A menace turned useful: the Kudzu vine

A locksmith by the name of Doug Mizell decided to live by the old adage , “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

For years Mr. Mizell and his wife, Sue, have fought the overgrowing nuisance of the Kudzu vine at their Mississippi vacation home .

The Kudzu vine is a non-native plant that was introduced in the South in 1876. It can grow an amazing 60 feet a year and smothers other plants. According to kudzufree.org, an information website, the Kudzu vine has claimed an estimated 7 million acres in the Southeastern US.

Fed up with the plant, Mr. Mizell brainstormed and used his skills at “tinkering” to turn the vine into ethanol, which he calls Kudzunol.

Mr. Mizell first harvests the vines and runs them through a wood chipper. Next, the vine chips are put into a food processor to create a Kudzu mash. Mizell then made a distiller similar to those used in making “moonshine” and added the mash. The end result was an 80-proof combustible liquid.

According to Doug Mizell, approximately 5 gallons of Kudzu vine mash can create a half gallon of ethanol.

Looking to turn Kudzunol into the next fuel source and the Kudzu vine into a cash crop, Mr. Mizell and his business partner, Tom Monahan, went to Tennessee's first BioTenn Conference and are currently seeking a grant or investor to build a more sophisticated distillery.

During an interview with the Chattanooga Times, Mr. Mizell poured Kudzunol into a lawn-mower along with a few drops of gasoline to prime the motor, and it started right away. Doug Mizell then went on to say,

"With a brush cutter, a wood chipper and a homemade still I can produce a barrel of fuel for under $80."