Fueled by Cheese

The day after I wrote about fracking, and mentioned ethanol as a negative in the fight against climate change, the Star Tribune ran an op-ed by the chief executive of Burnett Dairy Cooperative in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. I'm out of gift links, I guess, so here's a photo of the column as it ran in the paper:

(Click to enlarge, and it should be readable.)

He describes his co-ops's so-far-early efforts to create a biorefinery to turn cheese-processing waste into aviation fuel, bioplastics, or nutraceuticals. The feed stock would not need to be trucked in from all over (other than the milk that is already being brought into the plant), and the output is all useful material or water. So no CO2 to sequester afterwards, as with ethanol plants.

It's clear this is not a process that's ready to start tomorrow, but it sure sounds interesting — if dairy cheese is still a thing in our future.