Industry News
US firm unveils ‘MicroFueler’ home ethanol kit
9th May 2008
E-Fuel Corp., a recent start-up in the US funded by a computer games inventor, unveiled yesterday the "MicroFueler", a $5,000 portable machine that allows people to make their own ethanol.
The pump plugs into a domestic power socket and water supplies to make ethanol from sugar for as little as $1 a gallon (3.8 litres), according to E-Fuel. E-Fuels says it will link its customers to cheap surplus sugar supplies, including inedible sugar from Mexico that sells at a fraction of the price of supermarket packets. It also hopes to get users to help pay for feedstock by selling carbon credits for using the machine, since making ethanol from sugar emits fewer greenhouse gases than making it from maize.
The firms says that a two-car family that drives about 34,500 miles a year, the MicroFueler will pay for itself in less than two years, assuming average gasoline prices of $3.60 per gallon. The unit can make up to 35 gallons of 100% ethanol per week. E-Fuel says the machine is more efficient than industrial-scale ethanol plants because it removes water from the fuel with fine filters that reduce the fuel costs of distilling the water out.
(Reuters/Planet Ark)
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