The 660 Gallon Brewery Fuel Cell

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's University of Queensland has secured a $115,000 grant for a 660-gallon fuel cell that should produce 2 kilowatts of power. A prototype has been operating at the university laboratory for three months. This fuel cell type is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol, plus in this instance produces clean water."

Comments

Me Homer

[wmwilson01]

Call me Homer Simpson, but all I heard was "beer, beer, beer, Mmmmm beeerrrr".

Re:Me Homer

[__aaclcg7560]

Except that the damn bugs are drinking the beer and pissing clean water.

Re:Me Homer

[Anonymous Coward]

At last they've found someone who'll drink Fosters. That now makes 1) bacteria and 2) stupid Americans.

Re:Me Homer

[sortius_nod]

As an aussie... I assure you that this was just logical progression.

1. make beer
2. drink beer
3. make power with beer
4. ????
5. profit

I just hope they don't use XXXX waste for it... the bacteria will spend more time throwing up than making energy.

Re:Me Homer

[Simpsoid]

You Sir are a galoot!
XXXX (Bitter) is Queensland's finest beer!!!

Now I'm starting to think you mistyped "VB" ;)

Re:Me Homer

[TapeCutter]

It's called XXXX because Queenslanders could not decide wether to call it "beer" or "piss".

Re:Me Homer

[mstahl]

Only Australia would try to power homes off beer....

*books tickets*

Re:Me Homer

[Bloke down the pub]

I agree. They should be trying to make it work in reverse.

Re:Me Homer

[manno]

OOOOHHHHHHH....
in heaven there is no beer
that's why we drink it here
and when we're away from here
our friends will be drinking all our beer!

-manno

Re:Me Homer

[Gilmoure]

It's comparable to a Welsh Claret.

Re:Me Homer

[oh_my_080980980]

Beer...is there anything it can't do :)

Re:Me Homer

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

XXXX (Bitter) is Queensland's finest beer!!! That's a bit like saying "Strauss is England's finest opening batsman".

Just for reference

[geekoid]

that's 20 100 watt bulbs.

Not bad.

Re:Just for reference

[ez76]

More importantly, Zima has found a market!

Re:Just for reference

[maxume]

How many 20 watt bulbs would it be?

Re:Just for reference

[fyngyrz]

that's 20 100 watt bulbs

Or 200 10 watt compact florescent bulbs, which is all we use. Not 200 of them, of course. But in a 5000 square foot home, we do have quite a few.

More importantly, that's an average rate, so storage during off hours could yield considerably more output. If you sleep 8 hours of a 24 hour day and aren't home for another 8 while you work, that leaves 8 hours at 6 kilowatts if you control your inactive power consumption decently, and even if you don't, you could still end up with a great deal more than 2KW available to you. Storage also allows for short peak usage (startup of furnace blowers, refrigerator motors, air conditioners and so on... takes a lot more to start most motors than it does to keep them turning, even under load.

I would definitely be willing to make room for a 700 gallon or so tank; I wonder what the feeding, cleaning, and environmental requirements for a production version will be. I've been seriously considering solar, but the high installation cost and the relatively short lifetime of silicon cells (20 years or less) doesn't work out very well. If this thing can run long term and isn't a maintenance nightmare, I'd jump on that puppy instantly.

Re:Just for reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Or better yet... how many libraries of congress would that be?

Re:Just for reference

[LiquidCoooled]

Breweries have essentially been doing this for centuries now, the process is methodical and is no more hard work than tending a small garden or cooking your own meals.

Re:Just for reference

[Hemi Rodner]

2 kW is just one kettle.
So it's certainly not enough for "powering an household", as the article says.

Re:Just for reference

[cptgrudge]

I would definitely be willing to make room for a 700 gallon or so tank; I wonder what the feeding, cleaning, and environmental requirements for a production version will be.

Me too. And I'm pretty sure I don't only speak for myself when I say that I want details, not a stupid Yahoo article.

Re:Just for reference

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA says this thing needs sugar, starch, alcohol and the like to operate. I'm certain you don't produce much of these. This is not for homeowners. It's for breweries.

Re:Just for reference

[TheThiefMaster]

Or more importantly for the slashdot crowd, it's 5-10 powerful pcs (depending on psu efficiency)

Re:Just for reference

[Prune]

CFLs have terrible color rendering ability because their spectrum consists of narrow, tall spikes. It can never be filtered to approximate daylight because there are no practical wavelength-specific filters that can be used. On the other hand, the smooth spectrum of a blackbody (incandescent) can easily be filtered to match daylight, and high end incandescent bulbs (SoLux, etc.) produce actual daylights spectrum.

Human productivity is increased by the presence of daylight: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content _storage_01/0000000b/80/22/64/ac.pdf

If you match daylight spectrum with a light, you would get the same effect. This can only be done with an incandescent, not fluorescents, not high intensity discharge lamps, not LEDs!

