The Moon-Shine of Gasoline....

[Bluefront]

"Home made ethanol has been going on for some time, but now, a Californian company is laying bet s on people wanting to try the same knowledge for themselves by turning sugar into fuel for about a dollar.

The E-fuel company has made public their E-fuel-microfueler, it weighs about 200 pounds, needs a water supply and 110 or 220 volt power supply with drainage provided similar to our washing machines.

“You just open it like a washing machine and dump in your sugar, close the door and push one button," company founder Tom Quinn told us. "A few days later, you've got ethanol." The fuel produces 85% fewer carbon emissions than petrol."

Now that gasoline prices are soaring, it's only a matter of time till a gasoline substitute becomes cost-effective......like probably right now. It could be something different than ethanol, but ethanol seems to be the easiest route for a "moonshine-like" operation. Imagine making fuel in your back-yard using all sorts of yard waste...... quite possible right now. Now there are plenty of cons about such a project, but when you're stuck with no available gasoline, and need to get to town, an ethanol-making device becomes more attractive.

Ever run on pure ethanol? I have.... using a small one-cylinder motor-cycle, and a few mods to the carb, and the compression. This was something I tried out a long time ago.....the 55 gallon drum of ethanol cost me about $85 then, and I spent that summer modding the cycle. Doing this sort of mod to a fuel-injected modern vehicle, would be more difficult, but not impossible. What I learned..... You burn much more fuel running pure ethanol, the smell of the emissions is obviously not gasoline, the engine runs much cooler, and most important......it's hard to start. A primer shot of gasoline was necessary in colder temperatures.

Of course I was doing this to have the fastest 175cc motor-cycle in town....which I probably did.


Cry all you want about the present state of the motor-fuel situation.....won't put fuel in your car. An ethanol machine could.

Of course there are other ways. The USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal..... with a 1000 year supply of known deposits. It's a matter of more steps in the refining process to turn this coal into gasoline.....and the building of new refineries to do so. That's the problem. Nobody wants a refinery in his location, and the tree-huggers would all go ballistic at the thought of the USA actually using coal for anything. But as gas prices continue to rise, their attitudes might/should change.

Think about it......The very instant the USA starts making gasoline from our own coal, the price of imported crude oil will drop. Guaranteed....

[pipperoni]

...attitudes might/should change....

Completely true!

However I think overall it would be cheaper and more effective to just go to the electric car. I think ethanol production on the scale of fueling North America's great automobile will always be a pipe dream.

[Greg F.]

I predict all kinds of Yankee ingenuity is going to be producing alternative fuel sources. But several things:
1) that doesn't mean these alternative sources will be cheap for everyone.
2) What I fear is a conflagration of some kind in the Middle East to the point that the supply of gasoline is cut off inducing rationing, at the least.
This could be unrest among the Wadhists in Saudi Arabia, war involving Isreal, the US attacking Iran, whatever.
3) the USA must get started on using our coal, and in ways to reduce the pollution; and nuclear energy. It is all just a matter of time.

I have a farm and can grow many things. I could grow sugar beets and make my own ethanol, but it is just one more chore. On the other hand I know I can grow at least thirty tons of sugar beets to the acre so you do the math.
What I would like is electric vehicles even if for nothing more than thirty to forty miles per day capacity. I can generate the electricity by wind, solar, or water turbine.

[Bluefront]

pipperoni, others. The term "moon-shine" refers to a sad time in the USA when alcohol of any sort (for drinking) was illegal. People started making various sorts of drinkable alcohol products at home, sometimes at night to avoid detection.

A moon-shine motor fuel would be of a similar sort....... not for everybody, but certainly for some willing to go to the trouble. If real gasoline/diesel became way too expensive to buy, or completely un-available at any price, I can certainly see farmers (for instance) making ethanol, and modifying their farm equipment to use the stuff.

Turning all motor-vehicles into electric vehicles is a long-term possibility, awaiting new technology, and at great expense. Running your current gasoline engine vehicle on a home-brew ethanol mixture, can be done with relatively little expense......right now.

And gasoline can be made from coal......right now.

