Officials in Monroe County, New York are working with High Falls Brewery on a plan to turn beer waste into ethanol and produce enough of it to power much of the county’s fleet of vehicles. If all goes well, the county hopes to have extra available to offer ethanol-based fuel to the public.

According to a Gannett News Service story out of Rochester, NY, the Coors brewery in Golden, Colo., is producing 3 million gallons of ethanol a year and is the largest operation of its kind in the country. Other brewers, including Anheuser-Busch and Miller, also produce ethanol, and Northeast Biofuels LLC is turning an old Miller brewery near Syracuse into the state’s first ethanol plant.

“The process is similar because so many of the ingredients that would go into beer, one could use to make ethanol,” said Matt Hartwig, spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group in Washington D.C. “It’s just a matter of how much of that material is available.”