My computer averages 400 W (running SETI etc.). My audio system alone goes over 2 kW. For 400 Hz and higher frequencies I'm using glow discharge plasma based on Alan Hill's patent. The power supply for that draws 1800 W continuously.

There is plenty of energy to be had--breeder reactors and several extensions such as the waste transmuter developed at CERN allow most nuclear waste to be reprocessed for more fuel. As uranium mines wind down a thorium-based fuel cycle will provide plenty of long term energy supply, far more than is needed for the offspring of the multibillion dollar international ITER project to have begun operation. However, the greens insist on inadequate sources like solar and wind power because those things force conservation and that way they restrict progress. Environmentalists are at best Luddites and at worst fanatical misanthropes.

Re:Just for reference

[ajs318]

Twenty 100 watt bulbs?

I think you mean a hundred 20 watt bulbs. I checked all the light bulbs in my house, and the biggest I can find are two 36-watt tubes in the attic. Most are 18 or 20 watts, with a few 11 or 12 watt ones in table lamps.

Re:Just for reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring the snide remarks about your big house, what kind of power bills do get and what part of the country are you in?

We installed solar for heating our hot water about a year ago, and we only had to use electric booster heating on 9 or 10 occasions over the winter. Plus we got a fed 30% tax credit for it after the balance from the $500 rebate from FL state.

If you really want to go PV, there's a company that will install them for free and charge you for your power usage. So you don't save money on the bills but your power source is clean. The requirement is something like a 5 year contract. I don't remember the company, but one of the /. crowd has it in his sig, and I'm sure you'd find them via google.

Re:Just for reference

[jandrese]

Uh, your report talks about installing skylights, not lightbulbs that produce the full spectrum. I'd be willing to wager that people perform better with a skylight for psychological reasons. Using it as a reason to scoff CFLs seems like a huge stretch to me. I will buy the argument that you need an incandescent (even full spectrum) bulb if you're doing something that requires you to match colors or design something for outdoor viewing (like a billboard), but 99% of the time people don't care about their color purity that much. The eye is very forgiving for color imbalance so as a tradeoff for using CFLs I don't think it has much pull.

Re:Just for reference

[fyngyrz]

what kind of power bills do get and what part of the country are you in?

We're in northeast Montana, out in a region the USGS classifies as "desert", though the residents like to call it "high plains." This particular building is in the middle of a (very) small town. Power bills aren't an issue — what can be made efficient without annoyance has been, we put in a new high efficiency furnace, demand water heating, and a ground source heating/cooling system. The building itself (an old church which we rehabilitated) has been insulated to a fare-thee-well. My concern is getting off grid in a reliable way. I'm tired of dealing with power outages and brownouts, which sometimes come 2-3x a week in the summer. They're hard on everything, as well as inconvenient.

PV seems to me to be kind of a problem because we have serious hail (golf-ball and sometimes larger) every few years, as well as fairly high winds (plains thunderstorms.) I have the distinct impression these things would be very tough on PV panels, or at least the ones I've looked at thus far. Have to cover them with lexan or something, and making sure the wind couldn't get under the assemblies would be a big deal, too.

Water heating would be easy, the units are very tough, very heavy, and we've got tons of roof space oriented east/west... but as I've already got a great demand system so the need just isn't there.

Re:Just for reference

[Prune]

Psychological reasons would only make sense if these people were locked in a prison. But that is not so; psychologically they knew there was an outside they could go to any time. If anything, I bet in the case of students daylight without windows would be even better because they wouldn't be distracted by things happening outside.

I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[BSarp]

Alcohol isn't brewing "waste" -- it's the entire point!

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[dan828]

It sounds like a bunch of grad students got together and convinced someone to fund a brewery that they had rigged up in the basement of the science building. I can just picture a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and trying to write a grant proposal. "Oh hell, just tell them it's a fucking fuel cell...."

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[PPH]

And it produces enough electricity to power that big screen TV currently tuned to the homecomming game (pay no attention to the extension cord).

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[dbIII]

If it's chemical engineering, which I suspect, they already have a big distillation tower as the centrepiece of the building with fairly pure stuff coming off the top plate. Oddly enough it's like hot sake more than anything else.

Another university in the same city put together a wall mounted microbrewery with all the parts you would expect in a full sized brewery - it was put together as a teaching tool for a technical college. A few hundred litres went through in the testing stage but it got out the door and to the technical college before the Vice Chancellor knew it existed.

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[Sj0]

Wait....A full-sized real brewery, or a full-sized "beer flavoured beverage for mass consumption" factory? The former would be awesome, but adding beer flavour crystals and corn alcohol to carbonated water isn't a great project. You could basically control it without even using a PID if you didn't care much about the consistency of the brew. Boooooring. :)

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[dbIII]

Reading comprehension would also be awesome :)

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[DeadChobi]

That reminds me of my favorite grant proposal ever: Variable-speed oscillating thermal exchange units.

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[Bloke down the pub]

A full-sized real brewery or a full-sized "beer flavoured beverage for mass consumption" factory?

