Brew your own fuel at home for $1 per gallon

If you're tired of paying through the nose at the bowser, a new U.S. company may have the answer for you when it comes to reducing fuel costs. E-Fuel Corp unveiled its latest creation, dubbed the MicroFueler, that allows consumers to produce their own ethanol and pump it into their car from home.

The Microfueler plugs into your home's power and water supplies, and rather than using expensive corn as a processing material the relatively cheap substitute of sugar is used instead. Historically, global prices for sugar have been very low, and E-Fuel Corp will even point customers in the direction of cheap sugar suppliers that can provide inedible sugar at a fraction of the price of regular sugar. The MicroFueler can make up to 35 gallons of ethanol every week, which should prove an adequate amount for most consumers with two cars or less. The price of producing the ethanol through the machine comes in at around US$1 per gallon, more than three times cheaper than the current price of petrol.

A major hurdle the product faces is its steep initial cost of $10,000, which may deter consumers to invest in the machine. If fuel prices stay constant at their current level, utilizing the machine at its maximum capacity every week for a year will yield a saving of around $4700 over what you would have paid for the same amount of petrol. Theoretically, the machine could pay for itself in little over two years, but this is entirely dependent on the price of sugar, which has the potential to fluctuate.