BLSamuel Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 Happened upon a bit on whatever news channel was on in the break room at work. Get your own home ethanol brewer, only $9,995 and you can brew your own ethanol for about $1.25 a gallon with today's sugar prices and less with carbon credits or as little as $0.10 a gallon using stale beer, wine, or liquor.... http://www.efuel100.com/default.aspx One can supposedly get alternative fuel tax rebate to lower the cost to under $7,000. Preorder deposits are now being taken. They don't really mention anything about how much it costs for the federal permit required and there could also be local and state permits .... They claim that there's a surplus of feedstock sugar and that this process is much more efficient than producing ethanal from corn which first requires the corn starch be converted into sugar.... 35 gallons of ethanol a week using 170 gallons of water and 470 lbs of feedstock sugar. So where does one get 250 gallons of stale alcohol to use instead of fermenting from the sugar? No idea where one buys this feedstock sugar. They claim it comes in 50 lb bags ... but it takes 470 lbs to produce 35 gallons of ethanol? You'd think they'd make the recipe for complete bags? Add 9 bags and 20 lbs. Doh! Make it 9 or 10 bags. No idea how realistic this may be but producing ethanol from sugar is probably a LOT more sensible than producing it from corn. While any gas vehicle should be able to run on ethanol I'd be leary of putting a high mixture in any modern vehicle not so designed though they also claim ethanol conversion kits are readily available. I think most standard vehicles would have problems with too high a ratio of ethanol. I remember our 77 Oldmobile Delta 88's fuel filter, in the fuel tank, getting clogged in the early days of gasohol with only 10% ethanol. If it were that simple and the payback as good as claimed ... I think the biggest problem with the current ethanol push is we're using food grains for ethanol along with heavy government subsidies. Especially according to this site http://www.countercurrents.org/clifford120108.htm (a rather one side view I'm sure ...) Maybe it's time to get a diesel vehicle and start refining used cooking oil into diesel? Supposedly can be done with any used cooking oil that's not been hydrogenated. Clean it up, add some magic potion to keep it thin and voila diesel fuel that will burn in a modern diesel engine. Supposedly even cleaner that petroleum diesel. One of the local TV stations even had a guy who claimed to improve his gas mileage by 20% by using water to add hydrogen to his gas. Something about creating some hydrogen and burning better.... maybe not as far fetched as it sounds as I recall years ago reading about old tractors that would inject water in with the gas. Maybe something like a hydrogen booster which can be found here: http://waterpoweredcar.com/hydrobooster2.html a site dedicated to the guy who claimed to have invented a water powered car http://waterpoweredcar.com/index.html I did know a guy here in town who had converted an old pickup truck to run on propane... he traded his service to the local propane distributor for propane. Now if this water powered car idea would actually work.... just some rambling on interesting things I ran into... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted May 21, 2008 Share Posted May 21, 2008 My Father in Law runs all of his cars on Veggie Diesel. He just goes around to various resturants in his area and removes their used vegetable oil(canola has a lower solidifying temperature) and takes it home and strains it through some foodservice "sock" filters and then it's ready to go into the car. The modifications to the cars themselves aren't that extensive, a secondary tank for regular diesel used to start the car and run it for a minute before shutting down to make sure the injectors stay clear in cooler weather, and some heat exchange units on the Veggie fuel lines that are hooked into the radiator lines to help liquify the veggie. Last year they made several trips from Montreal QC, down to Atlanta GA, and back all on veggie for free. Heather and I have a filtering setup and a storage barrel and a duel tank fuel valve, just no diesel car to use it with at the moment. She had a jetta but it was a canadian spec model with no airbags so importing and registering it down here was a no go and it apparently died on the way back to Montreal. Maybe this summer we'll get a diesel and do the conversion. Peace, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted May 25, 2008 Share Posted May 25, 2008 I wonder what the street price is for moonshine? That could help offset the cost of the still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted May 26, 2008 Share Posted May 26, 2008 I wonder what the street price is for moonshine? That could help offset the cost of the still. I know a guy named Kent down in Alabama that makes a pretty mean 'shine. Maybe I'll ask him how much it could go for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1101 Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 About $80.00/gal. in our neighborhood for the better tasting stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 good links An anode and cathode in a water-filled tube sounds more like a musical device than a electrolysis generator… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 He just goes around to various resturants in his area and removes their used vegetable oil(canola has a lower solidifying temperature) and takes it home and strains it through some foodservice "sock" filters and then it's ready to go into the car. That oil isn't always free anymore. There was a piece on the radio a few weeks ago about how many restaurants have contracts with companies to remove the used oil and fat, but some people are stealing it to sell, sometimes fleeing and leaving an oily trail out of the lot when they get spotted and yank out the drain hose before fleeing the scene. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipsch Employees Trey Cannon Posted May 27, 2008 Klipsch Employees Share Posted May 27, 2008 About $80.00/gal. in our neighborhood for the better tasting stuff. Man, we need to talk... At $6-8 / ga to make...we need to talk... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 He just goes around to various resturants in his area and removes their used vegetable oil(canola has a lower solidifying temperature) and takes it home and strains it through some foodservice "sock" filters and then it's ready to go into the car. That oil isn't always free anymore. There was a piece on the radio a few weeks ago about how many restaurants have contracts with companies to remove the used oil and fat, but some people are stealing it to sell, sometimes fleeing and leaving an oily trail out of the lot when they get spotted and yank out the drain hose before fleeing the scene. I should have said that He is the service for those resturants. