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Micro Fueler Is First Ethanol Kit for Brewing Backyard Biofuels on the Cheap

 

NEW YORK — This morning, the E-Fuel Corporation, a Silicon Valley startup, introduced the first ethanol refinery system designed for home use. The Micro Fueler, a backyard fueling station, can create pure E100 ethanol from sugar feed stock.

“It’s third-grade science,” says Thomas Quinn, founder and CEO of E-Fuel. “You just mix together water, sugar and yeast, and in a few hours, you start getting ethanol.” The $9995 Micro Fueler has a can fill its own 35-gallon tank in about a week by fermenting the sugar, water and yeast internally, then separating out the water through a membrane filter.

Micro Fueler Is First Ethanol Kit for Brewing Backyard Biofuels on the Cheap - Popular Mechanics

Coskata’s $1/Gallon ‘Trash-to-Gas’ Tech Starts Up Ethanol 2.0: How It Works

Coskata’s “miracle” process is similar to crop-based systems, except the microbes that produce ethanol are feasting on gas released from the feedstock rather than the material itself. The feedstock must be broken down with heat so that the bacteria that produce ethanol can digest it. The potential result: garbage collectors one day joining oil-rig workers and wind farmers as pioneers of American energy independence.

After sitting through the General Plan meetings, it’s nice to see that the Solano County’s General Plan update will include a lot of attention to renewable energy.

Corn is used for ethanol because it’s the overall price leader to process. Using stockpiled sugar is even more cost effective. Looking into the byproducts of sugar shows that molasses has the cheapest total cost aside from corn.

As we’ve been discussing, obtaining ethanol from molasses has several orders of magnitude greater return rather than just simply breaking down sugar beets, a Solano County crop staple for years which grows well in the sandy clay loam found throughout the county.

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The Post article asserts that corn prices have “been climbing for months on the back of booming government-subsidized ethanol programs.” This has quickly become the conventional wisdom. But while free market types (like me) are skeptical about both subsidies and tariffs, there is actually no evidence that these market manipulations have been a major factor behind rising prices for corn or other grains. Researchers Robert Zubrin and Gal Luft point out that the total U.S. corn crop has increased 45 percent since 2002. The amount of corn available for food and feed has increased 34 percent —- after the part used for ethanol has been taken out.
But haven’t those farmers cut back on other crops — soy and wheat, for example — to plant more corn and hasn’t that led to increases in the prices of those grains? Apparently not. As Zubrin and Luft also note, U.S. soy plantings this year are expected to be up 18 percent, wheat plantings 6 percent, and overall, U.S farm exports are up 23 percent.
American farmers are rational businessmen. When the prices crops command rise, they produce more — both by increasing acreage under cultivation (only about 30 percent of U.S. farmland is currently cultivated), and by cultivating more intensively — producing more bushels per acre. That requires more investments, but it brings more return on those investments.

Clifford D. May on Food & Fuel Prices on National Review Online

Traditionally, the last week of April and the first week of May are the biggest corn planting weeks in the Midwest. Not this year. Planters have been scarce and basic prep like discing or fertilizer application also are weeks behind.
    So far, U.S. farmers are off to their slowest start since 1999. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will issue its next crop progress on Monday afternoon. One would have to guess that depending on how much corn is planted –  it will drive CBOT prices Monday night and Tuesday. Preliminary guesses is for USDA to report 25-30 percent of the crop seeded, versus the seasonal average of 63 percent.
    Granted U.S. farmers can plant corn quickly given today’s 24-row planters. But it’s got to stop raining and warm up.
    “There is no sign of a major change in the pattern which means no wide window for planting for the next week to 10 days,” said Mike Palmerino, forecaster with DTN Meteorlogix.
    “There will be occasional planting when there’s a break in the rains … the stronger sun will work to their advantage.”

Politics Blog Posts powered by BlogBurst | Reuters.com

“The impact on gasoline prices, if you take 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol off the market today, if (Texas) Governor Perry gets his way, is significant,” said Bob Dineen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry group.

U.S. Congress passed a 2007 law requiring a production increase to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022. Perry and others, citing rising food prices, have said those rules should be relaxed in order to inject more corn into the food supply for livestock and to encourage farmers to plant other crops.

An ethanol waiver would likely drive up gasoline prices to $4.71 per gallon, a level that would have a “devastating” impact on consumers and push food prices even higher, Dineen said.

Ethanol waiver seen spiking gasoline $1/gallon | Environment | Reuters

The price of wheat jumped 120 percent in the past year, hitting a 28-year high in February. The price of rice, the staple for billions of Asians, is up 147 percent over the past year, hitting 19-year high. The price of corn tripled in the past two years, increasing from $2.00 a bushel in January 2006, to $3.05 in January 2007, to $4.25 in January 2008, and hitting $6 a bushel in April 2008.

Planet Gore on National Review Online