The E-Fuel Micro-Fueler, on display in New York. Click for photo gallery.
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)NEW YORK--"Henry Ford had it right all along," E-Fuel founder and CEO Thomas Quinn declared, referring to the fact that many original Model T Ford automobiles ran on the ethanol, not gasoline. But that was before the era of Prohibition, which banned production of the biofuel along with other forms of alcohol.
Now, he hopes ethanol can have a real revival.
In a press event at Revel, a Meatpacking District restaurant that features a greenhouse-like roof and trees growing inside, Quinn and his fellow executives unveiled the EFuel100 MicroFueler. It looks like a cross between a gas pump and an old-fashioned refrigerator, it'll cost $9,995, and it'll be available for customers in the fourth quarter of 2008 (if all goes well).
What is it, exactly? It's a home ethanol refinery. Connect it to a power source and a water source, add sugar "feedstock" and yeast or discarded alcohol (yes, that could mean last week's tequila) and in a week it can produce 35 gallons of ethanol that Quinn said any car can run on.
"I'm from Silicon Valley and I've worked with some very talented entrepreneurs in my lifetime," explained Quinn, whose previous start-up Gyration was responsible for a patent in Nintendo's "Wiimote" controller. "A couple years ago, I sensed this paradigm shift that we're all feeling today." He was referring to fossil fuel shortages and the rising cost of gasoline. With gas prices well over $3 per gallon, and no real middle ground in the market between industrial biofuels (there are still only 1,200 ethanol stations in the U.S., and only three in the entire state of New York) and "moonshining" operations that can be difficult and dangerous, he saw the opportunity to create the EFuel100.
"It's almost third-grade science to make ethanol," Quinn said. Anyone in the U.S. can obtain a license to produce alcohol, ethanol included.
But ethanol, for better or for worse, has gotten a bad rap. Some have connected rising food prices to the fact that corn-based ethanol means crops are going toward fuel rather than human consumption, and some reports have claimed that ethanol's carbon footprint isn't as "green" as it appears.
E-Fuel's executives have attempted to counter this rumor by saying that its sugar-based ethanol won't hurt food prices because sugar is a surplus crop, and that sugar ethanol is inherently more efficient than corn. And it's safe to make at home, because no combustion is involved.
Throughout the press conference on Thursday, Quinn reiterated that there's nothing unusual about making car fuel in your backyard.
"We're already in the ethanol business," he explained, gesturing to the bar at the back of the restaurant, "but we're using it as a beverage drink."
Click the image to access the gallery
Many in the auto industry are touting ethanol as the solution to the challenge of post-petroleum transportation. Major carmakers advertise many new cars can run on E85--a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline--and they trumpet the fuels environmental benefits relative to gasoline. But the ethanol story is not as straightforward as it sounds. Aside from the lack of infrastructure--only around 1,400 out of 170,000 U.S. filling stations have ethanol available--the production of ethanol from corn has drawn criticism for its cost (in terms of food-stocks and land usage) and the relative inefficiency of the conversion process.
An alternative alternative is cellulosic ethanol, which is made from nonfood sources, including a variety of organic, industrial, and domestic waste. At this year's Detroit auto show, General Motors announced that it had invested in Coskata, a producer of cellulosic ethanol based in Illinois. Check out our gallery to learn how Coskata's conversion microorganism-based conversion process works and why cellulosic ethanol promises to be a big deal in the automotive world.
Comedian Jay Leno is known for his coveted collection of performance cars, but here is one Leno's babies that had eyebrows raising all over the SEMA show here in Las Vegas. This Pratt & Miller-designed road rocket come with an 8.2-liter engine--that's 1.2-liters more displacement than the "regular" competition Corvette CR.6 on which it's based. Not only is it equipped with a T-56 six-speed transmission, Arvin Meritor dynamic ride control suspension, and a K&N air filter with carbon-fiber ram air induction, it also has a Dewitt high-capacity aluminum radiator with dual cooling fans, a Corsa performance exhaust, and a Brembo GT brake package.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
And, not only is it adorned with carbon fiber accents, a modified C6R-inspired front fascia, BBS-sourced 18-inch front and 19-inch rear wheels, widened front and rear quarters, and C6R LED tail lights....and not only does it have all this, plus a custom designed instrument panel, steering wheel, and gear shifter....It is also an E85 flex-fuel vehicle that means it can be run almost entirely on corn.
