Whiskey Makers Make Headway in (Actually) Sustainable Biofuel

By Automology April 11, 2022

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The Scottish whisky industry is world-renowned and this writer has drank her fair share to keep it alive, but the fact is that it generates a whole lot of waste and by-products. For a long time now, whiskey makers have banded together to find a sustainable way of disposing of the leftovers, converting most of them into cattle feed and now, biofuel.

Glenfiddich uses biogas in delivery trucks

Glenfiddich, one of the giants of the whiskey industry, has been able to convert their production waste and residues into an Ultra-Low Carbon Fuel. Spent barley grains or draff are fed to bacteria to create the ULCF that the company claims cuts CO2 and other harmful emissions by 95-99%, compared to other fossil fuels.

The company is walking the talk and has converted some of their delivery trucks to be able to use this whiskey-waste juice and transport their spirits from the Dufftown facility, where fuelling stations had been installed, to bottling and packaging sites across Scotland.

Glenfiddich is not the only whiskey company making headways in biofuel. As we have written before, a Scotland-based company called Celtic Renewables has been upcycling draff and pot ale (yeast and grain residue) into biofuel – namely, biobutanol – that can power conventional ICE vehicles, and very well at that. Biobutanol theoretically can be a direct replacement for fossil fuels as they are chemically similar, which also means that no engine alteration is required.

At the Celtic Renewables processing plant in Grangemouth, they can produce one million litres of biochemicals every year out of 50,000 tonnes of draff. That’s a lot of waste upcycled and a whole lot more fuel to come out of it.

Many countries are considering or have implemented energy policies that has accelerated the demand for biofuel. Of course, governments often miss out on the big picture, which has resulted in food crops having to compete with fuel crops for land use, a problem that wouldn’t exist if biofuel production used mainly secondary biomass or, in layman’s term, leftovers.