The green, green Grouse

A top Scottish distillery is looking to blaze an eco-friendly trail for others in the industry by taking part in a scheme to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

The Glenturret Distillery, home of the Famous Grouse, will use oil-producing algae to turn fumes generated by whisky production into biodiesel, with the algae stripping carbon dioxide from the emissions and converting it into oil and protein.

The ground-breaking system was developed by Scottish Bioenergy with the help of a Shell Springboard award.

Robin Harper, Green MSP, who officially switched on the bioreactor, said: “This project is tremendously exciting, and I hope that it will be thoroughly successful.

“In the fight against climate change we need soft engineering alternatives to be applied at every opportunity, and this alternative to pumped carbon capture and storage holds great promise.

“If it proves to be economically competitive and can be scaled up the potential could be absolutely huge.”

David van Alstyne, head of Scottish Bioenergy, praised the efforts of all involved in making the scheme a reality.

He said: "A couple of years ago the idea of using algae as carbon recycler sounded absurd but with the support of Shell, Edrington Group and the Scottish Environmental Technology Network we have built Britain’s first pilot scale bioreactor."

Alan Lodge, 07.10.2009