[thejamppa]

Mythbusters tested that used french fries cooking oil made diesel car run. And it was only about 15% less effective than the diesel. Now it sounds pretty amazing (especially since they made car run with product everyone throw out) but according our favourite mythbuster's it did work, albeit they say anyone uses in their own risk...

[jaganath]

Mythbusters tested that used french fries cooking oil made diesel car run. And it was only about 15% less effective than the diesel. Now it sounds pretty amazing (especially since they made car run with product everyone throw out) but according our favourite mythbuster's it did work, albeit they say anyone uses in their own risk...

with modern direct injection diesels, you would ruin the injectors pretty quickly by using used cooking oil (and they are VERY expensive to replace). this can work with older diesels (ie Mercedes) which use indirect injection and are more tolerant of poor fuel quality.

What I would like is electric vehicles even if for nothing more than thirty to forty miles per day capacity

The Chevy Volt will have a 40-mile all-electric range.

[frostedflakes]

I'd think as long as the veggie oil is adequately filtered, injectors should be fine. I've read that there are other problems with running straight veggie oil in a DI diesel, though, so it's definitely something that should be researched if a person is looking to make the switch. Modern engines are so complex, any change as significant as the fuel being used is probably going to require some changes to how the engine runs for maximum performance and longevity.

Refining the veggie oil is another option, I don't think it's that expensive (at least relative to current diesel prices) to set up and run the equipment necessary to create biodiesel from used veggie oil.

About the home-made ethanol, sounds pretty interesting, but not very flexible if you can only load it with simple sugars. I'm waiting until we figure out how to do cellulosic biofuel efficiently, and people are throwing their grass clipping, apple cores, etc. into a machine and getting ethanol or biodiesel out.

[VanWaGuy]

I love this topic. I was born about 30 years to early.

When I was in college (graduated in 1981) I modified my car to run on alcohol, but at the time, my source of alcohol was way more expensive than gasoline, so after a proof-of-concept, I converted it back.

I also obtained a permit from the (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) BATF for making small amounts of Alcohol for fuel, but never went ahead and made any.

One thing I would recommend is making sure to get caught up on the latest requirements from BATF (in the USA) before making any homemade Alcohol fuel.

As far as Diesel vs veggy oil, as they showed on Myth busters, and had been demonstrated 30 years earlier (At Ohio State University for example where they used corn oil, and Popcorn sales went way up), some diesel engines will run just fine with straight veg oil. The viscosity is much higher, so it may not flow when the temp is low, and that is the while idea behind bio-diesel. The bio-diesel viscosity is very similar to mineral based diesel, and many modern cars can use it just fine, though it would be best to consult the warrantee fine print to be sure. I have not kept real up to date on bio-diesel, but a couple years ago, some European car warrantees were fine with it.

[NyteOwl]

You need a federal government permit to manufacture ethanol in Canada. With the price of sugar it wouldn't be any cheaper from a price standpoint. The flip side is if you start diverting fopod crops to fuel crops you drive the price of food up. I don;t know about you, but I'd sooner be able to buy affordable food and walk than not have affordable food but have fuel for my car.

The Chevy Volt will have a 40-mile all-electric range.

The EV1 that GM killed off years ago had 3 times that range.

A fellow in California working in his own garage converted an old Porsche 914 to electric. The specs were amazing - enough torque to peel rubber, a maximum speed of about 85 miles an hour, average cruising of 50-60, 300 mile range on a full charge and about 12 hours from 0 charge to full. I think the conversion cost him something like $5-8000

Now if "Mr Nobody" working in his garage can manage that, buying components at retail, why can't the car companies make them even cheaper, in quantity? We all know why - it's not in their best interests of the bottom line to do so which is why the EV1 program was trashed in the first place.

[frostedflakes]

Interesting project. It seems that his conversion uses lead-acid batteries, though. This is probably the reason the cost is so low. I believe all commercial electric vehicles use Li-ion batteries, which are quite a bit more expensive. There are probably numerous reason they don't (or aren't allowed to) use lead-acid battery banks (safety, maintenance, low power to weight ratio, etc.).