DAVIS, Calif.--Reporters who covered software in the '90s will remember Karl Jacob. Microsoft bought his company, Dimension X, in 1997. He was chatty. Occasionally, some reporters referred to him as "sources close to the company."
After leaving the big M, he went off to Keen, Benchmark Capital and a few other things. And now, he's the world record holder of the standing mile speed record.
This Viper runs on ethanol.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)In July, Jacob cranked up his modified Dodge Viper from a standstill to finishing a mile in 27.41 seconds. He hit 220.7 miles an hour during the sprint, a record. The old top speed for the standing mile was just under 218 miles an hour. He did eight runs on the day.
Jacob didn't drive the car on the record run. Instead, it was driven by Ron Misjak of Super Viper, which modified the car. In any event, Jacob did pay for it, has driven the car and says it's a kick. That puts him ahead of Alcibiades, who won a first in chariot racing at the ancient Olympics without getting behind the reins. (It was a common practice among the nobles.)
We spoke at the green car pavilion at the GoingGreen conference in Davis. Karl and Ian Wright of Wrightspeed showed off their performance cars. Others were showing off low-speed electric vehicles.
Jacob and a team of mechanics had to tinker quite a bit with the Viper. They boosted the horsepower from 500 to 1,200, for one thing. Additionally, they switched it from running regular gas to running E85 ethanol. E85 comes with an octane rating of 105, higher than regular gas.
The engine
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)"It is not common knowledge that you can convert these cars (Vipers) to E85," he said. But apparently, it's pretty easy. All you have to do is upgrade the fuel lines, change the engine's computer and alter the timing.
More than doubling the horsepower probably had a big effect on the performance of the car, but the extra octane can't hurt. Ethanol also cuts down on the greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. Fast clean cars are sort of a fad. Earlier this year, a 1965 biodiesel-burning Impala that beat a Lamborghini in a drag race. Electric sports cars, meanwhile, are coming to market.
Overall, the Viper and its modifications cost about $200,000. Good thing Jacob worked at Microsoft.
PALO ALTO, Calif.--This is sort of like the "two, two, two mints in one" solution for the clean-tech set.
Australia's Terra Fuel Technologies has come up with a device that, when added to a diesel car, bus or truck, lets the vehicle also run partly on ethanol. You need to add a second gas tank on the vehicle to hold ethanol, but in the end, it's an ethanol-diesel car. The device, a black box, controls the flow of ethanol into the engine.
The company has tested it and will start selling it in the United States.
Who in their right mind would want this? Adding ethanol to a diesel engine actually improves performance of the vehicle by about 10 percent while reducing emissions, said Alexander Daniel, vice president of Business Strategies International, which is trying to help Terra Fuel get traction in the States.
Running a diesel engine on vegetable oil, a clean alternative, can degrade performance a little, even according to biodiesel fans.
Diesel drivers, of course, can reduce emissions by running their cars on a mix of regular diesel and biodiesel. But biodiesel is made from oil, Alexander and others at BSI noted, and a lot of countries don't have a lot of spare vegetable oil. Australia, for instance, grows sugarcane, which can be turned into ethanol.
So who knows?
The company presented its objectives at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit here Wednesday.
(Credit:
Candace Lombardi/CNET Networks)
This car is not as boring as it looks.
As we have written about at length, ethanol fuel is gaining momentum as a possible alternative to gas.
The Saab BioPower E100 concept vehicle, which is at the New York Auto Show, runs on E100 (100 percent bioethanol fuel). The BioPower E100 would be a turbocharged 2.0 liter engine that offers 300 horsepower and runs on bioethanal.
While the BioPower E100, which debuted at the Geneva Auto Show, is only a concept, Saab does sell the Saab 9-5 BioPower, which runs on E85.
The Saab 9-5 BioPower, which is sold in Europe, is part of Saab's flex-fuel lineup.
Flex-fuel vehicles, are just what they sound like: vehicles that are flexible regarding the kind of fuels they can use, so you can still fill up on ordinary gas if you find yourself in a place where ethanol is not an option.
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