Whiskey in the car is key to future

A Macroom man believes his method of getting energy from whiskey may produce the fuel of tomorrow, writes Dan MacCarthy

AN Irishman has awakened a dormant technology that may yet prove to be the solution for the impending ending energy crisis that the end of oil production promises.

Professor Martin Tangney from Macroom, Cork, has developed a system to extract energy from the by-products of whiskey and convert it to biofuel. That biofuel, known as bio-biutanol, can go straight into engines without modification. Cars would not have to be converted in order to run on this fuel. However, it is likely that initially the biobutanol would be introduced as a blend. BP has researched a blend of butanol and petrol and is ready to go to market, he says.

The process that Tangney’s new company, Celtic Renewables, is adapting for use with the whiskey sector was invented about 100 years ago. It’s a reliable fermentation process, that ironically died out in the 1960s because it couldn’t compete with — you guessed it — the petrochemical industry.

“We’re reintroducing something that we know will work. Where it became a fuel rather than a chemical — commercial product — was where a guy called David Ramey in the US in 2006 filled his Buick up with butanol and drove over 10,000 miles with a totally unmodified engine.

“The beauty of bio-butanol over bio-ethanol which is the dominant biofuel in the market, is that it has about 30% more energy. In terms of existing fuel, this is a better place to start from, and that’s why it is a powerful thing to bring into the market right now,” he says.

Celtic Renewables uses the by-products of whiskey production, draff and pot ale, and extracts energy from them. Famed for its Glemorangies and its Glenfiddich’s, Scotland has a vast lake of these whiskey by-products. But it doesn’t just have to be whiskey. If you can ferment it, you can get energy from it, he says.

“The technology works perfectly well with beers as well and even papers and other local resources,” he says. “Scotland has stolen a huge march on Ireland in the renewable sector. The EU has mandated that countries must produce 20% of renewable energies by 2020, so Ireland must produce 20% of such energy itself by 2020.

Tangney has been carrying out research in the area of biofuels for a number of years and is a professor of biochemistry at Edinburgh Napier University. In 2007 he established, at the same university, Britain’s first research centre dedicated to the development of sustainable biofuel — the Biofuel Research Centre. The move has ultimately led to the launch of Celtic Renewables Ltd.

Tangney explains how the process works: “The process we developed can convert the by-products of whiskey production (pot ale, the liquid from the copper stills, and draff, the spent grains) into sustainable biofuel — no need for engine modification and no drop off in performance.”

The venture is a spin-out company from the university’s biofuel research centre and will initially focus on Scotland’s €4.8 billion malt whiskey industry to develop a next generation biofuel known as bio-butanol, and other renewable chemicals. The company claims the process has huge global potential.

“The Scottish malt whiskey industry is a ripe resource for developing bio-butanol. The pot ale and draff could be converted into biofuel as a direct substitute for fossil-derived fuel, which would reduce oil consumption and C02 emissions while also providing energy security, particularly in the rural and remote homelands of the whiskey industry,” said Professor Tangney. At school Tangney developed an interest in the outdoors through his biology teacher Kevin Corcoran who wrote several guide books to Irish mountains. He studied microbiology in UCC where he developed his interest in science, especially working with bacteria and all the things they were capable of doing. The head of the school was Seamus Condon and he was a big influence, says Tangney. And also Ronan O’Gara’s father, Fergal, who got him interested in genetics. “He opened my eyes to genetics and genetic engineering,” says Tangney.

Armed with a first-class honours degree, he says the qualification gave him a great chance to move out in the world and to do something. A wandering academic and employment career saw him graduate from TCD with a masters in genetics before he found a placement at the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. He found work with Novozymes as a PhD researcher in Denmark and Finland. It was working for this firm that Tangney says he really learned how to take abstract information and develop it into a commercial product.

He filed several patents on ideas that he had invented in the gene technology department. Novozymes is one of the biggest biotechnology firms in the world, making about half the world’s insulin and a lot of biological components that are found in washing powders. They are now interested in biofuels, so it’s coming full cycle there, he says.

“It was at Novozymes that I learned my skills in industry and that’s how I got where I am now,” he says.

He says the potential is huge because the amount of biomass that is generated is significant, but there is a mindset that people need to move out of. That is we’re not going to be able to replace oil on a like-for-like basis. If you contribute 1% of biofuel to our fuel needs, then that is 1% less oil that you will need, he says.

All of Henry Ford’s famous Model-T cars were designed to run on ethanol and he had farms that grew crops to produce bio-ethanol. This was the dominant fuel that he thought would come in. Oil was a blip, he says.

So Henry Ford, whose father William came from Ballinascarthy, Co Cork and now Martin Tangney from 20 kilometres away in Macroom, have played huge roles in the use of ethanol as a fuel for cars. Watch this space.