Yes, I know the pain of even hearing the concept, but here it is: Whisky could prove to be the car fuel of the future.
Once you have fully recovered from the shock, here are the details:
Residue from whisky production could be used to power cars in the near future.
With ambitious EU targets to cut emissions by 2050 set at 80% Scotland’s greatest export could prove an invaluable ally in the process, according to Auto Express.
An Edinburgh-based biotechnical company, Celtic Renewables, is looking into how to convert waste from whisky distilleries into biobutanol – a viable substitute for petrol and diesel that doesn’t require any modifications to how engines current function.
See, it wasn’t as dire as it sounded, eh?
And should research progress, it won’t be long before a million liters of biobutanol replaces conventional fuel, which will offset CO2. (Yes, a politically correct fuel that offsets CO2, the source of all life on the planet, which the Climate Change purveyors now classify as a pollutant. Somehow, it is fitting that whisky is the solution.)
“When Henry Ford mass produced the Model T, he designed it to run on bioethanol. Ford was a biofuel man,” explains Professor Martin Tangney, Celtic Renewable’s founder and president.
“He had the idea of creating circular economy, something everyone talks about these days.”
Tangney is a microbiologist by trade, and began looking toward the whisky industry in 2006 and spotted the possibilities to make a change early on.
“Pure malt whisky is made out of three ingredients: barley, water and yeast. The barley seeds are first left to germinate to release sugars. The distillery then adds hot water to extract the sugars, especially the glucose. It finally adds yeast which converts glucose into ethanol,” he explains.
Only 10% of what comes from a distillery is used for whisky, the remaining 90% is waste, such as copper-contaminated water – known as pot ale – and barley that has been starved of sugars, which is known as draff.
“This happens 24/7 all over the country. In Scotland, over two billion liters of pot ale is produced each year, along with three-quarters-of-a-million tons of draff,” Tangney says, the rest is usually dumped into the sea but it now seems that it could be put to better use on the roads.
So, take a shot of whisky and put the rest in the tank of your car.