[aristide1]

If this corrupt administration would ever gives a rat's ass about the people instead of the corporations we would be allowed to import cheap ethanol made the efficient way, from sugar cane. Instead we have this pro-corporate mess.

Lucky for us though the oil is really flowing out of Iraq.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to get half assed results from a leader with half assed grades during his edjamacation.

[frostedflakes]

We can probably thank the corn lobbyists for that. Guess you can't blame them, though; like everyone else, they're just looking out for their interests.

Once we perfect cellulosic biofuels, though, we should be set. I'd think our food and agricultural wastes alone would be enough to offset a large portion of our fuel needs.

[aristide1]

We can probably thank the corn lobbyists for that. Guess you can't blame them, though; like everyone else, they're just looking out for their interests.

1. It is possible to make money without screwing people. It takes work, not favoritism. Something unknown to the current brown nosers.

2. They are our representatives, not the lobbyists.

[frostedflakes]

True, but the lobbyists are the ones feeding them the BS.

If only more large businesses followed the Google philosophy. They are one of the few corporations I wouldn't mind ruling the world.

[aristide1]

If only more large businesses followed the Google philosophy. They are one of the few corporations I wouldn't mind ruling the world.

Google found it neccessary to hire about 70 H-1Bs. Now if Google had a "help wanted" ad running on their site they would easily receive in excess of 1000 resumes per day. And among all those possible resumes they couldn't find 70 qualified people in this country to give jobs to?

Google is the more of the same "screw everybody" mentality while they make money, people be damned. No two ways to look at it.

And if you actually give a damn about anybody but yourself you'll be branded a liberal and dismissed accordingly. That's the black, err blue and white of the situation.

[frostedflakes]

But you have to admit, as far as greedy corporations go, Google is about as non-evil as they come. For example, them adamantly fighting the fed's demand for search records. MSN, Yahoo, and AOL basically complied with minimal coercion.

We're getting kind of off-topic, though.

[autoboy]

Hey, here's an idea! Drill our own oil! We are sitting on so much undrilled oil that we could become energy independent. Using land for fuel is inhumane. The future economy will be electric as cheap wind, solar, and wave energy will become more of a portion of our economy and battery technology takes off. All it takes is one breakthrough in electricity storage (like superconductors at room temp) and our make believe carbon problems are solved. Drilling lowers gas prices, reduces our dependence on foreign powers, and gives us the ability to control our own future. As REAL solutions to oil are invented, we can ease ourselves into them.

The whole premise of this thread is stupid though. It makes little sense to make ethanol in your own backyard from sugar unless you live in Brazil 200 miles from the nearest 76 station. Spend your money on something that will help people like medical research or buying food for the needy as the rest of the retarded lemming world burns food from their tailpipes.

Trying to stay carbon neutral is retarded because it is not a pollutant. All you "believers" are going to look mighty stupid as more global cooling data comes out...

Oh, and about the moronic anti-corporation rants, the corporations ARE the people. They are run by the people, employ the people, to serve the people. Profits are an effect of a well run company. If you have any investments at all, like a 401K, then you are also happy they make a profit. A company that doesn't doesn't last long. AMD is a good example. Corporations built this country, employ millions, and help millions. You failed economics if you don't believe it.

[frostedflakes]

For the people, huh? I guess that's why they are increasingly laying off domestic workers in favor of hiring foreign labor at a fraction of the cost. How about when a corporation is in tough times, most likely due to poor management. Do the higher-ups take a pay cut because of their mismanagement? Unlikely, nine times out of ten they'll just lay off workers to make ends meet.

Not trying to downplay the importance of corporations in our history, but claiming most have the people's best interests in mind is asinine. They look out for the *major* stockholders' interests and that's it.

[autoboy]

If you were smart you would be a stockholder. The business has it's own survival in mind. If it didn't it wouldn't be able to give anyone a job. Does it have your interests in mind? Well, you had better make yourself a valuable asset to the company or it can treat you anyway that makes business sense. As a small business owner, i want my employees to be happy, but not at a risk to the company. I make sure the low performers are subject to review to make sure only the best stay. Otherwise, i would not be in business.

