleboats were crisscrossing through the lagoons, being pulled by engaged whales, passing by calves that had lost their mothers and other ship's crews hunting whales. Less than twenty years later, in 1874, the lagoon fishery was abandoned entirely, due to several years of poor catches.

Several American ships were lost during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Civil War (1861-1865) Confederate raiders such as the Shenandoah, Alabama, and Florida captured or burned forty-six ships, while the United States purchased forty of the fleet's oldest hulls. known as the Stone Fleet, to sink in Charleston and Savannah harbors in a failed attempt to blockade those ports. In 1871, thirty-two of the forty whalers comprising the Arctic fleet were lost near Point Belcher and Wainwright Inlet, while another twelve ships were damaged.

Stop commercial whaling because Fuel Ghoul loves whales.

If you love whales and want to stop commercial whaling, visit the Care2 site and sign this petition.

 

Green Motorboats in Northern Ontario

 

Anyone familiar with the raw beauty of Lake of the Woods in North Western Ontario will find it easy to believe that a recent government survey found sport fishing to be the most popular recreational activity in the region. Every spring, as soon as the ice breaks in Kenora, the most serious fishermen launch their watercraft and do maintenance on their boat's engine. Its a ritual. The summer's fishing season brings an annual economic boom as thousands of anglers migrate to the region.

 
That’s because Lake of the Woods is home to millions of healthy fish. In October 2006, an American tourist lodged at Big Narrows hooked a muskellunge that was just one inch and two pounds shy of Louis Spray's world-record (a 69-pound, 11-ounce musky on Oct. 20, 1949 at Chippewa Flowage in northern Wisconsin). This is all great news for the adventurous fishermen who trek out to Kenora each summer with hopes of hooking the world’s largest musky. Catching such a fish would instantly transform the lucky angler into a major fishing celebrity.

But this summer, boaters on the Lake of the Woods will be discussing something else – a new ethanol blend gasoline is available in the local marinas. Some users will feel good about saving money at the pumps (it’ll probably be priced a few cents cheaper than regular gasoline), other users might feel satisfied protecting the environment by improving their boat’s engine exhaust. But the most knowledgeable users will congratulate themselves for keeping carcinogenic compounds such as MTBE out of the water supply.

Good boaters, who take pride in their boat engines, will come to love ethanol fuels. Careless boaters who don’t properly maintain their boat engines will loath this new energy innovation. Here’s why - ethanol absorbs water, and improperly maintained marine fuel systems are very susceptible to water intrusion. 

 
As per GreenField Ethanol’s fact sheets , E10 is 90 per cent gasoline and 10 per cent ethanol. It has the ability to absorb 6,000 to 7,000 PPM of water into solution. That’s its water absorption threshold - the water inside that chemical bracket will be combusted without too much difficulty.  But when the fuel is saturated beyond its capacity to hold more water, ‘phase separation’ may occur. So here’s the skinny; in a standard 375 liter tank, the fuel could hold about 2.5 liters of water without separation.  Engine problems will arise when phase separation leaves two solutions: a high concentration of water and alcohol (that corrodes aluminum and other engine parts), and gasoline with no oxygenate that can and probably will damage the engine.

 
If phase separation happens, the only solution is to drain the system and start over again.

E10 absorbs water directly from humidity in the atmosphere through fuel vents in the engine and gas tank.  In 100 days at 70 per cent humidity E10 can absorb enough water to phase separate.  E10 is a fragile marine fuel that shouldn’t be left untreated for more than 60-90 days. Non-alcohol based fuel stabilizers can extend the life of the gas in humid conditions. Contrary to past practices it is now preferable to leave your boat low on gas when you travel back to the city, and use the boat as often as possible all summer long. For winter storage leave the tanks low (or empty) and treat any remaining fuel with a non-alcohol based stabilizer additive.

 
Boaters can check their gas by smearing Kolor Kut on a paint stick and plunging it into their gas tanks – this is called ‘sticking-a-tank’. Upon contact with water, the golden-brown paste turns a brilliant red. Boaters using ethanol can use the product to successfully gauge the water content of the fuel (plus sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, ammonia, soap solutions, salt, and other chloride solutions).

Fuel Ghoul has discovered that many Americans perceive ethanol as being poor marine fuel. This is caused in part by numerous articles on the internet and in boating magazines that focus on the negative aspects of this new fuel in motorboats, but almost all major marine engine manufacturers have said that ethanol blends are acceptable fuel choices. 

Boaters must add common sense to the mixture, and will benefit from knowing the follwoing basic principles in ethanol boat engine management.

 
First, do not mix ethanol with old formula fuel in the same tank. Ethanol does not combine well with Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) - this oxygenate is added to gas to chemically reduce emissions as it increases combustion.

 
Avoid water infusion into fuel system, and add non-alcohol based fuel stabilizers in the boat fuel system at all times – this is especially recommended for equipment that sits for extended periods with light use. Remember, the more actual use the boat gets, the less likely it is to have problems.  Don't leave large quantities of E10 fuel aboard idle boats.

 
Use proper fuel filters. Install good quality, ethanol compatible fuel filters and keep a supply of spare filters on board. Also remember to store the proper garments and necessary tools for spontaneous fuel filter changes. Responsible boaters will bag and store the old filter, and the gasoline it contains, onboard.

 
Remember ethanol and fiberglass fuel tanks don’t mix. Also fuel lines older than late 1980's should be inspected carefully and probably replaced. Some older carbureted engines may require special tuning – these days it’s easy to research the specs online at the engine manufacturer’s website. In fact, the best thing boaters using ethanol can do to make sure their boat’s engine is set to the manufacturer's tune-up specifications.

 
Fuel Ghoul congratulates all boaters using reformulated gasoline – they’re improving their motorboat engine’s emissions, and protecting the environment for future generations.

Ethanol burns hot on the Internet

Fuel Ghoul embraces ethanol as man’s best alternative to gasoline for Canadian cars and trucks. This writer recognizes ethyl alcohol made from corn as the first step in a technological evolution toward cellulosic ethanol made from grass, corn stover and forestry waste.

It’s difficult to go on the Internet today and not encounter other writers that are, for various reasons, against ethanol. Some opponents believe that using corn to make anything will increase the price of breakfast cereal and beef steaks at home, and cause mass starvation abroad. Other antagonists are quick to remind the public that propelling engines with ethanol only reduces carbon emissions by a few percentage points, and such a switch has a negligible effect on the environment.
 
But the noisiest argument centers on ethanol’s economic practicality or what environmentalists call ‘net energy’ production. This small, but prolific school asks the question ‘is more energy used to grow and process corn kernels into ethanol than is contained in the ethanol itself?’ These sole-sourced challengers rely on the work of Dr. David Pimentel, a retired entomology professor from Cornell, and Tad Patzek of the University of California.

These two American scientists continue to be very critical of ethanol. Both Dr. Pimentel and professor Tad Patzek have studied ethanol’s net energy production and published negative results. But look closer - their work is carefully designed to undermine the public’s faith in this alternative fuel. Although their findings have now been largely discredited by the scientific community in general, their research is often used to legitimate anti-ethanol arguments online, in chat rooms and in ‘peak oil’ web site forums.

 
In August 2001, Dr. Pimentel attacked the economics of corn-to-ethanol production in an article published in the Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology. He asserted that ethanol production is not economically viable because: "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol. US drivers couldn't afford it, either, if it weren't for government subsidies to artificially lower the price." 1 Pimentel’s mathematic calculations produced a net energy negative; he maintains that more fossil energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than what the ethanol yields. In the November 11^th 2006 issue of Autoweek Magazine, 2 Tad Patzek finally admits that if the Bush Administration's data is correct than ‘ethanol at best, breaks even’. He also claims that the technology needed to produce cellulosic ethanol is far from proven, and that any natural crops harvested for energy would threaten tropical ecosystems.

It's probably no coincidence that Dr. Pimentel and Tad Patzek would come to their anti-ethanol conclusion - both have very obvious ties to the oil industry. Pimentel in particular has a record of trying to discredit ethanol production. It is no secret that he retired from Cornell shortly after that institution received hundreds of millions of dollars from Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani to build an affiliate university in the State of Qatar.

Tad Patzek, on the other hand, still works for oil companies Shell and BP as a researcher, consultant, and expert witness. He founded and continues to direct the UC Oil Consortium, which is funded by the oil industry at the rate of US$60,000 to $120,000 per company per year.

