Drinking beer and driving can save the planet (but not at the same time says DB Export.
The New Zealand -based company has developed Brewtroleum, a biofuel made from the yeast left over from brewing beer. DB Export turns the yeast slurry into ethanol which can be mixed with regular petroleum fuel.
Although the process of combining ethanol and petroleum isn't new, the company says it's the first time beer by-products have been used to make commercially available E10 (10% ethanol and 90% petroleum) fuel.
E10 is considered by some to be a greener, more sustainable alternative to pure petroleum fuels but there has been debate about the impact of increased corn production in the US. There is also debate about the performance effects of fuel with ethanol mixed in, especially in E15, which uses a mix of 15% ethanol and 85% petroleum.
DB's Brewtroleum will be available at 60 Gull fuel stations across New Zealand. The company produced about 79,251 gallons (300,000 litres) of the product from 7,925 gallons of ethanol, which the company estimates will last about six weeks. Some 8.8 million bottles of beer will have been produced to create the supply of yeast slurry. That's a lot of beer drinking, even by Antipodean standards!