Back when it looked like gas would never go back below $3 a gallon, I started looking around at alternatives. There is biodeisel, which is good right now. You can find waste oil for free, until other folks get onboard and start making a demand for it. Then it will be getting sold to the highest bidder. Both my vehicles are gas powered, so does me no good. I also have chain saws, a saw mill, brush mower, roto tiller, and generators that need gas.
Right now, ethanol is the only thing that will serve in the place of gas. It takes some tweaking to make a car run on alcohol - and some work on the carburetor of small engines will let them run on alcohol. Alcohol looked like the answer, so I started reading up on it. Tennessee has recently started encouraging the production of alcohol as an alternative fuel, and you can get a permit from the ATF so that your home won't get stormed by armed feds.
Since the last time I looked, there is some confusion about permits. The company in Tennessee that sold plans and parts to stills has gotten itself into trouble, and a couple of truths have come out about this alternative energy.
Alcohol does not burn as hot as gasoline. That means more gallons of fuel to take you a given distance, or less miles per gallon. That's tollerable, if the fuel costs significantly less than gasoline.
So far as a home brewed source of fuel, do the math. The amount of acreage it would take to meet annual requirements for a single auto puts this out of range of most folks for growing their own fuel. There has been talk about newer industrial processes that will wring greater quantities of product out of vegetable matter, and improved vegetation that will give a greater yield, but so far the petroleum industry is holding sway. We won't be turned loose until the last dollar has been paid for the last drop of petroleum.
With current technology, the future looks mighty bleak. Corn could be the new cash crop, and prices may inflate it to the point where only the rich can afford to eat corn (as a sign of conspicuous consumption).
On the bright side, fuel for home appliances is reasonable. So long as a gas powered generator serves only as backup, you could distill enough alcohol from a modest crop to power your generator. Likewise chaionsaws, etc. The problems in making your own ethanol are how much and what kind of energy are you using to make the ethanol. It would be foolish to run a generator to run the still, producing less fuel than used by the generator. Propane? That's using a dependence on outside fuel to create home made fuel. Wood is the fuel to use, but it would take an involved arrangement of shutters to control the heat. Storage is another consideration.
Making your own ethanol is not as practical as once claimed. For basic transportation you may want to consider the old standbys - horse, mule, donkey or goats.
Regards,
Pat