SCOTTISH HOMES to GET POWER from WHISKY

IT GIVES A WHOLE NEW MEANING to a warming dram. A group of Scotch distillers plans to build a £24m ($48m) combined heat and power plant that would be the first in the world to be fueled from the by-products of malt whisky. The Combination of Rothes Distillers (Cord) would replace its dependence on fossil fuels by taking as fuel the used malted barley known as “draff” and the “pot ale” residue left by the distilleries on Speyside. The plant would be able to generate 7.2 megawatts of electricity, mostly for export to the national grid – enough to power 9OOO homes. It would also save about 46,642 tons of CO2 being emitted annually, compared with an equivalent level of coal-fired generating capacity.

Cord, which comprises the Edrington, Chivas Brothers, Glen Grant, Inver House, Diageo and Ben Riach distilling groups, hopes to encourage take-up of energy from its plant through a community scheme to heat local homes. The plant would also convert the pot ale left after the first distillation of whisky into a concentrated organic fertilizer for use by farmers on crops such as the barley used in the malting process. The project would be built within the site of a Cord-owned processing facility at Rothes in Moray.