E Fuel Home Distillery
A California company is planning on marketing a home system for generating pure ethanol from sugar. The e fuel corporation is planning on marketing a device that looks like a gas station fuel pump, runs on electricity from your home, and uses a feedstock of inedible Mexican sugar supposedly available for 2.5 cents a pound.
My question is: If you have a distillery in your home, why bother going anywhere? Sure, you will need to buy sugar for the still, or filter, or whatever it is they use to separate the water from the alcohol. It’s pretty strange to me, this idea of filtering water out of the fermentation liquid. In general, you need a still for that process. What’s more, the maximum percentage you can get of alcohol by distillation is 196 proof, which explains why this is the proof of Everclear. To get the last four percent of water out of the juice, you need a complicated chemical process involving bromine. In any case, this company claims they have a process to make 100% ethanol suitable for motor fuel from something the size of a washer-dryer.
If this ten thousand dollar system actually makes fuel-grade ethanol, why wouldn’t they just scale up the operation and sell the ethanol at a profit like any respectable energy corporation? E fuel claims their system will make alcohol for a dollar a gallon. Surely if it works like this the availability of a fuel they can mark up and sell for a three hundred percent profit must have them thinking. What does the IRS have to say about their home still? I’m sure the revenuers would be interested in any gas pump that spits out high-octane white lightning.
There seems to be a trend these days to want to make motor fuel at home. Yes, the stuff is expensive. it’s expensive for a reason. It costs a lot. Sugar is more expensive than gasoline. From what I recall about fermentation, it takes two pounds of sugar to make one pound of ethanol. The yeast consumes some of the energy in the process. This is pretty wasteful. Maybe instead of selling these things to motorists they should think of selling them to bars. There is a higher markup on beverage alcohol than on motor fuel.
I don’t know what the world is coming to with the high price of oil. Things keep getting more expensive every day. There is just no way I am going to pay anyone ten grand for a lousy still I could make myself, if I were that desperate. It would be cheaper and less hassle just to pay for gas and not drive so much. If a home still is such a good idea, why does the government keep busting moonshiners? If this system makes pure ethanol you would have to pay the liquour tax on any fuel you make, because it would be drinkable.
A home still is just a bad idea. If people really wanted to save money they could ride a bike. I don’t see anyone marketing enclosed pedalcars for transporting people. There’s no practical way to drive a pedalcar on the roads the way they are now. If there weren’t so many cars on the road I could get a rickshaw and start a taxi business. If I spent ten grand on a still I wouldn’t burn the booze it made in a car.
