Beer Could Benefit Push Towards Greener Energy

Engineers in Europe are currently researching ways to recycle the large amounts of waste produced by the production of beer.  Since 2000, when production increased and disposal restrictions became stricter, major beer manufacturers all over Europe have been looking to maximize waste reduction.

Wolfgang Bengel said that “Beer making is energy intensive – you boil stuff, use hot water and steam and then use electric energy for cooling – so if you recover more than 50 percent of your own energy costs from the spent grain that’s a big saving.”

Bengel is the technical director for large biomass company, BMP Biomasse Projekt, which is based out of Germany.  The new research being conducted was inspired by China and Thailand who currently use their rice and sugar cane waste as a means to produce greener energy and cut down on residual waste.

Recently, BMP Biomasse Projekt teamed up with other German based companies including INNOVAS, BISANZ, and Slovakian company Adato to form a partnership which would construct a plant that would utilize waste steam to produce energy.  The companies are now shopping around their plants to breweries who wish to cut waste by recycling it into energy to power their breweries.

The technology behind these new plants however is not new.  Currently Anheuser-Busch uses it’s Bio-Energy Recovery Systems to turn waste into energy, as well as 9 out of 12 US breweries which use similar systems.   Using waste to generate energy could save the breweries up to 15% in energy use a year.

Special thanks to www.greenoptimistic.com for the above quote, for more information please view the article on their website.