Brewing could soon power your home!!!

Interesting read on a brewer who is using wastewater from brewing to create electricity.
Beer maker, Scientists to create energy

Yet another reason why beer kicks a$$.

This kind of thing is what the world needs!

I've been to Brisbane about 12 years ago. I loved it there.

Well, if you drink enough of the sediment from the bottles, you could have your own NG source too!

The folks at New Belgium Brewery - makers of Fat Tire, do something similar...

http://www.newbelgium.com/sustainability.php

in a video-tour I watched, they said methane generated from their water-treatment plant helped power the brewery itself.

Circle of life.

kvh

***EDIT*** This is the link to their water-processing plant: http://www.newbelgium.com/innovation_waste.php

oh, and also, New Belgium was apparently featured on MSN recently too... : the hbt thread: http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=28866

Try and do that with grapes, winos!

david_42 said:

Try and do that with grapes, winos!

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Lol. Down with the vines! Down with the vines! C'mon...everybody! Down with the vines! They are ruining our world! WINEBIBBERS!!!!

save fossil fuels - drink more beer!

I'm attending community college right now to become a renewable energy engineer, and this is a great way to combine my two interests (homebrewing and stickin' it to big oil).

It's awesome New Belgium cares enough to go to the expense of making their own water treatment plant!

Just throwing this out there for david and zoebisch (and for controversey's sake)- winemaking is clearly more environmentally friendly than beermaking because there is much less heating/cooling involved. That's the element of homebrewing I like least - using a couple gallons of propane and wasting cooling water each time I brew. Wine just happens naturally.

UTDoug said:

It's awesome New Belgium cares enough to go to the expense of making their own water treatment plant!

Just throwing this out there for david and zoebisch (and for controversey's sake)- winemaking is clearly more environmentally friendly than beermaking because there is much less heating/cooling involved. That's the element of homebrewing I like least - using a couple gallons of propane and wasting cooling water each time I brew. Wine just happens naturally.

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For controversy sake....

In the winter, it helps warm my house. I have well water which is cool enough sans further cooling. The worst part is pumping the water for me. I hand crank my grain mill. I plan on reusing the runoff from the cooler in the future to water plants....I just have to set up a gray water system (on the long long list hehe). The water goes back into my septic where it eventually filters back into the aquifer..so no real loss only the energy to pump it.

Grapes are one of the most sprayed crops from what I understand. I think it is like anything, you have to do a complete analysis of the entire cycle in order to find out which is truly more environmentally friendly. I am not sure anybody really knows the answer to that though.

Dave and I were just having fun :fro: