Brew Your Own Ethanol Fuel from Food scraps and Old Newspapers

If there’s one thing all Americans are good at, it’s producing waste: thirty million tons of it a year, in fact. From food scraps to old newspapers, a lot of compostable materials end up in the nation’s landfills. Thomas Quinn, the founder of Silicon Valley start-up E-Fuel wants to change all that.

The E-Fuel system uses two washing machine sized components: the MicroFusion Reactor (which to me conjures up images of Mr. Fusion from Back To The Future Part II) and the MicroFueler. The former reduces organic waste into sugar water and ferments it into a sugary, bacteria-ridden alcoholic soup not unlike bathtub homebrew.

The latter turns this soup into usable ethanol for automotive fuel. The whole process takes about 3 kWh of energy, or about a tenth of the average home’s daily energy usage. That’s less than the 4 to 7.5 kWh it takes to make a gallon of gasoline, at least according to Jacob Ward of the U.S. Department of Energy.

A third component called a GridBuster uses the ambient heat from a portable generator to fuel the whole compost to ethanol process. So good is it, in fact, that a claimed 80 to 90% of the E-Fuel’s power can come from this ambient heat alone.

Quinn sought the assistance of Floyd Butterfield, the inventor behind the legendary Butterfield Sill, to develop the E-Fuel system. Each of the three components are said to cost US$10,000 each, for a total cost of US$30,000 per complete unit.

E-Fuel’s mainstay clientele at the moment are universities and governments who, unlike the vast majority of consumers, are able to shell out copious amounts of money to save a little bit of the planet. In the words of “ethanol expert” David Blume:

“E-Fuel's machines aren't cheap, but for early adopters of new technology like this, I think cost really isn't the issue.”

Quinn hopes consumers will be able to lease the units from distributors, with some seventy already ready for immediate lease in both the U.S. and overseas. A lack of E85 compatible vehicles on the market may stunt E-Fuels growth, though apparently one can convert an E10 vehicle over to flex fuel with relative ease.

Quinn is expecting sales to double this year, though requires an investment of US$25 million to top up the company’s coffers and keep E-Fuel rolling. In his own words:

“In this economy, finding capital is impossible. Banks aren't taking any risks and we're facing a green tech bubble that's popping, because investors have dumped so much money into solar and wind and haven't seen returns.”

Only time will tell if E-Fuel is the way of the future or another woulda-coulda-shoulda in a long line of clever-if-financially-flawed enviro-tech.

EV Owners in California to Feel the Shock of Higher Electricity Rates

Woe betide the electric car. Outpaced by their petrol-powered cousins in the 1900s, saddled with heavy and potentially dangerous batteries in the 1970s and crushed in the name of the Almighty Dollar in the 1990s, it’s been a rough road from there to here.

And now, on the dawn of a new age where electric cars seem poised to take their rightful place alongside gasoline cars, the electricity companies are about to throw a wrench into the works. If you live in California and intend to buy a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius or Chevrolet Volt or an all-electric Nissan Leaf, you could be in for a...shock.

If the energy giants have their way, the Chevy Cobalt, which would have to rate on my list as one of the least desirable cars built by GM, is more economical to own or operate than any of the above. The reason?

Essentially, The California government has approved its energy providers to impose higher rates on customers who exceed, “typical household levels” of energy use all in the name of conservation. So if, for example, you spend eight hours a night recharging your electric car, you’ll find yourself classed as one of these excess customers.

Wham, bam, the electricity companies charge you more than Mr. Joe Public next door who drives a Toyota Sienna and still has to pay for the good oil. And contrary to what you may of heard, it doesn’t matter if you recharge your car at night when the rates are lower; you’re still gonna take a hit to your hip pocket.

And it’s not like the California legislature is rushing to correct this oversight.

Wally Tyner, the James and Lois Ackerman Professor of Agricultural Economics, said that to make the Volt more economical than the Prius or the Cobalt, oil prices would have rise to between $171 and $254 per barrel, depending on which electricity pricing system is being used. Californians for example, pay an average of 14.42 cents per kilowatt hour, which is about 35 percent higher than the national average.

"People who view the Volt as green will pay $10,000 more over the lifetime of the car because it's green," Tyner said. "Most consumers will look at the numbers and won't pay that."

So until you’ve taken a pen and paper and worked out the real cost of owning an EV in California, maybe keep that Geo Metro for a while longer.

Source: Purdue University

Green for Green: The Truth About America’s Car Buying Habits

At the Society of Automotive Analysts' (SAA) 2011 Automotive Outlook Conference in Detroit, J.D. Power released some statistics on U.S. light vehicle sales in 2010. The figures make an interesting reading.

86% of vehicles sold were gasoline-powered, 8.7% were flex-fueled, 2.6% were diesels and 2.4% were hybrids. Their forecast for 2020 is perhaps even more stunning. An estimated 71.5% of vehicles sold will be gasoline-powered, 10% will be flex-fueled, 9.5% will be hybrids and just 1% will be pure electric.

More than seventy percent will be gasoline powered in 2020? Whatever happened to my Hydrogen-7 or Tesla Model S? As Rebecca Lindland, Director of Strategic Review for IHS Automotive explains, nothing.

"We studied the 1970s and we looked back at the last couple of oil crises, and we found that the [American] consumer will buy small, more fuel-efficient cars for literally three to four months. And then three or four months later, we go right back to buying big cars. It's just a pattern."

When gas prices dropped from $4 a gallon back to less than $1.75 a gallon in early 2009 (see EIA's chart below), buyers simply lapsed back into their old buying habits. It’s one of the reasons trucks / pickups outsold cars in 2010. Lindland elaborates:

"It doesn't matter that there's over 30 new hybrid models on the market. [American consumers are] not buying them."

Most of the auto industry’s hopes lie with Generation Green, the first of which will probably be buying their first car in 2012. Lindland explains why Gen Green are so important:

"They're going to be the first generation to always have a hybrid or electric vehicle as one of their buying choices. They won't have to adapt their buying behavior. These are vehicles that they will have grown up with, and they will have never known a market without them."

It’s not all sunny, however. Jeff Schuster, J.D. Power’s Executive Director, said things such as price premiums, range anxiety and a lack of recharging infrastructure are still hurdles that hybrid and electric vehicles are yet to cross.

"You can read all the stories about how we don't typically drive more than 30 miles in one direction anyway, but the reality is that people want that security," said Schuster. "They want to know they can go further with the vehicle."

Regardless of what consumers want, increasing CAFE standards mean more hybrids; EVs and subcompacts are on the way. Lindland is especially fearful of a reprise of the ‘70s where tougher fuel economies drove carmakers to build “vehicles that nobody wanted” Here’s looking at you, AMC Pacer.

Others though are optimistic. Carlos Tavares, Nissan’s Executive VP and Chairman of Management Committee-Americas (we swear we didn’t make that up) recalls the debate of bringing the Versa stateside. The subcompact sedan and hatchback now commands 20% of the market segment.

"I think at the end of the day, the only thing to be said is let the American consumer decide," said Tavares. "We'll bring the products. We will continue to bring compact cars, and we will eventually reinforce our presence in compact cars, because today nobody can bet on the fact that oil is not going to go up."

So it just goes to show: while we all say we’re concerned about the environment, maybe all we really care about is what’s left in our wallets. It’s a tough reality, but maybe one the world will have to face sooner rather than later. Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.