Engineering Eye... February 2016

News, rumours and gossip from the world of engineering

We all know that France is a cheese-loving nation, but did you know that it also plans to create energy from the beloved dairy product? More precisely, a new power plant in the French Alps has begun generating electricity running off skimmed whey – a byproduct from making the local Savoie region’s Beaufort cheese. The plant in Albertville converts the whey into biogas using bacteria. The biogas is fed through an engine that heats water and generates electricity. The whey-fuelled plant will produce 2.8 million kWh a year, enough to provide power to 1,500 people. I’ll never look at a block of cheese the same way again.  

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