The article clearly states it's in Australia, not the US. So it's probably the former.

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[Sj0]

That's a silly idea. Corporate sponsored ass is corporate sponsored ass, no matter where you go.

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[dbIII]

That's a silly idea. Corporate sponsored ass is corporate sponsored ass, no matter where you go.

Untrue - in Australia and England it's corporate sponsored arse:)

And yes - it was a real brewery scaled down put together by engineers with decades of experience each and not a home brew kit.

Re:I think somebody misunderstood the process.

[Sj0]

An honest to God brewery would be awesome, but it would scar those poor bastards for life, because they'd end up paying like 3 bucks a beer, unable to go back to the beer flavoured alcoholic beverages the major players churn out.

Good idea

[JanneM]

So it sits on the campus consuming sugar, starches and alcohol. Just like a graduate student then, except you also get some useful output. Should revolutionize academia; just imagine what this device is capable of once it gets tenure.

Re:Good idea

[daeg]

You could generate even more power by placing treadmills 360 degress around the tanks and paint the tanks to look like free & cheap beer.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

just imagine what this device is capable of once it gets tenure.

Nah, by that time, everyone will complain about what a waste of money academia is and how teachers are all incompetent and should be outputting at least 5GW each.

Re:Good idea

[weighn]

So it sits on the campus consuming sugar, starches and alcohol. Just like a graduate student then, except you also get some useful output. Should revolutionize academia; just imagine what this device is capable of once it gets tenure.
its a WKF that when you're pissed, your pee is 99% H₂O anyway.

all good campus toilets have the notice: "please flush twice, its a long way to the bar"

Re:Good idea

[SurturZ]

I'm glad they've found another use for vegemite.

For those that aren't from Australia, Vegemite is a foodstuff by-product from brewing. It's chief ingredients are yeast, salt and pain.

Re:Good idea

[goatpunch]

For those of you who are from Australia; Vegemite is a watered down, sweetened copy of the British product Marmite (there's an Australian 'Marmite' too, but it's even worse than Vegemite). Do yourselves a favour and try some Marmite.

Re:Good idea

[magarity]

Do yourselves a favour and try some Marmite.
 
I travelled to the UK for the first time this last January. At the hotel breakfast buffet there were some little containers labelled 'Marmite' in with the usual jams, butter, and such so I picked it up. I put it on some toast as I would some jam and took a bite. It was, bar none, the worst culinary experience of my entire life. Whatever you do, DO NOT eat the Marmite! It's so excruciatingly awful it must exist purely as a hidden camera type trick the Brits play on tourists.

Re:Good idea

[omeomi]

Vegemite is a watered down, sweetened copy of the British product Marmite

I had vegemite once. It's been awhile, but IIRC, it reminded me quite a bit of beef bullion.

Re:Good idea

[goatpunch]

You made the textbook mistake and tried it after the age of 5. It's a well known fact that if the taste isn't acquired in early childhood you'll never like it. Oh, and don't spread it thick like jam either; there's a reason why most people buy it in very small jars.

Once you have the taste for it, there's nothing like butter and marmite on toast for a hangover.

Re:Good idea

[miskate]

Actually... I guy I know who had never eaten vegemite in his life before (immigrant parents) and was sent to get some vegemite-on-turkish-toast for his boss's breakfast (I have that kind of job). He was so entranced by the smell that he tried some and is now a regular consumer. So, the new rule is:

1) don't eat vegemite/marmite unless you've been eating it since you were weaned; or

2) try it on toasted turkish bread, as made by a professional Australian cafe worker.

I'm of the "since weaned" school of vegemite eating, but the introduction of turkish bread to Australian cafes a few years ago was a revelation. Vegemite on turkish toast is, hands down, the best mod-Oz fusion dish ever created.

Oh, and NEVER use as much as you would jam/jelly, peanut butter or any other spread known to humanity. Stick to a thin smear with butter.

Re:Good idea

[zobier]

Here here; Vegemite on toasted Turkish bread is absolutely the best snack ever. I use it as a meal replacement often.

Re:Good idea

[Nocterro]

Perhaps you are in fact thinking of Promite? Vegemite is much harsher than Marmite.

Re:Good idea

[hal2814]

How come vegemite-on-turkish-toast works? That's nobody's business but the Turks.

Re:Good idea

[betong]

Actually in Brisbane, the city of the article, we've been in a drought for so long that the signs are more likely to ask us to refrain from flushing at all! The current adage is something like "If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down".

Re:Good idea

[dave420]

Their marketing slogan was "You either love it or hate it", featuring an advert of people either going crazy to get to the stuff, or crazy to get away from it. Personally, I think it's delicious :) I can eat the stuff with a spoon it's so tasty. Yay yeast extract! And, fyi, it's about 100 years old, and invented by Germans.

Re:Good idea

[goatpunch]

Perhaps you are in fact thinking of Promite? Vegemite is much harsher than Marmite.

