He is an advocate for production of ethanol fuel, especially at local, small and medium scales.
The focus of the book is on how to set up and run crops and facilities for local ethanol use, as opposed to large-scale industrial or commercial use.
The book was originally written in 1983 for release with Alcohol as Fuel, a 10-episode how-to series on PBS produced by KQED in San Francisco.
Copies of the original book and TV series, which was only aired on KQED, have since been nearly impossible to obtain.
Blume's primary insight follows from that of Buckminster Fuller, who wrote the foreword to the book in 1983: that alcohol (or ethanol) is a renewable variety of solar energy in liquid form, the cultivation of which can enhance soils, be used as a minimally- or non-polluting fuel, and enable farmers and individuals at large to make fuel locally.