Ideas to Save the World - Whiskey Powered Homes

This is the kind of thing that warms the cockles of my heart. Taking a by product of, in this case a manufacturing process, and turning it into something that is even more useful to society is what I like to see. If you want to read the article the link is below...



To quickly summarize, the spent grains used to make whiskey, called draff, will be trucked no more then 25 miles to a site that will use it with a combination of wood chips to generate power for 9,000 homes in Speyside, Scotland. Another by-product of the process, pot ale, will be donated to distilleries and made into fertilizer and animal feed.

I love this idea, and in the future we will be seeing this more and more, which is a genuinely good thing. I love the idea that grains grow, harvested, made into whiskey and the residual products go back and power and fertilize the farmers that grow the grain.

Of course you must always take this with a grain of salt. The idea of it is great and I really hope it works, but does it? Will the energy required to produce the fertilizer exceed normal processes, making it more wasteful? Even if it does, is it better to have an organic fertilizer made from more energy? What is the consumption of wood chips required to be mixed with the Draff? Where is the wood sourced from?

When asking these questions, without getting any answers (haven't done any research), it can make the idea a bit depressing. I am essentially asking is the recycling process doing more harm than good? Sometimes the answer is yes, other times, it can be no. I hope this one is a firm yes when you balance all the equations. I love the idea of my power smelling like a bit Chivas in the distant wind.