I'm talking about the British Marmite with a yellow lid that's been made for over 100 years. You're probably referring to the Australian Marmite with a red lid that I've never had, but by all accounts is a completely unrelated and inferior product. Here are pictures of both jars:

http://images.google.com/images?q=marmite+australi an

Britsh Marmite is unsweetened, and way stronger than Vegemite. I actually quite like Vegemite because I can use more of it, I have to spread Marmite about 1 micron thick on my toast.

Re:Good idea

[goatpunch]

Actually... I guy I know who had never eaten vegemite in his life before (immigrant parents) and was sent to get some vegemite-on-turkish-toast for his boss's breakfast (I have that kind of job). He was so entranced by the smell that he tried some and is now a regular consumer.

Perhaps there's a genetic component to enjoying salted yeast extract that has been overlooked for all these years, in addition to the typical route of environmental exposure...

Re:Good idea

[Muad'Dave]

I actually acquired a taste for it in Scotland (I'm USian, if that's not already clear). If you use it sparingly, it's pretty good, if not a little salty.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I really prefer marmite for some reason - born in NZ, raised in America. Not sure if any of my siblings will actually eat it. The saddest thing is that my fiance, whose dad is Australian, somehow missed the boat on vege/marmite eating... Not sure what he did wrong there - lol.

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Clever - very clever :)

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, a while back you posted some double huhs and triple huhs about a company called xG Technology. The company is now worth 1.5 Billion Dollars and it looks like National Grid, Telefonica and a bunch of ISPs are going to roll out the technology as of now.

Obviously some people like the idea of all you can consume broadband speed wireless communications for 59.99 USD per month.

It would be great for some of you great minds to backtrack and be held accountable for what you post on the internet. Maybe one day...

Re:Good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, my mother was telling me that 20 years ago in Los Angeles when we had a long drought there. I'm sure it's much older than that, some things never change.

Bender

[WFFS]

Am I the only one who immediately thought of Bender from Futurama?

Good to feel again

[kilodelta]

It'll be nice to know that beer is saving the planet!

Re:Good to feel again

[Bad D.N.A.]

Beer has been saving this planet for thousands of years. Can you imagine if people had to actually deal with their problems?

Re:Good to feel again

[mpe]

Beer has been saving this planet for thousands of years. Can you imagine if people had to actually deal with their problems?

Whilst this was modded as "funny" it is actually the case that up until about a century ago beer was the usual way in which many people were supplied with safe drinking water. To the extent that people who's ancestors tended to drink beer are able to handle alcohol much better than people who's ancestors tended to drink tea. (Tea being the other traditional way of making water safe to drink.)

Re:Good to feel again

[Anonymous Coward]

The human race would probably have died out by now. As the Macc Lads sang, "Thank god for ugly women, all the boilers, bags and trolls, just so they could get a sh*g they invented alcohol."

Producing power from keg swill.

[Brad1138]

What will all the freshmen drink?

Re:Producing power from keg swill.

[networkBoy]

The water of course.
-nB

Re:Producing power from keg swill.

[Cheezymadman]

The same thing they drink now. Zima and Red Bull.

i, for one, welcome our new yeast based economy

[hildi]

and by the way, if you are making bread, the alcohol is evaporated during baking (or so they say muhahaha)

It won't be long now...

[umbrellasd]

before we see a press release claiming a breakthrough in power generation: "By placing horses in a giant wheel that is connected to a turbine and then racing them, scientists have found a way to generate all the power we need on a steady supply of oats and barley. Also generates lots of gambling revenue for the state."

Re:It won't be long now...

[weighn]

"Also generates lots of gambling revenue for the state." I like where you're heading. Perhaps we can tap into those darned gaming machines also. These got to be a heap of excess kinetic energy when you slap those buttons.

Ditto sex. The three BIG EVILS of the Conservative universe - drinking, gambling and prostitution - could just turn out to be the saviors of the world

Re:It won't be long now...

[Stickerboy]

>I like where you're heading. Perhaps we can tap into those darned gaming machines also. These got to be a heap of excess kinetic energy when you slap those buttons.

>Ditto sex. The three BIG EVILS of the Conservative universe - drinking, gambling and prostitution - could just turn out to be the saviors of the world

In the bedroom:

"Honey, what's that?!?!"

"They call it Sex@Home. We have to do our part to stop global warming..."

Re:It won't be long now...

[BoothbyTCD]

So, it's not for married couples then?

Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide, aka, greenhouse gas)

Face the future : YOU are doomed

Gotta do it

[shaitand]

I for one welcome our new brewery waste fuel cell overlords.

ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't know what Cmd-Shift-1 and Cmd-Shift-2 are for, GTFO.
If you think Firefox is a decent Mac application, GTFO.
If you're still looking for the "maximize" button, GTFO.
If the name "Clarus" means nothing to you, GTFO.

Bandwagon jumpers are not welcome among real Mac users. Keep your filthy, beige PC fingers to yourself.