Go live in a communist country if you don't want to have to compete in life, where everyone is unhappy. Your utopia does not exist. Sorry to burst your bubble. Energy has to follow the same rules or eventually it will bust just like we are seeing now.

[Bluefront]

We in the USA have ourselves to blame for the current motor-fuel situation..... for a number of reasons. Cheap gasoline in the start was a big factor. We could afford to live way out in the country, drive big cars/SUVs hundreds of miles a day......when gasoline was cheap. Then came the cheap imported oil, and our increasing dependence on the stuff. Our own resources were neglected, the tree-huggers got involved. We passed laws preventing us from remaining energy independent.

So here we are..... having to buy oil from foreign sources, when we are sitting on massive amounts of coal, unused for making motor-fuel, and untold amounts of crude oil, that cannot be touched because of our own laws. Sad state of affairs, of our own making.....

Moonshine motor-fuel is an answer for a few people, but a return to the time when we burned motor-fuel made from our own resources, is the better answer for most people. Do we have the guts to do so? Don't know.....but finger-pointing as already seen in this thread, won't fix anything.

[jaganath]

Hey, here's an idea! Drill our own oil! We are sitting on so much undrilled oil that we could become energy independent.

you never learn do you. oil is a FINITE resource, drilling more simply means you get more addicted to it even as the supply dwindles. FYI, the US could never become energy independent, simply because you have such an energy intensive lifestyle. The US lives way beyond its means, both in terms of energy consumption and finances (you have run a deficit for as long as I can remember) so that you are literally living on borrowed time and money.

Trying to stay carbon neutral is retarded because it is not a pollutant. All you "believers" are going to look mighty stupid as more global cooling data comes out...

and of course, if the AGW camp are proved right, you will be man enough to come on here and admit you were wrong. yeah, right. the only true retards are the ones who do not consider the possibility that they might be mistaken. absolute certainty is a scientific impossibility, therefore if you are absolutely certain that AGW is a load of BS, that position is certainly unscientific and decidedly ignorant.

[Cistron]

You burn much more fuel running pure ethanol

Not surprising. The energy density is far less than for fossil fuels.

Backyard Ethanol production won't be efficient for a very very very long time. One of the major problems being that most yeast won't produce more than 10% of Ethanol in the fermentation process without being killed and another issue is the destillation process. Only big plants can recycle significant amounts of heat and preserve energy.

It is more likely that gas fermentation plants and Methane become more popular. There are farmer villages in Europe with are completely energy-independent thanks to big biogas plants. This will only work of course if there's a significant amount of dung per person available. I'm wondering if we ever start recycling our own shit (pun intended, haha).

Alternatively, a lot of money is pumped into canola/rapeseed oil methylester fuel - aka bio-gasoline. In many European countries bills have been passed that make it compulsory to mix standard gasoline and diesel with a 5 to 10% fraction of biofuel. Only downside is that these esters degrade the currently used seals quite quickly.

Of course there are other ways. The USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal..... with a 1000 year supply of known deposits. It's a matter of more steps in the refining process to turn this coal into gasoline.....and the building of new refineries to do so.

Bad idea. After all we want to reduce fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions.

There's plenty more to say, but I gotta go back and attend my cells

[Bluefront]

I do not believe it is a bad idea to use whatever resources are available to you in your own back-yard. The really bad idea is what we are doing right now..... relying on imported crude oil. Using our own coal and other resources in the short term to produce gasoline, while we perfect "cleaner" sorts of energy, has several benefits......it could lower the price of our "home-made" gasoline, and it would prompt a lowering of the price of imported crude.

Without a source of relatively cheap motor-fuel, our present economy/way of life, will take a massive hit. It's happening today. Of course if your outlook is anti-American, you can just point fingers and say "I told you so". We have a massive amount of buried energy forms......we need to start using it, right now.

[jaganath]

In many European countries bills have been passed that make it compulsory to mix standard gasoline and diesel with a 5 to 10% fraction of biofuel. Only downside is that these esters degrade the currently used seals quite quickly.

if you're talking about biodiesel, all EU cars since the mid-1990's have been fitted with Viton/nitrile rubber hoses and seals, which are much more resistant to biofuels.