According to two researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory of the University of Chicago, Dr. Tianqiu Wang, and Dr. Simone Santini, Cornell’s entomology professor Dr. Pimentel is famous for using outdated data and ‘his numbers are appropriate to conditions of the 1970s and early 1980s, but clearly not the 1990s’. With up-to-date information on corn farming and ethanol production and treating ethanol co-products fairly, every other study concludes that corn-based ethanol yields a positive energy balance – one source attributes the difference to be approximately 20,000 Btu per gallon’. 3

Wang and Santini determined that Pimentel has been recycling his ancient data for years, and using this old data greatly affects the outcome in these studies.  Farms have become more energy efficient since 1978 due in large part to replacing gasoline powered equipment with more fuel-efficient diesel engines.  Total farm energy use peaked in 1978 at 2,244 trillion Btu, but by 2000 had dropped to about 1,600 trillion Btu.  In the meantime, corn production rose from an average of 110 bushels per acre in 1980 to 140 bushels per acre in 2000.

Estimates of fertilizer production cost in Btu/lb dropped from 38,000 in 1980 to 21,000 in 1995. Today’s ethanol plants use far less energy than plants just 10 years ago, plus Dr. Pimentel added 7,000 Btu/gal because he included the energy cost for building the ethanol plant, concrete, steel etc.  Again, he didn’t explain how he got these numbers.
 
Fertilizer use has dropped in this time period as well, but none of Dr. Pimentel’s or Tad Patzek’s studies take into consideration farmers who use natural fertilizer instead of spray-applied anhydrous ammonia. Natural fertilizers include manure and crop rotation using nitrogen fixing legumes, such as soybeans, which also produces oil that may also be easily converted to biodiesel.  Any farmer who also raises cattle, hogs or sheep has a ready supply of manure.  There is no additional cost in money or Btu’s to manufacture this animal waste, and spreading it on a field simply involves using different equipment.

An August 2002 USDA study found that not only is corn fed ethanol energy-efficient, but that efficiency is steadily improving as the byproducts are improved. The net energy balance estimate for ethanol produced from wet-milling corn is 27,729 Btu per gallon, and the net energy balance estimate for dry-milling is 33,196 Btu per gallon - the weighted average is 30,528 Btu per gallon. The energy ratio is 1.57 and 1.77 for wet- and dry-milling, respectively, and the weighted average energy ratio is 1.67.

As for ethanol and the environment, because pure ethyl alcohol contains 30 per cent more oxygen in its chemical composition, its combustion results in a more oxygenated exhaust. Greenfield Ethanol, which is the largest ethanol producer in Canada, provides excellent online information showing how ‘Renewable fuels such as ethanol are one of the best tools Canadians have to fight air pollution from vehicles.’ 4  The Canadian government estimates that, "If 35 percent of gasoline in Canada contained ten percent ethanol, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 1.8 megatonnes per year (1.8 million tonnes), which is the equivalent of removing more than 400,000 vehicles from the road.”
 

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Henry Ford endorsed ethanol

Henry Ford was indeed a man ahead of his time. Recognized as the grandfather of the American automobile and the great innovator of the automotive assembly line, few people know that Ford was also an outspoken proponent of alcohol-based fuels. But like most visionaries of his time, his foresight was negated by several historical forces that are increasingly relevant today.

In the early 1900s the world’s first automobile makers searched for efficient fuels to propel their new creations. Rudolph Diesel used peanut oil in the engine he debuted at the World’s Fair in Paris, while most early British car makers preferred kerosene. At that time, gasoline was an unpopular waste product that Rockefeller’s lamp oil refineries dumped straight into the Cleveland River.

Henry Ford, the son of a Michigan farmer, always advocated using ethanol as fuel for his automobile’s engines - he hoped to foster an industrial market for American farm crops. In 1925, Ford told a New York Times reporter that ethyl alcohol was "the fuel of the future", and that it would “come from fruit like that sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything," he said. "There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented.”

And for Ford, who had a farm background and was supportive of agriculture, making what would today be known as biofuel had the potential to alleviate a mounting economic crisis for many mid-western farmers (that would intensify in the Great Depression five years later). Although the economics of American agriculture’s misery were indeed complex, one possible solution could have been the creation of a domestic fuel market from homegrown crops. Through Ford's own financial and political assistance, the idea of creating such a market for farm goods would translate into a broad movement for scientific research labeled "Farm Chemurgy", which also studied the economic viability of hemp and soybean plastic.

