Henry Ford’s Hemp Cars
In 1941, Henry Ford built a car out of plastic from hemp and other plant material that ran on hemp fuel. Why aren’t we driving it today? asks Return to Now.
Ford’s 1941 bioplastic Model T was made of hemp, flax, wheat, and spruce pulp, which made the car lighter than fiberglass and ten times tougher than steel, wrote the New York Times on February 2, 1941. The car ran on ethanol made from hemp or other agricultural waste. Ford’s experimental model was deemed a step toward the realization of his dream to “grow automobiles from soil,” wrote Popular Mechanics in their December 1941 issue and reduce greenhouse gases—already known to occur by then.
Fossil Fuels and Global Warming
In 1938 Guy Callendar first showed that the Earth’s temperature was increasing due to increased CO2 (the major greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere. As early as 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius suggested that fossil fuel combustion may eventually result in enhanced global warming by proposing a relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and atmospheric temperature. Prior to this, in 1807, global ecologist Alexander Humboldt predicted human-induced climate change.
“America has consumed 80% of her known oil and gas reserves,” wrote an article in the 1950s when the greenhouse effect and acid rain was being discussed. “The use of biomass-derived fuels will reduce acid rain and reverse the greenhouse effect.”