E85 Made From Garbage Could Cost Less Than $2 a Gallon

Rather than putting your garbage at the curb, you may soon be putting it in your gas tank.

General Motors has purchased an equity stake in Coskata Inc. of Warrenville, Ill., which has come up with a process that uses bacteria to produce E85 ethanol fuel out of garbage, scrap tires, wood chips, and even recycled foam, rubber and plastic in today's junked cars.

While E85 is currently made from food-based sources, GM says non-food-based ethanol can be produced for about $1 a gallon, or about half of what it costs using corn today — meaning E85 could be priced under $2 a gallon at the pump.

E85 contains less energy than gas and gets 25-30% lower mileage than regular lead-free gasoline. But at $2 a gallon, the price wipes out the mileage disadvantage while also providing a use for garbage and scrap tires— they could produce fuel to get us to work and back rather then get buried in unsightly landfills. 

In fact, GM says, a facility could be set up at the landfill that would both produce the fuel and eliminate the typical garbage-depot eyesore. Or the fuel could be produced from tree scraps at lumber mills in the forest, or using lumber taken from homes destroyed by tornados, hurricanes or floods.

Unlike corn-based ethanol, which requires between three and seven gallons of water to produce one gallon of fuel, Coskata says it only takes one gallon of water to produce one gallon of non-food-based ethanol — and the water can be recycled to produce more. 

The first pilot plant will begin producing the fuel in the fourth quarter of this year for use in testing vehicles at GM's Proving Grounds in Michigan, and a plant producing up to 100 million gallons of the fuel for retail sale will be operational in 2011.

GM, which announced the deal with Coskata at today's Detroit auto show media days, is holding talks with oil companies to determine which ones will offer the fuel.

Comments

[Troy in Ft Walton Beach]

This reminds me of the Delorean from "Back to the Future".

Great idea to reduce our landfills!

[cody]

I was thinking the same thing Troy. I would actually buy E85 if they were making it out of trash, and at this price, the govt won't even have to subsidize it.

[Infosaur]

I remain bullish on Ethanol and Bio-diesel.

Fry oil goes "bad" after a while, but can "non-food grade" used oil still be made into bio-diesel?

This is VERY early in the tech.

Hi
I live Mount Carroll ILL. I have a 2006 GMC pickup I use E85 all the time in it. I'm getting about 3 mi. less per gallon. In Illinois you get a rebate on E-85, but you have to start at the first of the year, with your starting millage, keep all of your fuel tickets, and then you have to send them in at the end of the year. You can find all of the information on the internet by going to illinoisgreenfleet.org. this will give you all the information you need about E-85 and the rebates.
Bob

[Schneitz]

How many millions of gallons of fuel a day would we save if we went back to the 55 MPH speed limits?
Also, long distance travel by train, I could run my vehicles for years on what it takes to get one of the planes off the ground.

[panic]

Can your vehicle carry over 500 people? A Boeing 747 with 500 people on board gets the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon, which is .01 gallons per person per mile. A car that gets 25 miles per gallon would have to have 4 people in it to get the same mileage.