Imagine if your favorite beverage could also produce fuel for your vehicle! Sounds impossible, right? Well for beer lovers out there, it turns out that the process of making beer creates a waste product that can be recycled and mixed with petroleum to make a normal fuel product.
Since fuel is made up of 10% ethanol and 90% petroleum, the waste product (known as yeast slurry) can be converted into ethanol to make up 10% of the fuel composition. Whether or not the use of yeast slurry is a more environmentally friendly option to regular fuel production is still highly debated, although it is true that currently, in the US, corn is grown specifically to produce ethanol, and this industry is causing harm to the agricultural landscape of America, so perhaps the use of beer byproducts (that otherwise would be thrown away or given to animals) is a greener effort.
This discovery was publicized by a New Zealand beer company, Brewtroleum, and is worth looking into further since yeast slurry is definitely not going anywhere any time soon. Further studies will have to be conducted to ensure the complete performance of this new mixture, but with oil reserves rapidly shrinking around the world, inventions like this one may be the start to creating real alternative energy options.