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your rant would be much more effective if those chicks in the pictures were naked. And if you've never used DOS 3.3 or had a free subscription to Softalk, you're a johnny-come-lately poseur anyways, so GTFO. Clarus my ass.

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Beige is by far the best color any computer case has ever been produced in.

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Cheezymadman]

Ugly girl, Myspace girl, faggoty retro guys, and pile of puke. Yup, typical Mac users.

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Gilmoure]

Platinum, you noob. You lose one level of dungeon master!

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Re:09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

[Basehart]

As we used to say on tour "Beer's Beer in any language"

Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that TFA indicates that this is a method to remove brewer's waste, with the byproduct of producing electricity. As a method for producing electricity in general, it is not a clean method because you'd first have to produce alcohol (which would then we cleaned by the bacteria). Producing alcohol produces *VAST* amounts of CO2.

I have worked as an assistant winemaker at a small vinyard. Our vats are 3000 litres apiece. Even with these small vats, the temperature reached by the yeast cell division is HOT to the touch (but not enough for thermal electricity generation). If you were to walk into the room where the vats are without first ventilating the room, you would pass out because the oxygen in your lungs feels like it is literally sucked out (not sure of the actual physical process involved). If no one were around, you would die from asphyxiation. It is wierd sensation, let me tell you.

Re:Not entirely clean

[malsdavis]

Its funny how these days, any "alternative" form of energy is automatically considered by many to be "clean", "green" or "environmentally friendly".

Just for the record: Biofuels are definitely NOT environmentally friendly and Hydro-electric plants are amongst the construction projects most often protested AGAINST on environmental grounds.

Just thought that need to be said.

Re:Not entirely clean

[evwah]

"If no one were around, you would die from asphyxiation. It is wierd sensation, let me tell you."

you have personal experience dying from asphyxiation? that has to be a first

Re:Not entirely clean

[kkerwin]

"If you were to walk into the room where the vats are without first ventilating the room, you would pass out because the oxygen in your lungs feels like it is literally sucked out (not sure of the actual physical process involved)."

Diffusion of oxygen against a concentration gradient. It's basically the same process that happens when you sprinkle salt on a slug and it dies: the salt lowers the water concentration outside of the slug, and water flows out of the slug to balance the water concentrations in and out of the slug.

Partial pressure of oxygen outside of the lungs (pressure produced only by oxygen molecules, nothing else) is much lower than the partial pressure of oxygen inside the lungs. Oxygen flows out of the lungs to equalize the partial pressures. CO2 flows into the lungs to replace the displaced oxygen.

And, you die, just like the slug. :-)

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

What, exactly, is wrong with CO2? I'm exhaling it right now. It's the major end product of almost every animal metabolism.

Re:Not entirely clean

[fyngyrz]

Producing alcohol produces *VAST* amounts of CO2.

The whole CO2 thing is just total FUD. Mars is warming just as fast as we are. In the historical record, CO2 lags warming, it doesn't lead it, and no surprise, with the water vapor cycle running at many times the speed of the CO2 cycle and directly tied to temperature, which our current CO2 generation is not. Global warming is real, all right, but it sure as heck isn't CO2 that is causing it. Look up. See that yellow thing? That's a free-running fusion reaction, and it makes a lot of heat at rates that are known to vary, and that is by far the most likely candidate for what is causing the warming we (and mars) are experiencing.

Re:Not entirely clean

[ookabooka]

You just gave me an intersting idea. Algae farms have a problem that they aren't very productive without an external CO2 source. What if we used this device to produce energy, then pumped the remaining CO2 into an algae farm to produce even more energy.I'm not too sure about all the math behind it (I'll look into the numbers after I hit submit) so it may not be efficient at all but it just seems so obvious. I'm sure it must have been done before: ferment corn or something then pump the CO2 into an algae farm. Burn ethanol and make biodisel.

/me calls patent office :)

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably they're making the beer anyhow, so this would be cleaner than just tossing the waste products.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

So pump the co2 to the industrial hemp grow facility next door and let the hemp turn it into oxygen and if you think it won't turn enough of the co2 into oxygen, well your just not imagining as large a facility as I am ;)

Re:Not entirely clean

[fractoid]

I'm curious how (sustainable) biofuel isn't environmentally friendly? It's carbon neutral, leverages our existing overproduction of food crops, seems all good all round. The only thing I can think of is that it's smelly and bad for your valve seats... obviously logging old growth forest for biomass doesn't count here, just things like maize and grain crops.

Hydro plants are protested against because they flood large areas of wildlife habitats and peoples' homes. That's an 'environmental' issue but not an emissions one.

I agree, though, that jumping on the 'alternative' bandwagon is far too fashionable and often counterconstructive - take, for example, the fact that the Prius uses more fuel than the Golf TDi[1]. Like any other engineering issue (and conservation is one at heart) you have to look at the data and not just follow the emotive hype. For instance, modern nuclear reactor designs are far safer than the old, cold-war era designs, and potentially very fuel efficient. If it weren't for the "nuclear is bad" mindset of the general public, they would be the perfect mid- to long-term energy solution.

