In what the butter-loving among us might call a scandalous waste, scientists have figured out a way to turn this creamy milk product into biodiesel fuel.
Although butter failed final quality tests for a totally perfect biodiesel fuel, the scientists say that it's possible to mix their purified butter with other vegetable or animal fats to make a workable fuel.
Their paper is published online in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.
Around the world, interest in finding alternative fuel sources has skyrocketed, spurred by the recent Gulf oil spill disaster.
But is butter really a viable alternative?
According to the scientists, who are working for the United States Department of Agriculture, our country would be wise to explore every option.
The United States produces about one billion pounds of butter annually, the USDA reports.
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In 2007, the United States committed to producing at least 35 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022 when the Energy Independence and Security Act was signed into law. And although the National Biodiesel Board estimated that the United States produced about 700 million gallons of the fuel in 2008, the country still lags behind the European Union, who produced more than 700 million metric tons of the stuff in the same year.
The facts have triggered concerns about America's ability to meet the 2022 goal. A conventional source for biodiesel is refined edible oils. Most of that has come from ethanol, the USDA said in a press release.
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But because that cost is relatively high and the supply for biodiesel raw materials is relatively low, the resulting fuel is expensive. That's why we should be looking at every alternative, the scientists say, such as animal fats, inedible vegetable fats and even algae.
"It is pertinent to consider any material rich in acylglycerols as a potential biodiesel feedstock," their paper states.
Image courtesy of Flickr/Robert S. Donovan.
Tags: Alternative Fuels, Alternative Power Sources, Chemistry, Energy, Fossil Fuels
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