In the end, gasoline won out over ethanol even though Henry Ford actually designed the 1908 engine of his famous Model T to burn a mixture of these two propellants. Three factors led to gasoline’s emergence as the dominant transportation fuel ­­-- the ease of operation of gas powered engines, a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense lobbying by petroleum companies to maintain steep alcohol taxes. Remember alcohol had a very bad reputation in the United States during the Prohibition Era of 1920-1933.

It wasn’t that gasoline was considered a miracle fuel; it had a bad reputation too. Gasoline had a lower octane rating than ethanol, was far more toxic, and generally more hazardous. Early refineries were dangerous places - gasoline was famous for spontaneous ignition and catastrophic explosions. Gasoline combustion produced more air pollution and was much more physically and chemically complex than ethanol, necessitating intensive refining procedures to ensure a consistent gasoline product.

Two key reasons have pushed petroleum fuels to forefront of automobile transportation. First, cost per mile of travel is virtually the sole selection criteria at the gas pump, and secondly, large investments made by the oil refining industry in physical capital, human skills and technology made the entry of a new cost-competitive fuel difficult in the existing marketplace.

Unfortunately Ford’s vision was lost to political and economic forces he couldn’t control. In fact, throughout American history any legislation proposing a ‘national energy program’ to employ agricultural resources for fuel production has been extinguished by well funded public relations campaigns launched by petroleum interest groups. One noteworthy claim forwarded by petrol companies in 1928 was that the U.S. government planned to fleece taxpayers to make farmers rich.

If you read some of the websites and blogs on ethanol today you’ll hear the same thing. A common misconception is that large agribusinesses control the ethanol industry. Its a fact however, that over half of the ethanol plants in the United States are owned by local farmers working together in cooperatives or limited liability companies.

The largest producer of ethanol in Canada, GreenField Ethanol works closely with farmers in rural Ontario and Quebec to create jobs and new forms of revenue in these communities.

Henry Ford, long regarded as a genius for mass producing the automobile, also saw the future; ethanol has now arrived at many gas stations all over North America. Mr. Ford would likely feel a sense of vindication to see GreenField Ethanol helping agricultural communities by buying corn directly from Canadian farmers. His vision would be validated by the fact that over 70 percent of the revenue generated by ethanol producers is spent within a 150 miles of the plant. Already ethanol production in Canada has grown from zero litres a year in the early 1980s, to almost 238 million litres a year in 2006. According to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association Canada’s ethanol production is expected to triple in the next four years and reach a total of 650 million litres by 2010.

 
Just like Henry Ford’s 1908 Model T, most vehicles manufactured after 1980 will tolerate up to 10 per cent ethanol, known as E-10, which is the most common blend in Canada. Some newer vehicles however can tolerate E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 per cent gasoline. In Brazil, a country rich in sugar cane, the automotive industry supports one hundred percent pure ethanol fuel. If the price of oil and gas continues to rise in North America, 100% pure ethyl alcohol could be our future as well.

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Ethanol is rocket fuel

Ethanol is not a fad, nor a flash in the pan fuel that some Johnny-come-lately scientist dreamed up to save humanity from the oil companies. Distillers all over the world have been making this go-juice for a long time. In Canada, GreenField Ethanol  produces 100% ethyl alcohol using corn, the same organic material that Kentucky moonshiners have been mashing for over one hundred and fifty years. Ethyl alcohol is a colourless, pleasant smelling substance that has been lighting lamps all over America since the 1850s, and the infant automobile industry suckled on this vegetable matter in the early 1900’s before it grew into the petroleum fed monster it has since become.

Would it surprise you to know that pure ethyl alcohol was in fact mankind’s first liquid rocket fuel? It’s true – Nazi Germany refined ethanol from sugar beets and used its energy to propel their dreaded V2 rockets towards England in the darkest days of World War II.

Rockets move forward by expelling mass backwards (Newton's Third Law ). The early visionaries, Robert Goddard in the United States, and Werner Von Braun in  Germany both identified pure hydrogen as the best possible fuel for their first hobby rockets. But hydrogen gas was really expensive in 1937, and the Hindenburg Disaster scared everyone away from using this volatile element. German scientists working on their ‘vengeance weapon’ on the Isle of Peenemunde chose ethanol as its primary fuel source because it was good, fast and cheap. 

