Fuel

It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from old beer, leftover wine and other waste products and use it to run their vehicles. That's what inventors of the E-Fuel MicroFueler claim, and there's support for the idea in government, industry and pop culture. MicroFueler buyers are eligible for a $5,000 tax credit. Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal is an investor in the system's distributor. The $10,000 E-Fuel MicroFueler consists of a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, and a still that converts it to pure ethanol, or E-Fuel.

A former government contractor was charged with making false statements as military investigators probed the apparent theft of nearly $40 million in fuel from a U.S. Army base in Iraq. Lee William Dubois of Lexington, S.C., was arrested at Dulles International Airport outside Washington. At an initial appearance in federal court in Alexandria, Dubois was ordered held pending a detention hearing Monday. In a court affidavit, an Army investigator said Dubois and his conspirators stole 10.5 million gallons of jet and diesel fuel valued at $39.6 million from Camp Liberty in Baghdad.

American Airlines parent AMR Corp. said Wednesday that rising fuel costs pushed it to a fourth-quarter loss of $69 million, ending six straight profitable quarters for the world's largest carrier. The loss of 28 cents a share contrasts with year-earlier profit of 7 cents, or $17 million, the Fort Worth company said. Sales rose 5.3% to $5.68 billion. Excluding special costs and gains, AMR's loss was 74 cents a share.

An Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, became the first commercial jet aircraft to use alternative fuel Friday, marking a milestone on the road to biofuels. The double-decker A380 needed no modification to use the gas-to-liquid, or GTL, fuel, which was designed to be mixed with regular jet fuel so the airplane "does not know the difference," Airbus said.

Corn is a key element of the U.S. food supply. It is what dairy cows eat to make milk and hens consume to lay eggs. It fattens cattle, hogs and chickens before slaughter. It makes soda sweet. As the building block of ethanol, it is now also a major component of auto fuel. And that may signal trouble ahead.

While much of the world argues over whether biofuels made from corn are worsening world hunger, the debate in California is shifting to new state rules that could revolutionize the way fuels are judged. A gathering this week in Sacramento offered a glimpse of a complex "poly-fuel" future that promised substantial environmental benefits as well as wrenching change for California's transportation systems.

Federal regulators banned excessive fuel surcharges by railroads and imposed strict rules on the fees that many companies this week credited with bolstering their quarterly earnings, although the savings were unlikely to trickle down to consumers. In its decision, the Surface Transportation Board said the railroads must link the surcharges directly with the actual fuel costs for specific rail shipments.

The 1.6 million visitors a year to the USS Arizona Memorial are told by their guides about the legends surrounding the oil that still bubbles up from the sunken battleship. One legend holds that the oil represents the tears of the 900-plus sailors and Marines entombed below decks since the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941. Another says the oil will continue to surface until the last Arizona survivor dies.

With dwindling oil supplies, pollution concerns and the ever-present threat of gas prices soaring again, talk of new and better ways to fuel our cars, heat and cool our homes and power our factories has never been greater. What's more, the conversation is emanating increasingly from a source that's been surprisingly quiet until recently -- the oil companies themselves.

Ethanol will consume more than 30% of the U.S. corn crop annually over the next decade, compared with current usage of about 20%, according to a 10-year government estimate of farm production and prices. The area planted with corn will rise to 90 million acres by 2010, compared with 81.8 million acres last year, as U.S. farmers become suppliers of fuel as well as food, the Department of Agriculture said. Most ethanol made in the U.S. is made from corn.