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.

More on this story (burp)

Last edited by Interesting on 09-May-2008 at 07:01 PM.

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@Interesting

Making your own ethanol at home is illegal in the most countries in Europe.

_________________
Site admins are people too..pooff!

@Interesting

Coal to Oil - Kerosene use to be called "coal oil"

With the cost of a barrel of oil trading in the $120 range, there is a cheaper method to make a $40 a barrel of fuel by converting coal to oil. If you get a tank that is about 2-4 inches thick that is 100 feet high and about 25 feet wide, you can pump 1000 degree steam in there and turn coal into methane gas and it can be turned back into diesel or gasonline. The fuel is more pure because you have taken the mercury and other toxic stuff out and those chemicals can be resold and pumped back into the earth to force the oil out of other resevoirs. The fuel that you get from overseas still has the chemicals like mercury in it and you are burning it and the mercury goes into the atmosphere.

Anyone using google can type in 'coal to liquid' and search. This method is being used in other countries like China and if they can do it then you can do it. You can also search under "Fischer-Tropsch" because that is the method named after the scientists who developed it.

http://www.fe.doe.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html

Coal derived liquid fuels

Last edited by Chuckt on 09-May-2008 at 12:05 AM.

@Interesting

Yeah, well there are some major problems, such as...

1) Cars don't run on ethanol.
2) Even in the USA, overbearing government has made that illegal unless you register and pay associated alternative fuel taxes. (I don't know if that is State or Federal)
3) Depending on the process, the resources used to make ethanol can be easily greater than the resources obtained by burning it as fuel.

Environmental regulations are mostly used to take away individual liberties, so even if something like this could become useful for individuals, socialist power would move to limit or prevent it.

Last edited by logicalheart on 09-May-2008 at 12:15 AM.
Last edited by logicalheart on 09-May-2008 at 12:14 AM.

_________________
http://www.hostcove.com
http://www.youtube.com/hostcove
Sam460 : X1000 : X5000

@logicalheart

We saw this oil problem in the 70's and didn't face the crisis then.

We need more nuclear power plants to heat homes with electric or power alternative sources like electric cars.

With the oil prices getting out of hand, we need countries to do something because poor people are going to freeze, food is going to become more expensive and high prices are going to rob a lot of people of their savings which a lot of people don't have.

@Interesting

If the production cost is correct, you'll only need to fill up your car 286 times to break even. Assuming you fill up every 2 weeks then you'll recover your costs in 11 years!

Last edited by Darrin on 09-May-2008 at 01:21 AM.

_________________
AmigaOne X1000, A4000(T), A3000, A2000, A1200(T), A1200, A500, CD32, Minimig+ARM, FPGA Arcade, Chameleon64, C-One, C128, C128D, C64C, C64, VIC-20, CBM 8032, CBM4032, Efika, Ultimate64

Oh, and one more fly in the ointment: The reason it supposedly makes fuel so cheap ($1 a gal) is because it uses sugar of which there is a surplus. Now, guess what's going to happen to the price of that sugar once there is a greater demand for it...

Oh, and don't forget to factor in the fuel you are going to use as you rack back and forth from Walmart with all of those 1Kg bags.

Last edited by Darrin on 09-May-2008 at 02:02 AM.

_________________
AmigaOne X1000, A4000(T), A3000, A2000, A1200(T), A1200, A500, CD32, Minimig+ARM, FPGA Arcade, Chameleon64, C-One, C128, C128D, C64C, C64, VIC-20, CBM 8032, CBM4032, Efika, Ultimate64

@Interesting

I could see use for such a pump in my kitchen, next to the ice machine. Simply add some Tonic water and off you go!

@Interesting

You can run cars on firewood!

This 1968 Volvo 142 DeLuxe was modified during fall/winter 2006-2007, and during last summer they traveled 5420 km in 20 days, using in total 7 square meters of firewood that people kindly provided for them along the way:



Something for your Hummer or brand new SUV, yes?


Read more about it here!

@Darrin

Quote:

Darrin wrote: Oh, and one more fly in the ointment: The reason it supposedly makes fuel so cheap ($1 a gal) is because it uses sugar of which there is a surplus. Now, guess what's going to happen to the price of that sugar once there is a greater demand for it... Oh, and don't forget to factor in the fuel you are going to use as you rack back and forth from Walmart with all of those 1Kg bags.