Remember the Germans had a fuel shortage in the 1940s. The Allies blockaded German ports and cut off all crude oil imports to restrict Hitler’s ability to conduct mobile warfare. It might have worked except that two decades earlier, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch pioneered a method for making diesel fuel from coal gas, and the Ruhr valley had lots of coal. 

The Fischer Tropsch process still gets a lot of attention today - some people think it’s a viable solution to America’s emerging energy crises. It isn’t. The hydrogenation of coal is neither efficient nor environmentally friendly. This was something the Germans had to do, and hopefully something North Americans can avoid.

Propelled by a mixture of ethanol and liquid oxygen, the V-2 rocket was the fastest weapon in the Nazi arsenal and could carry a thousand kilogram warhead over three hundred kilometers. The turbo fuel pumps inside the fuselage were driven by hydrogen peroxide. The ethanol was kept in an aluminum tank to save weight. Making that tank further drained the German war economy as this exotic metal was both rare and valuable.

An ingenious design, ethanol was pumped through the walls of the main burner to simultaneously preheat the fuel and cool the combustion apparatus. The propellant was then pumped down into the main reaction chamber through several nozzles which assured the correct mixture of alcohol and liquid oxygen at all times.

At the end of World War II, the most valuable treasure taken from Germany was the rocket scientists themselves. These men gave the USA a real advantage over the Soviet Union in the Cold War that followed. It’s therefore not surprising that America’s first Redstone rockets also used ethanol combined with liquid oxygen as fuel. In fact it wasn’t until 1956 that other more exotic propellants were developed. Today the US Space Shuttle’s liquid fueled rocket engines burn hydrogen – just as Robert Goddard and Werner von Braun had anticipated. But at the dawn of rocketry, ethanol was the fuel of choice - just as it was at the beginning of the Automobile Age.

I laugh at those critics that claim ethanol is weaker than gasoline, and I challenge those who believe their cars will have less power on the road. Try ethanol and you will discover it’s just not true. Yes, mileage per liter is slightly reduced, but alcohol burns cleaner and hotter than gasoline, and delivers just as much power. Heck, ethanol is rocket fuel!

Ethanol is handy stuff

Believe it or not, one hundred percent pure ethyl alcohol is handy stuff – it’s used for many different things besides fueling North American cars and heating houses. Ethanol is one of mankind’s most important industrial organic chemicals. In Canada, the largest and most efficient producer is GreenField Ethanol.

One hundred percent pure ethyl alcohol is a colorless, limpid, volatile liquid that's flammable and toxic and has a pungent taste. It boils at 78.4°C (173°F) and melts at 112.3°C (170.1°F), and has a specific gravity of 0.7851 at 20°C (68°F). It’s soluble in water and most organic liquids.

Ethanol is used as a cleaner and disinfectant – if you wipe your neck with ethanol before wearing your favorite dress shirts, you’ll never get ‘ring around the collar’.

Ethanol is sometimes used in the manufacture of cologne, perfume. It preserves all natural fragrances and its volatile molecules carry sweet smells through the air and into human noses. The sale of alcohol based perfume is however highly regulated in the United States. Here are the BATF guidelines - the US government doesn’t want anyone drinking the stuff.

While we’re discussing sweet smelling things, maybe I should mention that ethyl alcohol is also used in the production of essential oils for aromatherapy. Ethanol extraction is a type of solvent extraction used to harvest fragrant compounds directly from dry plant materials, as well as impure vegetable oils. Vanilla extract is often produced using a polar solvent such as ethanol.  The polarity of ethanol allows extraction of the volatile aromatics while leaving behind the non-polar plant waxes.  The ethanol is then evaporated to leave behind ‘absolute vanilla’ (but in most cases as much as 5% ethanol remains).

One of the most interesting uses for ethanol is marine taxidermy – here the stuff is used as an transparent embalming fluid.

Marine biologists who adventure deep inside the ichthyarchy (the domain of fishes) often try to capture rare photosensitive critters that don’t keep well in fresh water, or brine, and don’t display well in glycerin. The solution is pure ethanol. This clear and colorless alcohol preserves deep water marine specimens and keeps them looking just as fresh as they did when they were first caught.