Scotland's Cars Could Soon Run on Whiskey Byproducts

[Bugbear]

Disclaimer: this post is intended in jest.

That's cool, and a neat idea; hope it works out well. I happen to be feeling curmudgeonly and skeptical today, though.

That is approximately 1 million out of 657 million barrels per year, which appears to be approximately .15 percent (point one five, if I did the math right) of the annual oil* consumption in the UK; assuming you can really compare Butanol to oil in barrel form.

You guys aren't drinking anywhere near enough whisky!
In fact, if they couple this with the breathalyzer car starting devices, you might actually take a bite out of the 657 million barrels of oil.


*oil is used for a whole bunch of other things other than petrol and it isn't clear if that is accounted for in the numbers; your mileage per drink may vary.

[Pleater]

It looks as though the process could use other substances, once it is set up and running the waste products from brewing, processing sugar beet and other vetetables and probably fruits could be used, plus biomass from farms.

As the original process was discovered 100 years ago - the world could be a very different place if butanol had been introduced as a fuel for the still developing car industries, rather than petroleum.

Developing dwarf forms of grain might have been counter productive, if the straw could be used for fuel, devising a system for harvesting potato haulm might have made someone's fortune, or any of the other parts of plants not used for anything now could have become an important source of fuel.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: