Make your own Ethanol for $1/gal.

[rogwild]

If the Popular Mechanics article is correct about the V~1; "a small rear-mounted internal-combustion engine that can burn gasoline, E100 pure ethanol or any blend in between," this might be a handy addition::IDEA:

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/make-your-own-e.html

They say you can make 35 gal/week (about 5 gal/day) with just raw sugar and yeast at a cost of under $1 per gallon. =y: The kicker is the home system costs about $10,000 ($7,000 after federal energy credits) and you need to get an ATF permit to operate it.:COP: Sounds interesting, really 'Fuel Up at Home'; just don't drink-up all your profits!:LOL:

[RAN]

I noticed this in the above article:
A permit from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms will allow you to make ethanol legally, but running 100 percent ethanol in your car is against the law.

Why would E100 be against the law to run in your car? Because there's no gas in it? Don't we have enough laws as it is? Sheeeeeeesh.

I also believe that you're only allowed to make something like 400 gallons/year for personal use before you have to pay fuel taxes on the rest. I know that's true for making biodiesel.

[rogwild]

I'm sure that there are a lot of 'stumbling blocks' (like taking 10-14 lbs of sugar [@$0.20/lb] to make one gallon of ethanol), but the idea of making your own fuel at home, plus charging from the grid (or solar) is appealing. Also they have to provide a method to procure and distribute that $0.025 Mexican (non-edible) sugar to the home 'distillers', before this would be economical (not counting the $7-10k for the machine).