Micro Fueler Is First Ethanol Kit for Brewing Backyard Biofuels on the Cheap - Popular Mechanics
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.
MicroFueler Ethanol | Mashup
The MicroFueler weighs about 200 pounds and hooks up to a water and 110 or 220 volt power supply and wastewater drain just like a washing machine. It uses raw sugar (not the refined white stuff) and a proprietary time-release yeast mixture as feedstock. The MicroFueler has its own pump and hose - just like the pump at your corner gas station - so you can easily fill up your car. “It’s so simple, anyone can make their own fuel,” Quinn says. Depending upon the cost of electricity and water, he says, the MicroFueler can produce ethanol for less than $1 a gallon. [1]
Fueling speculation | Solano County Renewable Energy
Technorati Tags: Solano County,Renewable energy,biomass,algae,biodiesel,molasses,sugar beets,ethanol
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.
Small Wind in California
The California Energy Commission’s Emerging Renewables Program (ERP) provides incentives for the purchase of four types of grid-connected renewable energy generating
systems - photovoltaics, solar thermal electric systems, fuel cells using renewable fuels, and small wind turbines (50 kW or less).This program is offered to all grid-connected utility customers within the electric utility service areas of: Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison Company (SCE), San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) and Southern California Water Company (doing business as Bear Valley Electric Service (BVE))
Beginning January 1, 2005, the rebate amounts for wind are as follows:
$1.70/W for first 7.5 kW and $0.70/W for increments >7.5 kW up to 30 kW
Ethanol waiver seen spiking gasoline $1/gallon
“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