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Drink more whisky. Save the Earth.
The Scottish are making a promising biofuel from what's left behind from the distillation process.
Wed, Aug 18 2010 at 2:26 PM
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Photo: sashafatcat/Flickr
When Scotch whisky is distilled, it leaves behind two main waste products — a liquid called pot ale and draff, the remains of the grains used in the distilling method. These two waste products are being used by researchers at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland to create a new biofuel.
According to the Guardian, the Scottish have a £4 billion ($6.2 billion) a year whisky habit, and that habit leaves “copious quantities” of both pot ale and draff that in the past has gone unused. This biofuel can be used in regular cars — meaning there’s no need to adapt the engine as there is with some other biofuels. Researchers also say it's possible the biofuel could be used to fuel planes.
The biofuel, called butanol, gives 30 percent more power output than ethanol. With ethanol, corn crops are specifically grown to produce the biofuel. With the whisky waste butanol, no new crops are necessary. The grains grown for the Scotch whisky become the grains used in the biofuel, making this new type of biofuel more environmentally sustainable.
So, if we want to move away from fueling our cars with oil, perhaps we should start drinking more whisky. The more whisky we drink, the more waste there will be to create biofuel, right?
In all seriousness, this seems like a step in the right direction for finding alternatives to oil. The European Union has set a goal that biofuels will account for 10 percent of all fuel sales by 2020. Researchers say this new biofuel could contribute significantly to this goal.
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Ok well guess I should run out and buy some good old Jack then... We should have an incentive for americans to make biofuel from making Jack Daniels and other Whiskeys too here.. Drink up everyone... hahaha
Oh, yeah...you can drink and drive! whoo whooooooooooo!!!!!! great combo fresh meat of fodder for mother earth, thanks to drinking and driving!!!! seems like a winning combo all around!!!! NOT!!!!
amazing illogical drivel that emanates form libturds
Okay come on... not everyone that drinks alcohol purchased by companies that make biofuel out of the waste products will drive. Hopefully the majority. We all KNOW not to drink and drive.
Hey :) smile
YEAH...............drink and drive real good for the earth!!!! fresh corpse is great fodder for mother earth.
Who comes up with this illogical drivel???
It would do you well to re-read this article. It doesn't not promote drinking and driving. Please, do yourself a favor and make sure you FULLY comprehend an idea before lashing out in childish behavior...it would do us all well.
no where in this article does it promote drinking and driving!! There are plenty of responsible drinkers myself included that would never ever consider driving after drinking. The people making these ridiculous statements are mostly likely those who are risking everyone on the road by texting and talking on their cell phones while driving!! See I jumped to a conclusion just as absurd as yours!
I can't believe all the snide commends alluding to drinking being so terrible and bad, such a sin! People, it's not the drink, it's the drinker. Not everyone abuses alcohol. It's a blessing! Let's try not to let our own personal fears get in the way of rational thinking.
Brilliant. It really doesn't take a genius to find simple improvements in our lives and for our planet.
Now we all have meaningful reason to intoxicate or body day after day, LOL!. Great idea! It is what we call Corporate Social Responsibility. I really salute you guys!
finally a project that encourages drunk driving.
please show us all where this project encourages drunk driving! Grow a brain would you!
The Scottish have a £4bn whisky industry, not habit. Ever heard of exports?
Sounds like a legitamate business, maybe www.FreeRecyclingQuotes.com should get involved.
So the average scot drinks about 12,000 dollars worth of scotch a year? How can they afford that, as they would be too drunk to work?
I'm sure similar techniques could be applied to hundreds if not thousands of other consumption-driven waste byproducts.
I'll drink to that
so, today I have saved a lots of .. whatever.. hik!
weill keep on doing dso :)
btw good site bookmarked ;)
ho ho ho
Of course, this isn't the only kind of productive process waste that's necessary to re-utilize to feed the energy we need: I agree the method inserting an existing process, (industrial, biologic or any) . But we're still too far from the total utilization of the secondary organic raw materials.
Secondary feature of draff used to feed cattle is capturing the methane released by the feeding cattle.
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Excuse me, you sound like a moron. If you're going to post on English sites, you need to learn to write in English.
If this actually works, what an amazing idea. One question though...what kinds of emissions would result from using this new biofuel in cars? Just wondering.
The crops are feed by the same CO2 emitted burnig, and according whith some researches, the oxigen contained reduces the presence of non-burned substances at the waste. The lower combustion temperature of this class of fuels reduces drastically the presence of nitrogen, so no nitric acid, and there's no sulphur, so neither sulphurious acid, nor hidrogen sulfide: No acid rains. Personally, I'm satisfied.
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