威士忌副产品或会成为下一代汽车燃料（在线收听）

威士忌副产品或会成为下一代汽车燃料

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

苏格兰是世界上最大的威士忌生产地。而现在苏格兰的教授发现了如何从蒸馏过的威士忌中提取废料并将其转化成可用作燃料酒精生化丁醇的方法。

Martin Tangney, founded Celtic Renewables, an Edinburgh-based company that is producing biobutanol at a plant in Belgium.

马汀·塔格尼是凯尔特再生能源的创始人，这家总部位于爱丁堡的公司在比利时工厂生产生化丁醇。

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

“在威士忌的生产过程当中蒸馏出不到10%的物质实际上才是主要产品。剩下的大多数都是酒糟和大麦这2种不需要的残留。”

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

而这些残留组合在一起可以诞生出一种新的物质。通过使用一种有一个世纪历史的发酵过程，它们能够被转化为生化丁醇。相比是由玉米和甘蔗制成的生化乙醇，这种源于威士忌的生物燃料能够提供更多的能量。

“It has almost the same amount of energy as petrol, 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.”

“它几乎可以和汽油提供的能量一样，然而生化乙醇只能提供70%。你可以储存，输送并且使用现存的设备分配，而事实上，你都不需要对发动机进行调整。”

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

塔格尼并不期望生化丁醇彻底取代汽油，但是他希望二者能够混合。这可能会成为飞机，轮船及加热设备的燃料。他表示客户也正在通过将这种减少汽车油耗的燃料帮助改善我们的环境。

Celtic Renewables 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.

凯尔特再生能源已收到英国政府1700万美元的拨款，他们将在苏格兰建造一家工厂并且预计在3年内投入使用。