Until the second half of the 19th Century, a significant proportion of the vegetable oil produced was used to for domestic lighting, heating and cooking. The birth of the automobile was also dependent on vegetable oil: the pressure-ignited heat engine of Rudolph Diesel worked on groundnut oil, whereas Henry Ford promoted the use of soybean oil.
Alcoholic fermentation techniques date from the Neolithic Period, and distillation processes have been known since the Middle Ages. Ethanol produced from agricultural surplus was widely used, particularly in the United States, between the agricultural reforms of 1862 and the Prohibition in the 1930s. Indeed, certain Ford model T cars ran equally well on ethanol and petrol.
