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For Sale: Machine To Make Home-Made Ethanol
Timothy Gardner and Marguerita Choy, Reuters via PlanetArk
A new company hopes drivers will kick the oil habit by brewing ethanol at home that won’t spike food prices.
E-Fuel Corp unveiled on Thursday the “MicroFueler” touting it as the world’s first machine that allows homeowners to make their own ethanol and pump the brew directly into their cars.
The portable unit that sells for $10,000 resembles a gasoline station pump and nozzle — minus the slot for a credit card, or the digital “SALE” numbers that whir ever faster at retail pumps as global demand pushes fuel prices to record levels.
Instead of tapping gasoline from an underground tank, the pump’s back end plugs into home power and water supplies to make ethanol for as little as $1 a gallon (3.8 liters), according to E-Fuel.
The company says one of the machine’s top selling points is its sweet tooth. It ferments fuel from sugar, the price of which is historically cheap as global supplies are glutted.
That means it avoids the Achilles heel of today’s US ethanol system — reliance on corn — which has been blamed for helping to spike global food prices.
… Others are not so sure that the MicroFueler is a good investment.
“I doubt it will work,” said David Pimental, a professor at Cornell University who has studied the economics of ethanol for decades. He said the history of the fuel has been one of moving to greater and greater scales to increase the efficiencies of making the fuel.
(9 May 2008)
Get out your EROEI calculators. -BA
A Green Built, Solar Powered, Biofuels Station (audio, video)
From an early start producing biodiesel from used cooking oil in his garage, Ian Hill was instrumental in creating a market for biofuels in the state of Oregon.
Now Managing Partner of SeQuential Biofuels in Eugene, he has gone on to build the first retail biofuels station in the state — and it’s not an ordinary fueling station: A solar panel canopy provides 50% of the needed electricity. The convenience store is a passive solar design to help with heating and cooling, and stocks as much locally produced food as possible.
Its “living roof”, of mostly native plants, helps cool the building in summer, and slow and filter stormwater runoff. This optimistic enteprenuer says he and his family have found that consuming less can bring greater happiness. Episode 104.
www.sqbiofuels.com
(5 April 2008)
At 15p a litre, home-brew biodiesel is fuel of the future
John Vidal, The Guardian
… Elliott, 79, is part of a cottage industry of people who have turned to making their own recycled “biodiesel” in response to the doubling of fuel prices in just over a year. Companies making biodiesel “reactors” report booming sales and demand for cheaper diesel is outstripping anything they can produce.
… DIY diesel is seen by many as the revenge of the little man on the government, oil companies and the authorities. No one knows how many backroom refineries there are in Britain, but a government study suggested there were around 1,400 small scale plants producing a few thousand litres a year in 2005/6. Since then the price of diesel has more than doubled and the market for machines has risen. People in the industry suggest there are 35 companies refining recycled oil commercially and perhaps 20,000 individuals making private arrangements to collect and process oil from local restaurants, chip shops and food manufacturers.
Since the law was relaxed to allow people to make 2,500 litres a year for their own use, most are working legally, but as the price of fuel rises inexorably, so criminal elements are moving in.
“There are wars going on in London to get the oil,” said Tom Lasica, who runs Pure Fuels, London’s largest refiner of vegetable oil. “Spanish and German companies are moving in to buy up British used vegetable oil. People are stealing it from each other and selling it abroad. We heard that one fish and chip shop in Southend was broken into just to steal the waste oil.”
(10 May 2008)