[1] Of course, that's not a fair comparison because the TDi runs diesel fuel which has a higher energy density, but I'm pretty sure the total energy cost of a Prius over its lifetime is higher than that of a TDi.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Miseph]

There is something to be said for learning from one's own mistakes. There's also something to be said for learning from the mistakes of others.

For example, I happen to know that a good cuber (what butchers use to turn otherwise unpalatably tough meat into unpalatably bizarre cube steaks, among other uses) can crush bones and spit out a cube arm if you're a big enough idiot to let it catch one of your fingers when you're feeding meat through it; I know this because a butcher I used to work with saw it happen to a guy 30 years ago when he was first learning how to be a butcher.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Kool Moe]

Until nuclear waste can be cleanly disposed of without negative effect, nuclear will never be the ideal solution. Solar is the ideal solution, we just gotta get them thar panels working better! A city with efficient solar panels on every roof is the dream...
KM

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Hutchence?

Re:Not entirely clean

[fyngyrz]

You can mod that post troll all you want. Those are all facts, and no amount of politically correct moaning - or modding - will change those facts. Anyone who isn't taken in by the groupthink can check those facts and they'll find they are 100% accurate. The conclusion says "most likely candidate" and that too is a reasonable statement given the facts at hand.

Re:Not entirely clean

[dbIII]

Note that TFA indicates that this is a method to remove brewer's waste

That's a good idea - all we do with our brewing waste now is add salt and spread it on bread as Vegemite - still a prohibited import to the USA I believe becuase it contains folate.

Re:Not entirely clean

[dbIII]

For instance, modern nuclear reactor designs are far safer than the old, cold-war era designs

Of course they are - there's nothing safer than something that has never been built.

Re:Not entirely clean

[fractoid]

Integral fast reactors consume any transuranic element.

From Wikipedia:

Compared to current light-water reactors with a once-through fuel cycle that uses less than 1% of the energy in the uranium, the IFR has a very efficient (99.5% usage) fuel cycle. The basic scheme used electrolytic separation to remove transuranics and actinides from the wastes and concentrate them. These concentrated fuels were then reformed, on site, into new fuel elements. Non-trans-uranic (sub-uranic? pre-uranic?) waste products are a short term storage proposal only.

Another important benefit of removing the long half-life transuranics from the waste cycle is that the remaining waste becomes a much shorter-term hazard. After the actinides and transuranics are removed from the spent fuel, the remaining waste elements have half lives of a few decades at most. The result is that within 300 years, such wastes are no more radioactive than the ores of natural radioactive elements. In laymans' terms, it can't explode (no high-pressure radioactive coolant), it can't melt down (passive self-limiting design), it doesn't produce long-lived radioactives (any that it does produce it re-burns into short-lived waste). Nuclear looks pretty ideal short-term to me, and with this type of reactor it's good for mid- to long-term too. Solar will be good once solar cells can actually pay for the costs of their own manufacture in less than 20 years.

Re:Not entirely clean

[be-fan]

We don't need an ideal solution, we need a good one. It's a relative-cost thing. That's the cost of using nuclear power, versus the cost of using fossil fuels for another 100 years while we engineer the "perfect" solution?

Re:Not entirely clean

[turing_m]

"Producing alcohol produces *VAST* amounts of CO2."

Which comes from sugar, the carbon dioxide from which is sucked out of the atmosphere. It's essentially carbon neutral (like any other biofuel or crop). If the waste plant material is not burnt, it might even act as a net sink.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious how (sustainable) biofuel isn't environmentally friendly? It's carbon neutral, leverages our existing overproduction of food crops, seems all good all round.

That "overproduction" of food crops is made possible by very resource intensive farming practices which are heavily dependent on the chemical industry (fertilizers & pesticides) which use use petroleum as feedstocks. Without it, yields would drop dramatically as the soil is depleted. Alot has been made of the brazilian biofuel efforts - I suspect this will actually have a devastating effect on the already besieged rainforest. They practice slash & burn agriculture for everything else - why would bio-fuel crops be any different?

I'm not sure about the "carbon neutral" either - at least with respect to the atmosphere, which is the primary point. Much of these agricultural products used to produce these biofuels would eventually end up effectively "sequestered" back in the ground via plowing under agricultural waste, disposal of sewage, etc. Instead you are now fermenting & burning it - releasing all of that carbon into the atmosphere.

Hydro plants are not carbon neutral either because the normally free-flowing river now silts up and those materials decay at the bottom of the lake producing more CO2

Re:Not entirely clean

[Dadoo]

Solar is the ideal solution

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that not only do solar cells require more energy to produce than they will generate over their entire lifetimes, but the production process is very environmentally unfriendly.

