Biofuel company Celtic Renewables successfully tested the first car to run on fuel created from whiskey residue, according to a July press release.
The fuel, biobutanol, can serve as a direct replacement for petrol and diesel, meaning that gas and diesel engines do not need to be modified in order to use it. It’s made from two byproducts of whiskey: draff and pot ale.
“It is fitting to do this historic drive in Scotland, which is famous not just for its world-renowned whisky but also for being a powerhouse for renewable energy,” Celtic Renewables founder and president Martin Tangney said in the press release. “Celtic Renewables is playing its part in sustainability by taking this initiative from a research project at Edinburgh Napier University to, what we believe will be, a multi-billion-pound global business with the opportunity to turn transport green.”
Around 750,000 pounds of draff and 2 billion liters of pot ale are produced by Scotland’s whiskey industry every year. The byproducts created by the production are useless to the whiskey, the BBC reports.
Celtic Renewables received a government grant to build a factory for biobutanol that is expected to be operational in 2019.
Tangney believes that whiskey biofuel is a $150 million industry in Scotland alone. He plans to target other whiskey producing countries, such as the United States and Japan, in the future.
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