Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

On some New Zealand streets, cars are being powered by a new biofuel made from recycled beer waste.

During the fermentation process, the so-called yeast slurry that’s left over is usually wasted, so the company looked into ways to use the slurry to produce ethanol, a key ingredient in biofuel.

The company called on a scientist to distill and refine the ethanol until it turned pure enough to begin mixing with petroleum. The result: Brewtroleum.

This isn’t the first time beer has been used to create ethanol. Molson Coors has been creating ethanol since 1996, and showed off their beer-based biofuel at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in 2008.

DB Export’s recipe could be applied to a wider scope of cars, since many cars still can’t run on a very high percentages of ethanol, which could spark engine troubles.For now, DB Export says they hope to not only reduce waste from their own brewing process, but by creating a cleaner fuel for cars, also play a small part in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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