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 Moonshine is top notch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 He just goes around to various resturants in his area and removes their used vegetable oil(canola has a lower solidifying temperature) and takes it home and strains it through some foodservice "sock" filters and then it's ready to go into the car. That oil isn't always free anymore. There was a piece on the radio a few weeks ago about how many restaurants have contracts with companies to remove the used oil and fat, but some people are stealing it to sell, sometimes fleeing and leaving an oily trail out of the lot when they get spotted and yank out the drain hose before fleeing the scene. I should have said that He is the service for those resturants. That arrangement could work well. Some of the Internet oil conversion kits imply that you can go to any restaurant and expect them to give you all the free oil you want, so you can drive for nothing. It might have been that way for a while, but the idea has caught on and now there are quite a few people looking for that oil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD1032 Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 Only problem is that ethanol and most alcohol-based additives are quite bad for your engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted May 27, 2008 Share Posted May 27, 2008 Only problem is that ethanol and most alcohol-based additives are quite bad for your engine. Do you have references or data that support that statement? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted May 28, 2008 Share Posted May 28, 2008 Most gasoline-powered cars have fuel pump diaphragms and some other parts that are attacked by ethanol. The cars that are certified for use with it should not have a problem, since the affected parts in those cars are ethanol-compatible. As for the engine itself, the Indy cars, as well as speedway racing motorcycles, run on methanol, which is very similar to ethanol. It produces more power, will tolerate higher compression ratios and tends to pull more heat out of the combustion chamber, causing the engine to run cooler. However, the ideal fuel-air ratio for 100% methanol is about twice as rich as for gasoline, so fuel mileage is way worse, to the point of needing a much larger fuel tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted May 28, 2008 Share Posted May 28, 2008 Agreed, if your vehicle is not E85 rated, I wouldn't use ethanol in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark1101 Posted May 28, 2008 Share Posted May 28, 2008 Trey Cannon wrote the following post at Tue, May 27 2008 1:37 PM: About $80.00/gal. in our neighborhood for the better tasting stuff. Man, we need to talk... At $6-8 / ga to make...we need to talk... I don't ask any questions. People are gun shy about it around here. I know the price is high but someone REALLY knows what they are doing. I've tried many "samples" and cheap stuff is available too. The good stuff is amaizing. Apple. Growing up in the '60s my uncle made it up in Syracuse. The guy was an expert at it. It was openly talked about on the street. The cops never bothered anybody about it. All the old guys made it back then. Not very large qualtities. But since I moved down to Georgia.......hey I learned......you better keep your mouth shut about who does what. Totally different situation with the law. I think it is pretty funny that the sheriffs down here actually care about some old guy making a little shine for self consumption. Anyhow......I'll be running into you Trey. We can talk about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 Only problem is that ethanol and most alcohol-based additives are quite bad for your engine. Do you have references or data that support that statement? ethanol has a lower energy per mol but a higher compression ratio. So if you set your engine for ethanol, it will actually run well but just putting it in your car will damage it as it will knock. I try to buy non ethanol based gasoline as the 85/15 (which is 85 gas/15 ehtanol is the max a normal engine can run) you actually get lower gas mileage because gasoline = more energy per liter than ethanol (since there is less energy, you need to run your car at higher rpms to sustain power). The good thing with ethanol is that it has a higher compression ratio and more cooling factor. Also there is the fact that corn based ethanol causes more polution even after you take the advantage of the corn turning C02 into Oxygen. The fact that you have to truck the corn to the distillery and then send the ethanol back to remix. Also 85/15 burns dirtier than 100% gas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay481985 Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 Trey Cannon wrote the following post at Tue, May 27 2008 1:37 PM: About $80.00/gal. in our neighborhood for the better tasting stuff. Man, we need to talk... At $6-8 / ga to make...we need to talk...I don't ask any questions. People are gun shy about it around here. I know the price is high but someone REALLY knows what they are doing. I've tried many "samples" and cheap stuff is available too. The good stuff is amaizing. Apple. Growing up in the '60s my uncle made it up in Syracuse. The guy was an expert at it. It was openly talked about on the street. The cops never bothered anybody about it. All the old guys made it back then. Not very large qualtities. But since I moved down to Georgia.......hey I learned......you better keep your mouth shut about who does what. Totally different situation with the law. I think it is pretty funny that the sheriffs down here actually care about some old guy making a little shine for self consumption. Anyhow......I'll be running into you Trey. We can talk about it. In NJ you can buy everclear for around 31 dollars a handle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Adams Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 I was wondering when someone was going to get around to saying this. Like I mentioned in the gas prices thread - people think we happened upon gasoline just by accident. Even worse is this seemingly frentic search by the public for some magic fuel bullet. Hasn't it ever occurred to folks that scientists for the last 50+ years have tried every possible combination of "_hols" in order to improve upon gasoline?? In each instance they might have gotten better performance or better mileage or better emissions or whatever. But in every case, something else suffered. Sorry to sound so closed-minded, but the truth is that gasoline, as we know it, is the best compromise compound when it comes to energy output per given volume with the least amount of emissions and least amount of volativity. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Islander Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 In NJ you can buy everclear for around 31 dollars a handle. So is that where the band Everclear's name came from? I've never heard that name anywhere else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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