Your own fuel pump, in own garage...
With fuel prices climbing up relentlessly, the big question is, what’s next? Electric vehicles? Hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles? According to the California, US-based company, E-Fuel Corporation, not necessarily. The company is betting big on its technology, which allows people to covert sugar into ethanol that’ll cost about Rs 10 per litre. Sounds too good to be true? Read on…
E-Fuel Corporation recently unveiled a device called the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler, which is about the size of two large washing machines, and which uses sugar, yeast and water to make 100% pure ethanol at the push of a button. The 90kg machine uses raw sugar, a proprietary time-release yeast mixture and leftover whiskey – if you have any lying around – as its basic ingredients, from which it churns out ethanol. The MicroFueler even comes with its own pump and hose, so you can easily fill up your car or bike at home. And yes, almost any vehicle than can run on petrol, can also run on ethanol.
Its makers claim the MicroFueler will bring about a paradigm shift in motoring as we know it today. They liken to it the personal computer, saying that like the PC brought computing to the average household desktop, the MicroFueler will bring the fuel pump to every household. In the US, the MicroFueler costs the equivalent of about Rs four lakh, and those who’ve done the math say that after you’ve factored in the cost of sugar, yeast, water and electricity to run the machine, you’ll still end up getting fuel that’s much cheaper than what you buy at your neighbourhood pump. Would something like this, work in India? We don’t see why not!
For more details on the MicroFueler, visist the E-Fuel website here.
