Whiskey - potential biofuel for cars

Every second, about 44 bottles of whiskey leave Scotland and are shipped to other countries. Whiskey has become the most internationally traded spirit in the world and generated $5.9 billion in export sales last year alone.

However, every liter of whiskey produces a large amount of waste: about 2.5 kg of solid by-products, 8 liters of wine residue liquid, and 10 liters of used wastewater. According to the statistics of Zero Waste Scotland, this number amounts to 684,000 tons of solid by-products and more than 2.3 billion liters of wine residue each year. Part of the waste is used as animal feed, the rest is buried or dumped into rivers and oceans.

Scientist Martin Tangney with a biofuel product from whiskey.

Recently, a biofuel scientist has come up with an innovative idea to recycle this type of waste. Martin Tangney, the founder of Celtic Renewables, used fermentation to transform whiskey by-products into biochemicals that could replace gasoline and diesel used in cars as well as replace fuels. other petroleum products.

Biofuels are not a new idea. In the late 1800s, Rudolph Diesel experimented with soybean oil as a fuel for the engine of the same name. In the 1930s, the founder of the Ford automobile company - Henry Ford - considered plant-based ethanol 'the fuel of the future.' But growing crops was relatively expensive and oil was a cheap alternative. money.

Tangney's goal is to find a cheap material to make biofuels more commercially viable and sustainable.

In 2011, Tangney founded the startup Celtic Renewables. Celtic Renewables uses a fermentation process called acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE), in which bacteria break down the sugars in whiskey grounds into acids. They are then further broken down into solvents such as butanol and ethanol, two substances that can be added to gasoline or diesel. Celtic Renewables tested the fuel with a Ford that used gasoline with 15% biobutanol made from whiskey.

Tangney says his fermentation technology is not limited to whiskey by-products, but can also use waste from other food industries. The inventor shows that solvents from fermentation can be used as an alternative to oils in plastics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, clothing and electronic devices.

Biofuels, made from renewable organic ingredients such as corn, soybeans or sugarcane, are often promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels. However, their production often requires large amounts of land, and this can deprive them of the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Alison Smith, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford's Institute for School Reform, warns that when aviation and other industries see biofuels as a quick solution to carbon neutrality, it will be a "huge trade-offs and impacts on biodiversity, carbon storage and food security" depend on raw materials. Meanwhile, fuel made from "original waste" such as whiskey by-products is "the best kind of biofuel" because it does not suffer from the above problems.

There are already whiskey-powered vehicles around Scotland around the world. William Grant & Sons' Glenfiddich Distillery uses biofuel produced onsite from whiskey by-products to fuel some of its trucks, reducing the company's carbon footprint by 90%. truck.

Celtic Renewables has raised more than $52 million, with backing from private investors, government funding, and community funding.

Last year, the company built Scotland's first biorefinery, with the capacity to convert 50,000 tonnes of whiskey by-products into biochemicals. Tangney said the plant will be fully operational by the end of this year once testing is complete.