The Chic Ecologist

Beer Powered Cars, Ethanol Fuel from Beer Waste – I’ll Drink to That!

Sierra Nevada Brewery did something pretty green and innovative recently- they are converting their waste products into fuel for their automotive fleets. They are using the EFuel100 MicroFueler home ethanol maker along with the bottom of the barrel brewery waste of yeast and sugar to create Ethanol (E85) fuel. It’s starting out as a pilot program for just their own fleet, but they hope to expand it to include employees, distributors, and may go even further with it through E-Fuel’s distribution network.

These refrigerator-sized portable ethanol refineries raise the alcohol content in the mix to 15 percent and remove the water. With 1.6 million gallons of waste created each year (currently sold to farmers as feed), there is quite a bit of potential fuel. Creative waste solutions and environmental awareness are starting to gain traction among many micro-brewery’s, appealing to many of their ‘green minded’ customers. I love to see brewerys go green!

[via dvice]

Tags: beer, Beverages, BioFuels, Ethanol, Fuel

Eco Biofuel From Biodiesel B5, B20 and B99 to Flexfuel E85 – The Future of Alternative Fuel?

Propel Biofuel Station - South Lake Union, Seattle

I was walking around the South Lake Union area of Seattle when i happened across a pretty little fueling station named Propel. It had a green roof, planters and educational interpretive signs like something you might find at a wetland or bird observation area. It looked more like a grade school garden experiment funded and built by green design architect parents. It changed the way i looked at biofuel and biodiesel stations. I was used to the more home-grown bio-diesel stations you find in Berkeley, or the backyard cookers. The ones that are old, kind of junky and funky, but at the same time give you that › Continue reading

Tags: Automotive, Engineering, environmental impact, Fuel