The dreaming of a home base ethanol heart has been realized , suppose the New York Times , thanks to inventor named Floyd S. Butterfield . One of the world ’s only celebrated non - hillbilly still - maker , Butterfield has invented the $ 10,000 eastward - Fuel 100 MicroFueler , a gadget that commingle heaps of sugar and a sprinkling of barm to ferment an alcoholic brewage which it then distills into grain alcohol . The notion is that , as long as the price of kale stays relatively low , it could be about $ 1 per gal to make the fuel . It ’s even flashy when you put un - drunk stale beer in the scheme : Since the zymolysis is done , all it pick out is the electrical energy to extract the beer into scotch whisky fuel for your car .
atomic number 6 hater would be well-chosen that a gallon of the MicroFueler ’s fermentation alcohol is think to bring forth just 12.5 % of the carbon from a gallon of normal petrol . Butterfield is also someone who people should listen to : In 1982 he won an award from the state of California for “ serious design of an ethyl alcohol still ” says the Times . ( I had NO mind I could accede my still in a contender ! )
Naysayers predict that quality control condition would be a problem ( and anyone who ’s ever homebrewed beer can believably bear witness to the finicky nature of the process . Others charge that since scratch cost 20 - cent per Ezra Pound , and you need 10 to 14 pound to make a gallon of ethanol , well , there goes your cost savings . But Butterfield and his Silicon Valley finance whiz / business married person Thomas J. Quinn swears you’re able to bribe “ uneatable lettuce ” from South of the Border for 2 to 3 cents per pound .
There ’s also a small matter of 100 % ethanol being illegal as an self-propelled fuel , but Quinn says that , too , will be resolved . [ NYT ]
Daily Newsletter
Get the salutary tech , skill , and cultivation news in your inbox daily .
newsworthiness from the future , delivered to your present .
