Scottish startup Celtic Renewables says it can turn waste from the country’s Ј4 billion ($6 billion) whiskey-making industry into millions of gallons of renewable fuel, creating a Ј60 million ($90 million) biofuels industry, National Geographic reports.
Only 10 percent of a distillery’s product is future whiskey, the magazine says. The other 90 percent is daft, the residue of the grains of barley; and pot ale, a copper-laden liquid.
Disposing of this waste cuts into manufacturers’ profits. Tullibardine, a distillery located about 50 miles away from Celtic Renewable’s Edinburgh headquarters, produces about 2 million liters (528,344 gallons) of pot ale and 6,500 metric tons of draff annually, National Geographic says. Disposing of it costs the company Ј250,000 ($375,000) a year.
The distillery has started supplying Celtic Renewables with feedstock for a pilot project that will turn the organic matter into industrial alcohols including biobutanol, a biofuel. The process is called ABE (for acetone-butanol-ethanol) and it uses the bacterium Clostridium acetobutylicum.
Source: Environmental Leader