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Dimàirt, 19/Jan/2010
Islay's Bruichladdich Distillery only goes a tiny bit Greener?
Two days ago, on Sunday morning, I came across some interesting news from Islay. It sounded a bit too good to be true, but I spread it on Twitter anyway. The news in question was a report in The Times, Methane galore on whisky island. In quote:
Energy from whisky? Lovers of the amber spirit may think it sounds like the environment movement’s worst-ever idea but the Scottish island of Islay is pioneering a system that uses whisky to create green energy.
Of course this was picked up elsewhere soon too: Distillery plans to cut costs with bacteria-eating 'digesters' wrote The Scotsman, Cheers: whisky to power a Scottish island and local cars is the title in The Australian (although that seems to be just a syndicated article from The Times). Oh, and The Times ‘recycled’ it itself under Islay to run on whisky waste. Off course the blogs picked up on it as well:
Green whisky from Islay – the water of life brings power wrote Objective Associates while Ron titled Islay is Getting even Greener. What got me a bit confused though was this: Small whisky brand trumps rivals with methane story | Furlong PR. Not so much the Black helicopter, but more the question of how much of this was potentially overblown PR (or reporting, keeping in mind the Islay Distilleries and Renewable Tidal Energy question from last year, see also More Islay Tidal Energy Links).
For so far one voice had been missing. The voice of Bruichladdich distillery itself. Until today, that is. In Hot Air Mark Reynier pours some cold water on the dreams:
The Times reported at the weekend that Bruichladdich is to become self-sufficient in electricity. The piece, like with most green agenda topics, was rather sexed up in that Alistair Campbell way.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds quite a bit smaller than ‘methane galore’. Thinking about it, this will realistically only be used to generate electricity, which is only a fairly small part of the overall energy needs of a distillery. Seems those diesel engines to generate the steam for the stills won't be switched off for a while yet…?
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