Rolling on Whisky
on
A team of Scottish researchers actually did it. It took them 2 years and a lot of money, but they developed a process that uses Whiskey brewing byproducts that normally would go to waste to create bio butanol (and to no longer waste them). The advantage of butanol is that it can be used in gasoline engines without modification. The used byproducts are 'pot ale', the liquid from the stills, and 'draff', the grains used in the whisky brewing process. If it wouldn't be for the bio butanol creation, 1600 million litres (of pot ale) and 187000 tonnes (draff) would go to waste a year.
I'm not sure to how much (single malt?) Scottish butanol this would amount, but it sure sounds like a great plan. Too bad it's not possible to deploy such a process in other countries. However, one attractive way to make this process more broadly applicable would be to start brewing Whisky on a huge scale ;).
Photo by Calidenism

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