I was in Hawaii the last year they were making sugarcane. They said it takes 1,000 gallons of water to make one gallon of sugarcane. They were stopping because of other islands that were closer to America were beating them on price.

@Chuckt

Quote:

We need more nuclear power plants to heat homes with electric or power alternative sources like electric cars.

Oh no no no no!

You ALREADY have a major long term (Hundreds of thousands of years) problem with the waste material you have already generated. Nuclear power is a dead end. In more ways than one.

Even the most advanced power plants have spills and thrills. Ask Bill Eaves what living next to one is like. There are radioactive particles found miles away on a constant basis there as well as around all the other "safe" stations. And thats not even mentioning events like Chernobyl which will become more likely the older the existing stations get and the more stations that are built to replace them.

Since Chernobyl we've had;

March 24, 1992
At the Sosnovy Bor station near St. Petersburg, Russia, radioactive iodine escaped into the atmosphere. A loss of pressure in a reactor channel was the source of the accident.

November 1995
Japan's Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor leaked two to three tons of sodium from the reactor's secondary cooling system.

March 1997
The state-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation reprocessing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, contaminated at least 35 workers with minor radiation after a fire and explosion occurred.

September 30, 1999
Another accident at the uranium processing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, plant exposed fifty-five workers to radiation. More than 300,000 people living near the plant were ordered to stay indoors. Workers had been mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel, but had used too much uranium and set off the accidental uncontrolled reaction.

July 17, 2007
Kashiwazaki, Japan: radiation leaks, burst pipes, and fires at a major nuclear power plant followed a 6.8 magnitude earthquake near Niigata. Japanese officials, frustrated at the plant operators' delay in reporting the damage, closed the plant a week later until its safety could be confirmed. Further investigation revealed that the plant had unknowingly been built directly on top of an active seismic fault


The answer to one crisis is not to create another!


Funny thing is, humans are idiots. Real brainless morons.

For hundreds (And in some cases thousands) of years, humans have used the wind and water to power their needs (The Industrial revolution was started with the water wheel). Thing is though, companies, don't make the outragously excessive profits from anything other than fossil fuel and so fossil fuel it remains until governments reverse this process.

They won't. They are in the pay of the oil giants and so your pathetic world is doomed for the sake of your greatest god - money.

Oh what am I getting angry for? You humans will all be dead soon anyway. Killed by disease and famine like you were always intended.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@Chuckt

Quote:

I was in Hawaii the last year they were making sugarcane. They said it takes 1,000 gallons of water to make one gallon of sugarcane. They were stopping because of other islands that were closer to America were beating them on price.

I'm a frequent flyer to Cuba. For most of the time during Castos lead, US Sanctions meant little or no fuel made it to their shores. So they used sugar as described in your post. The fumes from the cars was cleaner, the cars ran without adaption and it proved to be more than a match for oil.

Of course the problem is the countries that grow sugar as a crop aren't the ones western governments have been backing and fighting wars on the behalf of so there is little chance of this becoming an effective replacement anytime soon.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@Chuckt

Oh no, you don't get it!
It's not the MONEY that's the issue here for christ sake! Economy is just a fictious short-term invention, but it is what will destroy the earth. The thing is that we must reduce the old and coal consumption. Best would be to quit using it all together. It wouldn't be so difficult with different engines in vehicles. Current engines have an efficiency of like 20%. What if that instead became 80%? That's a huge relief on energy need.

Yea, I'm with you on the nuclear end. But we can't use the current inefficient fission plants which creates a lot of long-term waste. We need either fusion or at least the hybrid reactors which can burn also the waste of the older reactors!

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

Funny thing is, humans are idiots. Real brainless morons.

That is the only true fact! And because of it, we multiply like a virus completely distroying the planet, and quickly.

What do you suggest we use instead of nuclear power? Oil and coal?? Wind and water is not enough since we are too many. The eco-system in the medeterrainian sea is about to be destroyed because a gigant damm was built in the Nile river for example.

The core problem is that we are too many. If the planet only had 500 million or something, we wouldn't have this problem. The greatest problem is that we have overcrowded the planet and are quickly exhausting its resources. This is something NOONE wants to hear AT ALL. I'm actually very surprized China implemented their one-child restriction. The by far best environmentally sane decission every made by humans.

