A wee goldie for me, and one for my Vespa

September 18, 2004 6:36 AM

Proof of the warming power of whiskey. A pilot project, which will see the first district heating scheme based in a distillery, is being set up at the home of the Old Pulteney in Wick. It will produce environmentally-friendly power and reduce heating and electricity bills for nearly 600 householders.
posted by psmealey (5 comments total)

Interesting. If I got it right excess heat from production process is recycle by rendering it into steam (heat carrier) which is used to heat houses (doubt it's being rendered into electricity, even if technically possible).

Basically heat is moved were it's most needed (houses) and the little village becames a rather big economic-efficient radiator.

GOOD ..for the villagers ; unfortunately one can't really tell if it's environmentally friendly, given that the article offers no data at all. Also, there's an under-the-radar risks with associated cost : what if the distillery goes bankrupt ?
posted by elpapacito at 6:54 AM on September 18, 2004

Just for good measure, here is some information from the DOE on electrical power generation from biomass projects. As far as it being environmentally friendly, I think they usually omit the word "comparatively" before the description. But, it is a renewable source.
posted by psmealey at 7:04 AM on September 18, 2004

A distillery would never go bankrupt in Wick.
posted by johnny novak at 8:06 AM on September 18, 2004

I'll bet this is just a front for a sinister WMD program.
posted by homunculus at 10:15 AM on September 18, 2004

johnny: ehehe yeah , you sponge
posted by elpapacito at 11:35 AM on September 18, 2004