In a couple of hours, I am going to toast this new technology with a glass of Scotch & water. 
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I wonder if the exhaust smells like alcohol. if you get pulled over for speeding, you get a ticket, and your vehicle gets one for drunk driving. 
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This applies to any facility making ethanol, Iâd think. Why isnât it already being done?
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Iâll drink to that technology! 
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Thatâs terrific. Before I read the article I didnât think there could possibly be enough whiskey byproducts to make a meaningful contribution to the gasoline business. If one plant can handle 55,000 tons per year and the market is big enough to support more distillation facilities, then it could make a meaningful contribution.
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Read the article. Seems the process, cultivation of anaerobic bacteria, in the residual âmashâ as we Americans call it ( correct me if my interpretation is wrong) should be applicable to nearly any distilled spirits that are grain based, or possibly plant and fruit based spirits. The article did mention applying the process to other area of food production.
I would like the article to have contained more information, now I may have to research it further.
It would seem to me there would still be residual water and solids.
Did a little research, the European patent for the process was granted in 2016. Found another article on other processes to convert distillery waste to fertilizer and animal food, along with the butanol.
Hmm, what are the ethanol plants in Iowa doing with their waste products?
Probably dumping it in Missouri.
Animal feed.
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Or, as the âsecret ingredientâ in fast food.
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Special Sauce?
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I work with a guy that takes yearly trips to Scotland to purchase his supply of Scotch Whisky for the year. He had to buy US Whisky last year and 2020 due to covid. He wasnât pleased. I donât drink Whisky so I have no idea who makes the better Whisky. I do know he spends a lot of money per bottle
All that matters to us is taste. Let the distillers figure out the rest.
There is a chain of liquor stores, Total Wine,. They hold classes on spirits. Went to a whiskey tasting, Scotches from different areas of Scotland have different taste. We also sampled bourbon, Irish whiskey and Japanese whiskey.
Thank goodness no scotch was harmed in this process!
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I hear there is another byproducts issue with biodiesel that doesnât make as friendly as one might imagine. Tons and tons of glycerin/glycerol are produced and although it has various uses, none can account for all this waste so it is a new issue. I found this out while trying to figure out a use for surplus hand sanitizer and the fact that it contains glycerin. This stuff needs a special burner to completely burn off and can be toxic if not burned at a high enough temp and vented properly. I guess burning this product for fuel hasnât been made economical yet because my understanding is that ponds of this stuff are being created during biodiesel production.
I burned much of the surplus hand sanitizer in a burner placed within my wood stove and it made a nice amount of heat plus all the glycerin burned off cleanly and anything that didnât was vented. The glycerin was pooled at the bottom when I did a test burn outside in the open before putting it inside the stove as it didnât get hot enough burn this off when uncontained.
It sounds like there is a need to someone to develop a means of burning this for fuel or economically convert it to something more useful as there is a lot of it out there and it is just waste at this point. The main issue with burning it at a low temp is the production of acrolein which is present in small amounts in most fried, baked, or grilled foods. It is generated by the overheating of fats/oils.
Either way, glad to hear our drinking habits arenât as bad for the planet as before. Now someone needs to figure out a way to make glycerol waste âvaluable.â
As far as the hand sanitizer, get an external combustion engine!
Perhaps a steam turbine to turn a generator to power your home or a Stanley Steamer for those shopping trips.
Yes, and those buggies were very fast for their time!
And, because the Stanley Brothersâ cars came with a lifetime warranty, one should be able to get all repairs done in perpetuityâgratis.
The bad news is that F.E. and F.O. Stanley are long dead, as is their company, so⊠no warranty.
Just get car shield extended warranty for your Steamer.
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I looked into trying to add this stuff to gasoline but it would have taken WAY more effort than it was worth. If I knew the supply would never dry up, I would maybe look into distilling this into a better fuel. I thought it was all gone and then ended up with about 50 more gallons. Again, I think it is gone not but I might be wrong.
I spent about $15 on a stainless steel bowl at Wal-Mart and had some random stainless scrap from a gas grill I junked to make a simple burner out of. It worked great and produced a good amount of heat. I would be spending THOUSANDS to properly distill and separate the glycerin from the mix which apparently doesnât like to separate from alcohol very well.