VOA双语新闻：3、威士忌生物燃料技术（在线收听）

威士忌生物燃料技术

We know we shouldn’t drink alcohol and drive. But whisky could help us be more environmentally friendly drivers.

谁都知道不能酒后驾车。但是，从威士忌副产品中可以提取出新的生物燃料给汽车提供动力，有可能成为未来新潮流。

Whisky byproducts are being transformed into biofuel, which could reduce oil consumption and cut emissions that contribute to global warming.

这种来源于植物的燃料可以降低油耗和减少排放，排放导致了全球气候变暖。

Scotland is the world’s largest whisky producer. Scottish professor Martin Tangney has discovered how to take the waste products from distilling whisky and turn them into biobutanol, an alcohol that can be used as fuel.

苏格兰是全球最大的威士忌生产地区。一位苏格兰教授发现了通过蒸馏威士忌，将残渣变为生物丁醇的方法，让酒也可用作燃料。

“In the production of whisky, less than 10 percent of what comes out in the distillery is actually the primary product," he said. “The bulk of the remainder are these two unwanted residues — pot ale and barley.”

坦尼说：“在威士忌的生产过程中，蒸馏酒场产生的东西，只有不到10%是主要产品，剩余的大部分是两种多余的残留物：酒糟和大麦。

Those residues are combined to create a new raw material. And by adapting a century-old fermentation process, it is converted into biobutanol. Tangney said the whisky-based biofuel provides more power than bioethanol, which is made from corn or sugar cane.

那些残留物被组合生成一种新的原料。在采用有百年历史的发酵程序后，转化为生物丁醇。比起玉米和甘蔗，这种以威士忌为原料的生物燃料可以提供更多的动力。

“It has almost the same amount of energy as petrol [gasoline], whereas bioethanol has only got 70 percent of it. You can store it, and pipe it, and use the existing infrastructure to distribute this, and in fact, you do not need to modify an engine,” Tangney said.

坦尼说：“它与汽油提供的能量几乎一样多，但是生物乙醇只有70%。你可以储存它，可以用管道输送它，可以用现有的基础设施分配它。并且，实际上你不需要去修改引擎。

Tangney, director of Edinburgh Napier University’s biofuel research center, founded Celtic Renewables, a private, Edinburgh-based company that is producing biobutanol at a plant in Belgium. He doesn’t expect biobutanol to replace gasoline altogether, but be blended with it. It’s possible the fuel may also be used in planes and ships, and in heaters.

马丁·坦尼创立了凯尔特可再生能源公司(Celtic Renewables)，总部在爱丁堡。他们在比利时的一家工厂生产生物丁醇。坦尼并不期望生物丁醇可以完全取代汽油，但是可以将它混合。这种燃料也有可能会用于飞机、船只和加热器。

He said consumers would also be helping the environment by “reducing the oil that we consume by putting this into their cars.”

他说，消费者也帮助保护环境。 “实际上，他们给汽车加这种燃料，减少了油耗，帮助保护了地球。”他说。

His company has received a $17 million grant from the British government to build a plant in Scotland that’s expected to be operational within three years.

凯尔特可再生资源公司已经收到由英国政府资助的1700万美元拨款，在苏格兰创建一家工厂，并且计划在三年内投入运营。