Whisky Distillery Tries a Wee Dram of Biofuel
(Reuters) A small Scottish whisky maker is aiming to turn its by-products into biofuel and become the world’s first whisky distillery to fuel car and trucks in a move which could see Scotland’s 100-plus distilleries feed a new 60-million-pound industry.
Independent whisky maker Tullibardine has linked up with Edinburgh Napier University to produce biobutanol, and a spin-out company from the university, Celtic Renewables, is looking at two sites to build a processing plant in central Scotland.
The distillery is supplying by-products to a plant at Redcar in northeast England to refine the process, which could help met the Scottish government’s targets on carbon emissions and the European Union’s on the use of biofuels.
Tullibardine, some 50 km north west of Edinburgh, supplies sugar-rich ground barley, known as draff, and yeasty liquid, or pot ale, both of which are by products from the fermentation and distillation processes in whisky making.
Distillery managing director Douglas Ross currently spends 250,000 pounds a year to dispose of these by products spreading them on fields or making them into animal feed, so for him it replaces a cost with environmental and commercial benefit. READ MORE