Without a source of relatively cheap motor-fuel, our present economy/way of life, will take a massive hit.

with hindsight, in terms of public policy it may not have been such a great idea to encourage endless suburban sprawl and an almost total dependence on the motorcar, with the assumption that cheap fuel would last forever.

We have a massive amount of buried energy forms......we need to start using it, right now.

however, if you start turning coal into gasoline, which is a very inefficient process (at least a third of the energy originally in the coal is wasted), you have to realise this looks like a big "f**k you" to the rest of the world.

I want my cheap fuel in my Hummer and I don't care what I do to the environment to get it.

I would be fine with CTL (coal-to-liquids) if carbon sequestration technology was already fully developed, but it's not. also, it seems rather ludicrous that such a huge country as America with such huge amounts of arable land cannot supply at least some incremental % of their transport fuel supply from homegrown crops. The bad rep that biofuels are suffering recently is mainly because lobbying from the corn belt has caused the absolute LEAST efficient biofuel to be adopted (ethanol from corn). corn has almost the worst fuel yield per gallon/bushel than any other crop.

so yes to CTL with the big caveat that the carbon must be captured, whilst at the same time putting a strong emphasis on solar energy and cellolusic biofuels development.

[frostedflakes]

If you were smart you would be a stockholder. The business has it's own survival in mind. If it didn't it wouldn't be able to give anyone a job. Does it have your interests in mind? Well, you had better make yourself a valuable asset to the company or it can treat you anyway that makes business sense. As a small business owner, i want my employees to be happy, but not at a risk to the company. I make sure the low performers are subject to review to make sure only the best stay. Otherwise, i would not be in business.

Go live in a communist country if you don't want to have to compete in life, where everyone is unhappy. Your utopia does not exist. Sorry to burst your bubble. Energy has to follow the same rules or eventually it will bust just like we are seeing now.

I'm pretty sure I could never afford to buy a large enough stake in a major corporation for them to care about my opinions.

I'm working on a degree in electrical engineering, I know all about academic competition, and I am starting to learn about competition in the workplace as graduation and the hunt for a good job creeps closer and closer. I do not expect a free ride, I just hate how most corporations don't seem to give a damn about the people who made them what they are. It is possible to be successful without completely screwing over the little guy. Of course, this could mean that a CEO may not be able to purchase a new Ferrari this year, which is unacceptable.

[aristide1]

Well the government saw that people on their own were not going to raise the national mileage average, it's a simple human trait to be wasteful during plentiful times. So CAFE came along and forced corporations to address it. It worked and the national mileage average went up. But the corporate lobbying never ceased and repubs promptly stopped any higher CAFE standards from becoming law, all to help the poor corporations. And what happened? The national mileage average started dropping until rather recently. So once again Joe Average has to pay for corporate greed. The car makers were playing chicken little - that the sky would fall with CAFE standards, and yet people drive 500 HP V10 Vipers, Corvettes, and Hummers. So much for their abilities to predict the future.

Ethanol - Perhaps a decent supplement if it wasn't such a political fiasco. Despite record prices the government is going to continue to subsidize farming in ridiculous ways. Some have switched from wheat to higher profit corn and continue to get subsidies based wheat farming. Others get subsidies not to grow anything, a check from the government only if you sit on your arse and do nothing. Lobbying hard at work.

The OP calls all this finger pointing. Yes that's the deflectionary term he uses wheneven the part of the brain that would state "Hey, my political affiliations are nothing more than a massive clusterf__k" needs to start working. But no, despite the obvious he just can't bring himself to accuse the real criminals. No, speaking up requires thinking, work, and at least of a couple of ethical bones in your body. These are the very items that all the sheeple/political fanatics lack. Can't rock the boat, gotta be like Gerald Ford. Left a statement that he opposed the Iraqi war after he died, didn't have the backbone to say what he truly believed while he was alive, probably didn't want the massive political machine focusing on his ass. Spineless twit. Another obvious flaw in the political fanatic - The government prevents importing cheap ethanol and the political fanatic just sits there and says nothing. How typical.