Re:Not entirely clean

[sycodon]

Everyone was having so much fun with this and then you came along. Go stomp some grapes or something.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for the record: Biofuels are definitely NOT environmentally friendly

Yup. Oil and coal are NOT environmentally friendly.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Nutria]

You just gave me an intersting idea. Algae farms have a problem that they aren't very productive without an external CO2 source. What if we used this device to produce energy, then pumped the remaining CO2 into an algae farm to produce even more energy.I'm not too sure about all the math behind it (I'll look into the numbers after I hit submit) so it may not be efficient at all but it just seems so obvious. I'm sure it must have been done before: ferment corn or something then pump the CO2 into an algae farm. Burn ethanol and make biodisel.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but it's already been thought of, many times.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12834398/

Re:Not entirely clean

[ookabooka]

Sorry to bust your bubble, but it's already been thought of, many times.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12834398/

I think you missed the point, yes I know that they have been attached to power plants and other sources of CO2, I'm talking specifically here about the CO2 produced in fermenting stuff. Two alternative fuels right now are ethanol and biodiesel. I just noticed that the byproduct of fermenting (to make ethanol) might aid in the production of biodiesel. Then use this to take the leftovers from the fermenting to produce even more power. So basically it works like this:

1) Get a bunch of corn or something, start fermenting
2) Pipe the CO2 that is produced from fermenting wash into an algae farm, algae should grow a lot faster now
3) Distill the ethanol after fermenting is complete
4) Pump the rest of wash (after ethanol has been distilled from it) through this thing.

So you have 3 different areas generating energy.

The question is would it be worth it or not, would enough CO2 be produced to make an impact on the algae farm.

Re:Not entirely clean

[mpe]

Note that TFA indicates that this is a method to remove brewer's waste, with the byproduct of producing electricity. As a method for producing electricity in general, it is not a clean method because you'd first have to produce alcohol (which would then we cleaned by the bacteria).

But it could be useful to cut the brewery's electricity bill. Possibly also their water usage...

Re:Not entirely clean

[EmagGeek]

Biofuels are unclean for the same reasons dinofuels are. In fact, the production of dinofuels is FAR cleaner than the production of biofuels. With dinofuels, you're starting off with hydrocarbons and ending with hydrocarbons. All you're doing is cracking long chains down to shorter chains to get what you want.

With biofuels, you have to MAKE hydrocarbons, which is a much dirtier process than simply cracking existing ones. Also, what do you think is used to fertilize the crops that are grown to make biofuels? Commercial fertilizers, which contain lost of phosphorous, nitrates, and hydrocarbons, are made from dino sources, so really all we're doing to make biofuels is adding extra steps to the process, which wastes energy.

For every gallon of biodiesel produced from vegetable oil, 3 gallons of diesel must be burned to create the energy required to go through the process. Every gallon of ethanol pumped into your car requires 11 gallons of diesel to get there, mainly because ethanol cannot be piped. It has to be trucked as soon as it is made because it is water soluble and if it sits too long, it'll get wet.

Remember, we're not putting the ethanol in the gas to use alternative energy sources. We're putting it there to reduce particulate emissions from cars - at an incredibly high price.

Re:Not entirely clean

[mpe]

I'm curious how (sustainable) biofuel isn't environmentally friendly? It's carbon neutral, leverages our existing overproduction of food crops, seems all good all round. The only thing I can think of is that it's smelly and bad for your valve seats... obviously logging old growth forest for biomass doesn't count here, just things like maize and grain crops.

It depends on the details. Filtering used vegetable oil and using it as a fuel probably is a good idea. Using maize to produce alcohol isn't remotly efficent. If you were to grow plants specifically for fuel production you'd probably want something which dosn't require much in the way of fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide and as much of the plant as possible being useful for producing fuel. Rather than just its fruit or seeds.

Hydro plants are protested against because they flood large areas of wildlife habitats and peoples' homes. That's an 'environmental' issue but not an emissions one.

It is possible to have a hydro electric plant without needing to create a lake. You just need something like the Niagra river. Also where lakes are created there are often "water management" issues so much as power generating ones. e.g. reducing seasonal variation in water flow to prevent seasonal flooding.

Re:Not entirely clean

[maxwell demon]

Also the sun is not environmentally friendly. It sends out lots of radioactivity (luckily we are shielded from most of it by the earth's magnetic field), it can cause skin cancer, it contributes to global warming, and one day it will blow up and destroy the earth. I don't get how people can claim solar energy is clean. :-)

Re:Not entirely clean

[EmagGeek]

>> Solar will be good once solar cells can actually pay for the costs of their own manufacture in less than 20 years.

This will never happen because commercially produced silicon bandgaps do not last that long. Longer-lasting bandgaps can be created, but they are so much more expensive that they could never pay for themselves either - even if electricy got really expensive, because that same expensive electricity would be required to grow the cell.

