Researchers at Utah State University develop biofuel from waste produced by industrial cheese industry

Scientists say you can run your diesel-powered vehicle in future on fuel brewed from the watery waste of mass-produced cheese.
A team of researchers at Utah State University has claimed to have created a bio diesel fuel out of the waste produced by the industrial cheese industry.
"The smell is fun, especially when the engine is warm," the Los Angeles Times quoted Mike Morgan, a Utah State biochemistry undergraduate who recently drove a dragster that runs on the fuel.
To make the fuel -- called yeast biofuel -- the scientists start by mixing microbes (yeast) into the watery yellow liquid left over when industrial cheese makers make cheese.

The liquid is mostly sugar lactose, since the cheese- makers already pulled the fats and proteins out to make the cheese.

The microbes convert the sugar into oil in a process similar to how humans convert the sugar from candy bars into fat, the report said.

"However, the microbes are more efficient at turning sugars into fats than we are," said Lance Seefeldt, a Utah State biochemistry professor who led the project.

The scientists then pull the lipids (fats) out of the pasty microbe concoction and turn that into biofuel.

The good news is that there is a lot of cheese waste in the process of producing cheese.

Seefeldt said just one cheese plant can make as much as one million gallons of liquid cheese waste a day.

From that, he estimates his microbes could make 66,000 gallons of fuel, which also produces a sweet exhaust that smells like fresh-baked bread.

Seelfeldt said he thinks a company could bring the biodiesel fuel to market in five years.