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Sugar at retail is $22.10 per 50 lb bag, from Costco. And that comes to $0.4422/lb retail price. So it would cost me $7.52 per gallon of ethanol. Add to it the electricity consumed in the refining process. Not counting my cost of hauling the 50 lb bag from the store, loading it up to the device. The $7.52 is pretty too steep a price to pay for a gallon of ethanol. The $7.52 is cheap, however, compared to a gallon of Bacardi 151.
And for $10K device... A very good distillation setup that is available from retail, right now, can be had for $299 with free shipping and handling. These are available from Brewhaus.
http://www.butanol.com/
1) If commercial ethanol plants are not able to break even without subsidies, why would a small scale personal version be able to?
2) As pointed out by WineMaker5000, sugar is very expensive in America. That is why ethanol producers use corn instead of sugar. It turns out that it is artificially expensive because of huge tariffs.
Molasses is no cheaper since it is mostly sugar and water. The increased weight of the water makes it more expensive to ship. It is used to produce rum because of theextra flavours in molasses.
3) America does not and cannot economically produce sugar. Increased sugar production increases Amazon rain forest destruction and dependence on foreign sugar. Really no advantage over oil.
4) Fermentation stinks. It produces all sorts of nasty smells and toxic byproducts. Everyone hates it when an ethanol plant is built in their town because of the smell. See the diagram of the device on their website. It includes a waste port and two vents.
5) I would worry about the safety of having a large tank of volatile fuel sitting around. What if it gets a leak, catches on fire, or tips over?
However, if one were to live in an Industrial Zoned District, and home brew, I'm sure this would be more legal. I just would not buy a residential home next to an ethanol manufacturer!
To make a long story short, from the looks of the unit, I would suspect it is capable of producing 1 to 2 gallons of ethanol per week. Even ignoring the cost of the sugar (which may or may not be cheaper then corn) and the cost of energy to distill the "hootch." I would think 1 or 2 gallons per week would not be enough to really make a dent in most peoples gas usage. As for cost of the unit, you can get a distillation column off ebay for about $200, put that on a used $50 beer keg and heat it with a $30 gas ring from Walmart and have the same thing at a much cheaper price. I suspect this is a very cool way to make vodka if you don't mind paying $10,000 for the best still in the neighborhood, but I hardly see it taking the world by a storm.
- by MD_Willington February 3, 2009 9:17 AM PST
- Ah jeez the gol darn revenuers will be all over ma fancy new still...
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(13 Comments)The "license" is a tax stamp from the BATFE...