We will have burnt up all oil and coal in like 100 years. That means that we have exhausted an energy source the earth has built up in 100ds of millions of years in what is equivalent to about one *nano* second in earth history!! That is nothing short of extreme in all possible ways!!

We need to become fewer if we are to survive!

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Interesting

What about Water ?

// Not sure how serious it is though... Also look on youtube for Water Powered Cars...

Jerry

_________________
- AOS has been ported to ex-86 ! It's called AROS and WinUAE... Or E-UAE on Linux !

- A1XE-G4 up and runing with:
512MB Ram / 200GB and 80GB HardDisks on Sii0680.
AOS4 Final Update / AmiZilla 0.1 Alpha

@Deniil715
Quote:

And because of it, we multiply like a virus completely distroying the planet, and quickly

People need quicktime but a good video along these lines.

@AmiGame
Quote:

Not sure how serious it is though

First law of thermodynamics tells us energy is only conserved and no way to produce more then 100% energy. The second law tells us there are always losses and 100% isn't possible. This is pure pseudoscience BS.

@AmiGame

Quote:

What about Water ?

Haha, this my be what my friend has been googling and believes strongly in!

But it is true that you can never make water into gas and then get more energy back when burning the gas! Especially not in a combustion engine with only 15-30% efficiency.

However, if the car also has solar panels which can be used to produce gas while the car is parked, combined with the possible fact that the efficiency of the engine is increased a few percent when mixing 100% hydrogen and onygen with the normal air/fuel mix, perhaps you could save a deciliter per 10km or something...

_________________
- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

Quote:

The core problem is that we are too many. If the planet only had 500 million or something, we wouldn't have this problem. The greatest problem is that we have overcrowded the planet and are quickly exhausting its resources. This is something NOONE wants to hear AT ALL. I'm actually very surprized China implemented their one-child restriction. The by far best environmentally sane decission every made by humans.

Restricing people may sound like a good thing but when there isn't an equity and an equality, restricting the poor while the rich have 90% of the earth's goods doesn't sound right to me.

There are renewable sources like cotton and wood. My township actually switched from a flat based fee on what we payed for water to the size of your pipe and what you used. Why should one group be restricted when other people get to have large houses with larger intake pipes for water? It might seem fair to ask people to pay for what they use but if you have enough then there is really no cost to it because the rich don't feel it.

@tomazkid

Quote:

tomazkid wrote: @Interesting Making your own ethanol at home is illegal in the most countries in Europe.

What, no home-made wine?

Hans

_________________
Join the Kea Campus - upgrade your skills; support my work; enjoy the Amiga corner.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - see more of my work

Chuckt wrote:
@Darrin

Quote:

I was in Hawaii the last year they were making sugarcane. They said it takes 1,000 gallons of water to make one gallon of sugarcane. They were stopping because of other islands that were closer to America were beating them on price.

Damn! That's a lot of water. I guess the average Australian won't be doing this then.

_________________
AmigaOne X1000, A4000(T), A3000, A2000, A1200(T), A1200, A500, CD32, Minimig+ARM, FPGA Arcade, Chameleon64, C-One, C128, C128D, C64C, C64, VIC-20, CBM 8032, CBM4032, Efika, Ultimate64

@SpaceDruid

With all due respect, you have no idea how expensive it is to explore the sea and drill an oil well, let alone produce it, so while you and the media like to bang on about oil companies making excessive profits, I didn't see anyone coming to our aid in the mid 80s when oil dropped to around $10 a barrel and a lot of them were folding up and the workers laid off.

The reason oil costs $120 a barrel is because the people demand it and keep on demanding it in even greater quantities. Oil companies don't set the price, the market does bases on supply and demand.

Yes, there should be more investment in renewable energy sources, but it is your givernments that should be doing that with the massive tax revenues that they take from the oil companies which dwarfs their profits.

Meanwhile we'll take those profits and pump it back into the industry in the search for more reserves to supply that endless desire for plastic that the world has.

_________________
AmigaOne X1000, A4000(T), A3000, A2000, A1200(T), A1200, A500, CD32, Minimig+ARM, FPGA Arcade, Chameleon64, C-One, C128, C128D, C64C, C64, VIC-20, CBM 8032, CBM4032, Efika, Ultimate64