Now with it's back up against the wall CAFE standards will kick in again, another reaction to the situation as opposed to well thought out action. CAFE standards could have increased like .25 miles per gallon annually over the last 10 years with very little pain, and the country could have been better off today and tomorrow.

Coal - Oh, the easy way out, a Bush trait if there ever was one. Screw the downside, there are profits to be made.

As for the resource availability issue, there's another con job. Yeah there may be many more vast reserves of oil out there. So? Doesn't mean they are economically viable. Look at aluminum. It's an incredibly plentiful resource, until you take a geology class, and discover that most of it is in a form that's not economically viable to turn into aluminum. Of course for corporations the more we waste the higher the price, so why would they want to see anything change?

[aristide1]

If you were smart you would be a stockholder. The business has it's own survival in mind. If it didn't it wouldn't be able to give anyone a job. Does it have your interests in mind? Well, you had better make yourself a valuable asset to the company or it can treat you anyway that makes business sense. As a small business owner, i want my employees to be happy, but not at a risk to the company. I make sure the low performers are subject to review to make sure only the best stay. Otherwise, i would not be in business.

Go live in a communist country if you don't want to have to compete in life, where everyone is unhappy. Your utopia does not exist. Sorry to burst your bubble. Energy has to follow the same rules or eventually it will bust just like we are seeing now.

I'm pretty sure I could never afford to buy a large enough stake in a major corporation for them to care about my opinions.

I'm working on a degree in electrical engineering, I know all about academic competition, and I am starting to learn about competition in the workplace as graduation and the hunt for a good job creeps closer and closer. I do not expect a free ride, I just hate how most corporations don't seem to give a damn about the people who made them what they are. It is possible to be successful without completely screwing over the little guy. Of course, this could mean that a CEO may not be able to purchase a new Ferrari this year, which is unacceptable.

Actually that did happen, that stockholder business having an impact. Years ago IBMers would buy company stock (15% discount) and little else, because they had no financial knowledge. Well during the 1990s, the decade of the corporate take-back, when cutting benefits was the easy way to increase profits, IBM cut and cut and finally they had to stop because the people who were being screwed were the stockholders. It was rather comical to watch some of their cost cutting plans evaporate under pressure.

And righteously so.

And Autoboy, there are no true communist countries, none made it passed socialism, or more correctly, a pseudo-dictatorship run by a small elite. But thanks for not swinging from one extreme to the other. A valuable argument technique.

[aristide1]

Hey, here's an idea! Drill our own oil! We are sitting on so much undrilled oil that we could become energy independent.


[and later]


Oh, and about the moronic anti-corporation rants, the corporations ARE the people. They are run by the people, employ the people, to serve the people. Profits are an effect of a well run company. If you have any investments at all, like a 401K, then you are also happy they make a profit. A company that doesn't doesn't last long. AMD is a good example. Corporations built this country, employ millions, and help millions. You failed economics if you don't believe it.

God, the irony here is killing me.

The victims of Ken Lay are people.
The victims of the Exxon-Valdez mess are people.
The dead and/or burned victims of the Ford Pinto are/were people.

Why not go out and con someone out of a dollar, and then go buy a clue?

It is possible to be successful without completely screwing over the little guy.

Thank you for stating what should be the obvious. But in a world Bush-whacked the con job is considered the superior means to profit.

[Bluefront]

Wow....look at all the finger-pointing, without a single idea or suggestion how to get us out of this mess. Expected....

So....gloat over the present state of affairs in the USA. And blame whomever you want. Won't put a drop of motor-fuel in your vehicle. So just who is getting hurt here.....the little guy of course. The little guy who cannot buy the fancy, high-tech, high-mileage vehicle we all would like (if we could fit in the thing with our family)......he gets hurt. The laws on the books right now are preventing him and millions like him from affording fuel for his '79 Ford. Buy a new car that gets 50mpg.......

[aristide1]

Solution: Honest government.

Ever hear of it?

Beyond your comprehension?

What's the problem?

Alternatives:
Bikes
Buses
Used motorcycles
Used 50cc scooters get 100mpg

You know you pointed the finger at murderers and the dead never came back to life, but you continued to point the finger anyway. Bit of a double standard here? (IE nothing new)