March 2009 Archives

Consider this, ethanol burns stronger and cleaner than gasoline and can be grown within the United States and other nations that have a climate which supports corn or switchgrass. The energy density of Ethanol is substantially less than conventional gasoline (31.1MJ/kg vs 47.1 MJ/kg) but it burns stronger because it's less volatile (i.e. higher octane) and you can cram more of it into an engine cylinder without it auto-igniting. There is an ongoing debate about the true energy and CO2 savings that Ethanol fuels provide, and we have written about it here, here, and here, but let's skip that for now. Ethanol has several obvious benefits. Unfortunately, unless you live where it is commercially available (the Midwestern United States) you probably haven't considered converting your car or buying a flex fuel vehicle. If you do live in one of these states however, or if you're a rebel and have converted your car in a state like California where it is currently illegal due to smog emission standards, then you're reading this article because you'd like to produce your own Ethanol. Note: you can "convert" a car to run on Ethanol and it can still use Gasoline (or some combination of both), that's where the term "flex-fuel" comes from, the type of fuel required is flexible.

One company called E-Fuel, which happens to be located in Los Gatos California near the CleanTech Authority headquarters, has been creating a lot of buzz with a new product that looks and functions much like a standard gasoline pump, only it serves up homemade Ethanol. This pump is sometimes referred to as the MicroFueler but its official name is EFuel100. We've done some background checking and found out that some people are being tricked into visiting microfueler.net which is not the official site and is merely someone squatting the domain for ad revenue... we thought we'd clear that up right off the bat. If you want to learn more about the real company you should visit www.efuel100.com.

Unfortunately, at the time of this writing we have not heard back from E-Fuel, which we contacted to do an interview and get a few details checked out. We can't even say whether they are still in business considering the 2008 Copyright notice on their site, but it is most likely that they are just busy, especially considering the high profile press that they have been getting from other clean technology blogs.

Their idea is novel and the outreach they have been doing on YouTube is very exciting. That said, the listed price of $10,000 per unit is a bit steep, even the advertised price of $7,000 after tax rebates and incentives is hard to swallow. One site we found, hosted for free on tripod.net, sells plans for $30 to make your own distillery which would function much like the EFuel100, possibly a bit slower. Based on the search engine history and ranking and vintage site design we estimate the tripod site is several years old and fairly credible. The device they are selling plans for certainly isn't the prettiest thing, but the end product won't cost but a fraction of the EFuel100 shown below.

Aside from its cost, the Micro Fueler and E-Fuel Company are easy to admire. They have plans to do a carbon offset program, much like TerraPass, and have been recommended to me personally by the founder of Change2E85.com (which we reviewed here and found to be the most legitimate E85 conversion specialists on the web). The EFuel100 can produce five gallons of ethanol per day which will get most commuter cars over 100 miles, and it will only cost you about 60lbs worth of sugar. The EFuel100 needs between 10 amd 14lbs of sugar per gallon. For the sake of argument let's assume it only takes 10lbs and a five pound bag of sugar is currently $2.50 at your local Safeway, that's $5 per gallon with a maximum of $25 in fuel per day that the machine will produce. This scenario does not including the ethanol yeast mix and water which are also required, or the cost of taxes that you will pay to Safeway, or your time going to the store... But hey, you will probably get a lot stronger carrying all those bags of sugar around so you can drop your gym membership and save a few bucks there.

That's not quite the end of this story however, because E-Fuel has one more feature that's worth mentioning. If you drink bear, whiskey, or other alcoholic beverages, live near a college frat house, or are friends with someone at a bar... you can use leftover brew in your EFuel100 to produce Ethanol for your car. That's right, college RA's and bartenders everywhere could be recycling that leftover alcohol instead of flushing it away each night. E-Fuel claims that by approaching the conversion process this way one can produce Ethanol for just $0.10 per gallon! If you've got the energy and interest in clean car power this could be a really neat way to run your car, at least until the fad catches on. Almost like a new generation of veggie oil hunters, hopping from bar to bar looking for leftover brews instead of fast food outlets begging for grease. Keep in mind that the unit cost's over $7K and an E85 conversion kit is $500 (unless you go out and buy a brand new Flex Fuel car). It will take a long time to whittle away those up front costs but the trend is a positive one.

Before we fully encourage anyone to actually purchase the EFuel100 or consider DIY Ethanol there is one last point worth sharing. The gray costs of Ethanol production can be enormous. Gray costs are those costs incurred over the long run by our planet as a result of irresponsible, short sighted behavior such as using Styrofoam cups everyday that never biodegrade and end up choking wildlife. There are many companies out there growing sugar and producing Ethanol for cars that are producing it in environmentally harmful ways. Slash and burn agriculture is often used on rain forest land to grow sugarcane which is then sold back to us "greenies" as environmentally friendly, now that's ironic. This is mentioned in part in a video produced by Willie Smits on TED that we wrote about here. At Biomass Authority we intend on creating a sort of open source corporate tracking map in the coming months to help users differentiate between the good and bad sugar, and the good and bad Ethanol, but in the mean time, keep your eyes on E-Fuel and share your tips on Ethanol production here.

The biodiesel program at the University of Colorado in Boulder dates back to 2002 when five students from an engineering class designed and created a biodiesel processor. Around that same time several students involved with the Environmental Center built their own biodiesel cars using old VW Rabbits as a foundation. CU now has a wealth of campus resources dedicated to the study and expansion of biodiesel. In fact, the University has its own fleet of busses that use grease from cafeterias around campus to transport students to and from classes! The biodiesel Buff Buss program began in 2003 and has since grown to include 13 buses that all run on 100% or 20% biodiesel solutions. This is quite an accomplishment, especially by comparison to similar programs at other world class universities around the country. What's really interesting about the program today is the way it has expanded beyond the campus and out into the community.

It's an interesting sight... and smell to be on campus when a biodiesel Buff Buss charges by. For me it conjurs up memories of serving up fast food at McDonalds and Wendy's when I was 16; the busses smell just like french fries! As students ride to and from classes, or to the off campus residence halls at Williams Village and Bear Creek, you get the feeling that progress is really being made here, not just talked about.

Mike West, the director of education for CU Biodiesel, has taught everyone from postgraduate students to second-graders how to brew their own biodiesel, showing how simple it is to create this clean sustainable fuel. By using the veggie oil waste donated from Boulder restaurants and the CU cafeterias, West and his team of faculty including Josh Jaffe who leads outreach and Josh Maynard who heads up R&D, have developed a new way to reach people in the community.

Recently, the CU Biodiesel team has gone so far as to create a completely self-contained biodiesel trailer that they nicknamed ESTER for "Environmentally Sustainable Transportation Education and Research Laboratory". ESTER travels around the state visiting different schools, events and workshops, and creating biodiesel for the CU fleet. It's much more than a portable lab though, ESTER is capable of producing 500 gallons of biodiesel a month and the biproduct, glycerine, is donated to the CU Recycling Center to be used as a fertilizing agent for composting. Now that's recycling! Below you can see a picture from the insideo of ESTER as students check equipment and prepare a fresh batch of biofuel.

Boulder has been known as an entrepreneurial hot spot for years with outdoor companies like GoLite, tech companies like Sketchup (purchased in 2006 by Google for use with their Maps), and ugly duckling companies like Crocs being wildly successful in the shoe industry. In recent years Boulder has become a cleantech hub with support from the University and NOAA. Programs like CU Biodiesel help to inform the community and lead positive change, even spinning off new companies that will eventually power the nation. Visit the CU Biodiesel homepage or the University Website to learn more about the innovative programs and curriculum offered at CU.