What was the name of the automobile Fuel device on the Heraldo show mothers day 2008?

Question

h**l-o, I'm not sure the name of the product? I should have written it down but thought I would have simple recall, Guess what? I didnt !.. no suprise there. I think It was something like Autofueler or the like.. You buy the machine add sugar and it makes you an auto type fuel in your own backyard you can get credits from the government to purchase this device@ about 5000.00 or less I would like to do more research on this but I cannot get the name right to continue my search there is very little about devices to make fuel for you. but plenty on recipies to make fuel yourself. Without the/a propper container to ferment the fuel everyone on the westcoast will hear about me on the 5:00 news. Lol,thank you for all your help. M

Answer 1

sounds like the crock o S***e o-matic

Answer 2

The product is the MICROFUELER, produced by the E-Fuel Corporation.  The general process is much like a standard fermenter and still, except that the still has been replaced with a zeolite membrane (probably the Vaperma product).  This means that the ethanol doesn't need to be boiled out, but can be squeezed out, just like a reverse osmosis filter cleans drinking water.

Normally, making ethanol from corn would return about 1.0 BTUs for 0.75 BTUs of energy input, including the fermentation, distillation, harvesting, and transport.  Using sugar is more effective to start, and the membrane based dewatering costs about half as much energy as normal distillation.  Using this machine, you might be able to get 1.0 BTUs of energy for 0.6 BTUs of external input (instead of the normal 1:1 ratio at large-scale outfits).

So the inputs:

13 lbs of sugar (about $13 / 90,000 BTU)

13.2 kW*hr of electricity (about $1.50 / 45,000 BTU)*

Yeast (about $1.00 per batch, about 0.20 per gallon)

*This is an estimation.  The E-Fuel corporation provides no information on their website as to the electrical energy requirements of the MICROFUELER.

The output:

1 gal of E100 (about $2.00 / 75,000 BTU)

So the input is about $14.7 of ingredients to get $2.00 worth of ethanol.  So how does this get knocked down to $1.00?

The E-Fuel Corporation offers "carbon credit" coupons.  I'm not certain what the exact mechanism is, but it seems they are selling some poor mopes carbon credits for you to produce ethanol.  The "coupons" are actually used as some type of rebate.  They are only valid when used through an approved E-Fuels vendor.  The coupon value is in lbs, so I'm guessing they reimburse you fully for the weight of sugar listed on the voucher.  The only remaining cost would be the estimated $1.50 per gallon for the electricity, and $0.20 per gallon for the yeast.  This is still more than the $1.00 per gallon they claim.

Also, the Feds will only pick up 30% of the machine's $10,000 price tag.  The "50%" stated by E-Fuels Corporation assumes that your state will pick up 20%.

E-Fuels does charge about $1.00 per carbon credit coupon, but it seems negligible compared to the 595 lbs of sugar shown on their example.  This does seem a little too good though.

It's interesting, but it will need more than a grain of salt.  Maybe a bucket?

Edit--

Ooh... The Senate just passed a new farm bill, and that sugar might get a little more expensive.  Also, large scale refiners are also starting to use these membranes, so their stuff will get cheaper too.