Jun 6, 2008 6:32 pm US/Pacific
High Gas Prices Has Backyard Brewers Making Fuel
Reporting
Sue Kwon
(CBS 5)
The high price of gasoline has do-it-yourselfers hitting the web for instructions on cooking up their own ethanol and biodiesel.
GreenEnergyNetwork.org has seen a spike in people interested in learning more about ethanol and how it's made. Damon Knutson started the website to show how he and a few other members can make 60 gallons of ethanol a day with a contraption that sits in the backyard of an old Sebastopol mill.
Bad batches of alcohol donated from wineries and restaurants go into a boiler. The hand-made heating column allows vapors to rise and condense.
Over the course of a day, the original liquid turns into 180 proof or 90 percent alcohol which is pure enough to run in most vehicles. All it takes is a minor adjustment to your car's fuel injection system which can cost anywhere from $500-$700.
"Our mission is to displace petrol with sustainable fuel. Ethanol is an extender. I can use 30 percent ethanol with gasoline or all ethanol," Knutson said.
For now, Damon, his brother Durrell and local physics teacher Brian Eberly can brew about 8 gallons an hour. They share it and provide it to others who put "sweat equity" into their project. The goal is not to make money, but to educate the public on the benefits of this sustainable eco-friendly fuel. They will host a free exhibit at the Marin County Fair July 2-6.
In Ukiah, there is another bio-fuel operation, but this one is a money-maker. Kumar Plocher started brewing his own biodiesel as a college student at UC Berkeley. After the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, he took the hobby and made it into a business because he wanted to see consumers get rid of their dependence on foreign oil.
For seven years he plugged away collecting deep fryer oil from local restaurants and brewing it into biodiesel. In May, his company Yokayo Biofuels, finally turned a profit. That money will go right back into developing a more streamlined operation with more tanks, pumps, and sophisticated tools.
Currently, Plocher can make 1,100 gallons a day. His goal is to create as much biodiesel as possible with the limited amount of fryer oil in the area.
Right now, local farmers and residents pay $5 a gallon for Kumar's fuel, the same price as regular diesel. But, in the future he believes that price will come down with more supply and with more people getting used to the idea of biofuels running their vehicles.
While Plocher is excited that consumers are taking interested in biofuels, he worries of inexperienced do-it-yourselfers making mistakes in the garage or backyard.
"A lot of people are homebrewing and using ingredients and a tiny percent are chemists. It's important people understand the dangers involved," Plocher said. "We use wood alcohol and lye in the process. In addition to not wanting to drink it you don't want to get it on skin or breath vapors."
Biodiesel takes about a week and a half to process and it runs in any diesel engine.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
