According to The Telegraph, the French city of Albertville has found a way to both enjoy cheese as food and to rely on it partially for electricity. Albertville-based energy company, EDF, has designed a new kind of power plant that turns leftover whey into energy. And, in a cheesemaking region, the power plant is able to generate at least 2.8 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) each year – enough to power a community of 1,500 people. The power plant in Albertville takes leftover whey from cheeses like Beaufort (which uses full-fat milk) and ferments it, producing methane gas. That gas is then used to fuel an engine to heat water – water that generates the electricity to support a sizable size of the city’s population of approximately 19,000 people. Technology is a wonderful thing, friends. (H/T Smithsonian.com)
