Homemade Ethanol Pump

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By Amity Addrisi, Reporting

Story Created: Jun 24, 2008 at 10:56 PM PDT

Story Updated: Nov 20, 2008 at 10:11 PM PDT

Homemade Ethanol Pump
Feeling the pinch of rising gas prices could make people skip the gas station and fill up at home. Go to a gas station, and you're paying over $4.50 a gallon. But at Tom Quinn's house, he pays a fraction of that for fuel. He makes ethanol with his new invention - the EFUEL 100 Micro-fueler.

Tom Quinn says "Our machine works just like a washing machine. you connect to 220 power, connect water in, water out." First sugar and yeast is mixed with water and fermented. Over 1-2 days, it's pumped into a distillation column where a vapor of ethanol and water passes through a nanotech membrane - water filters out tiny holes while ethanol continues through an exit port.

Consider you need 12 pounds of sugar, per 1 gallon of ethanol. If sugar stays at 10-cents per pound, producing homemade ethanol costs $1.20 a gallon. But if you have access to a brewery or a winery's throwaways, producing ethanol from alcohol, will set you back just 10-cents a gallon and a few hours time.

Homemade fuel comes with an upfront cost, The Microfueler's pricetag? - $10,000. But, you can siphon off a few thousand in tax rebates.