You'll still get your whiskey; it's the byproducts that are being diverted. (Image courtesy iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

The world of biofuels is abuzz these days with new innovations. First up, an intrepid metabolic engineer from the University of Illinois has stepped up to the challenge of efficiently developing biofuels. And that’s great because while we keep coming up with ideas for feedstock — or things that we can turn into biofuel like corn or switchgrass or butter(!) — we’re having a hard time balancing the energy equation in terms of efficient production. As our own Josh Clark pointed out in a recent Discovery News article, the net energy yield gets you every time.

Instead of examining the problem from the feedstock side, Yong-Su Jin, an assistant professor of microbial genomics at the University of Illinois, decided to fiddle with the genetics of the yeast involved in fermenting the feedstock. Jin essentially turned Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the microbe most typically used when making ethanol, into your college roommate who could drink you under the table without blinking an eye. He identified and overexpressed four genes in the yeast species that seriously boost ethanol and iso-butanol tolerance. One of the strains that Jin tinkered with wound up producing 70 percent more ethanol by volume and tolerating 340 percent more alcohol before the alcohol became toxic.

Speaking of booze and biofuel, Edinburgh Napier University has filed a patent for a new biofuel made from whiskey byproducts. Writers have been having a buzz, I mean, a blast, reporting on this development (the Grist’s “Whiskey biofuels getting tanked” is pretty excellent). The biofuel relies on what’s called pot ale, the liquid from the copper stills, and draff, the spent grains, as the basis to generate the butanol that will then find its way into your car, according to the related press release. Much like the extra kick a stiff drink might give you, researchers say that this whiskey biofuel belongs to the next generation of biofuels; a generation that’s attempting to provide a little extra power to the fuel you pour in your car. Pretty sure it doesn’t come with a hangover.

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