– A U.S. firm that believes it has the answer to high fuel prices with machines that make ethanol at home says it has been swamped with orders even before the first unit ships in September.
Since California-based firm E-Fuel Corp officially unveiled the 100 MicroFueler last month, there had been overwhelming interest in the product due to crude oil holding above $130 a barrel, Chief Executive Thomas Quinn said.
"We've got hundreds of orders from individual customers and on the dealers side, we've thousands of interested dealers, which would add up to thousands more orders," Quinn said late Wednesday.
The machine processes sugar and water into alcohol — the chief energy-producing component in ethanol — and delivers it to fuel tanks of vehicles through a hose and nozzle just like those used at gas pumps.
It runs on electricity, stands as tall as a stacked up washer/drier, is weather-resistant and can be placed in a garage or anywhere outside the home.
Quinn says the MicroFueler can turn out a gallon of ethanol for just under $1, compared with the average pump price of U.S. gasoline hovering above $4 a gallon. With crude oil hitting a new record above $140 on Thursday, analysts say gasoline is unlikely to get any cheaper.
The MicroFueler can generate 35 gallons of ethanol a week, using 10 to 14 pounds of sugar per gallon.
Since most automotive experts do not endorse 100 percent usage of ethanol in motor vehicles, Quinn said customers could fill three quarters of their tank with the MicroFueler and top up the balance with regular gasoline.
The MicroFueler sells in the United States at just below $10,000. But the cost to U.S. customers is expected to be under $5,000 after federal and state tax credits of up 50 percent for alternate fuels, Quinn said.
E-Fuel estimates that at current gasoline prices, the MicroFueler will pay for itself in under two years for a family that runs two cars and drives about 34,500 miles a year (55,520 kilometers). The company says U.S. purchasers could also get carbon credits, since making ethanol from sugar emits fewer greenhouse gases than making it from corn.
The homemade ethanol industry has been long experimented in the United States but not taken off due to technology, quality and cost issues. Some ethanol experts doubt E-Fuel's creation will transform the industry.
Quinn said what will help the MicroFueler is its dependence on abundantly-available and cheap sugar versus the costlier and scarcer corn, the feedstock for U.S. ethanol plants.
U.S. corn futures hit a record of over $8 a bushel in recent weeks as flood destroyed huge swaths of the crop grown in the country's Midwest region. Sugar futures, in contrast, have remained in the 10-15 cent a lb range for a year.
In the U.S. retail market, sugar fetches about 20 cents a lb. But Quinn says he can source inedible sugar from Mexico for his customers for as little as 2.5 cents a lb.
Quinn said commercial ethanol plants ran high-temperature boilers that consumed much energy to separate alcohol from their feedstock but the MicroFueler did the same with little power using fine microelectronic filters.