Remember kids, the energy required to grow a commercial silicon cell will never ever be recovered from that cell in terms of bandgap potential. The bandgap breaks down before that can happen.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Biofuels are NOT carbon neutral - the argument for that ignores geography. It doesn't matter how many crops there are in Montana if all their produced fuel is being burned in New York City - there will still be a huge amount of CO2 in the skies above New York City.

Re:Not entirely clean

[ajs318]

Solar energy does not necessarily mean photovoltaic panels! You can build a solar water heater which uses the sun's rays to heat water. You probably need a pump to circulate the water (it's usual to mount the collector on the roof where it will be above the water storage tank, so no convection circulation), but that is using only at most a few tens of watts compared to the kilowatts available as heat. Nothing to stop you powering the pump by PV, though, since it is only ever going to be needed when the sun is shining. Better to use a displacement pump than a centrifugal pump, since the former includes non-return valves (preventing reverse convection circulation from cooling the tank at night) and is more tolerant of voltage fluctuations (centrifugal pumps do nothing at all below some critical RPM). You can power a Sterling engine from the sun, if you have some way to dispose of the heat. It is even possible to produce steam from a solar boiler.

Re:Not entirely clean

[mattr]

This is why leaves die before they pay for themselves? I dunno.. your argument requires technology to stand still does it not?

Re:Not entirely clean

[hal2814]

"As a method for producing electricity in general, it is not a clean method"

No, it's not. But if you were producing alcohol anyways as part of a brewery, it would be a great way to run your operation more efficiently. Given the amount of waste needed, I doubt this system would ever be useful outside a brewery. The cost to transport that much waste water probably outweighs any off-site use of these fuel cells.

Re:Not entirely clean

[GooberToo]

Fuel from corn in America is foolish. Corn is often grown with water taken taken from an underground aquifer. The aquifer is getting so low, most people that are aware of it are starting to become very concerned. The government already has restrictions on who gets the water and what can be done with it. Worse, there are already predictions on when the acquifer will run out, or run low enough to significantly effect crop productions across America. Yet we are now starting down a path which will place additional pressure on this acquifer to grow even more corn we don't need.

Right now, up to 15% of all corn grown in the US is irrigated from this acquifer. Running out of water in this acquifer means loss of massive crops reaching far beyond that of corn. Not to mention, byproducts from crops grown from this acquifer are used to feed large heards of cattle.

Right now, ethanol is one of the largest farces ever thrust on Americans. Inclusion of ethanol in gas is one of the reasons fuel prices have risen. If you include the cost of ethanol, after subsides are accounted for, we are already paying some four to five dollars per gallon. Using corn for ethanol makes zero economic sense and worse, is directly contributing to the depletion of the largest underground acquifers in the US (perhaps in the world). Encouraging yet more corn crops makes even less sense.

Which would you rather have, ethanol which costs more per gallon than gas (and requires more energy to produce than it yields) or food and fresh drinking water? It really is that simple.

Long story short, please don't encourage additional corn crops.

Re:Not entirely clean

[ookabooka]

Long story short, please don't encourage additional corn crops.

1) Get a bunch of corn or something, start fermenting

Ok then, sugarcane, sugar beets, milk; what is used to ferment is irrelevant, the concept I'm trying to express is utilizing ethanol, CO2, and waste water from fermentation. You take some carbs and stuff (cellulose?) and squeeze out as much energy as possible from it.

Re:Not entirely clean

[gurps_npc]

Well, not quite true. Basically this method as an add on is pretty clean. The main goal of doing this is to take the horrendous garbage waste and turn it into clean water. The electricity is a side effect that is slightly usefull.

As such, the general system is probably usefull for dealing with ANY kind of organic waste.

I bet many large food service organziation (prison,military bases,frozen dinner manufacturers,universities) could all implement a similar system, with perhaps slightly less effeciency producing electricity but similar efficencies cleaning the waste liquid.

Re:Not entirely clean

[DAtkins]

Biofuels aren't (currently) environmentally friendly because of the amount of power to takes to generate the fuels. When you factor in the energy costs of collection and processing, it's still a negative energy investment unless you are using high sugar methods like in Brazil (which the US couldn't do anyway). This still ignores the various impacts of agriculture in general, which raises the energy investment higher.

I'd love to see this work, but right now biofuels are not much more than a nice thumb at OPEC.

Hydroelectric is actually not very environmentally friendly. A study was performed in the last few years (I swear I'd linky if I could remember where I saw it) that showed that when an area is filled with water, the terrestrial plant matter at the bottom decomposes in an anaerobic environment. This anaerobic decomposition produces methane gas in vast quantities, and as we all know, methane gas is a great greenhouse gas. The study itself tried to find a number for the amount of methane generated - and while I cannot remember the exact number - it was much higher than I expected.

Re:Not entirely clean

[allanc]

My personal experience, having owned a Prius for two years now, is that I get about 45mpg in the winter and around 52mpg in the summer. I don't believe I've ever averaged less than 45mpg on a tank of gas.

(The key is to drive the speed limit)

Re:Not entirely clean

[DAtkins]

Yay! I found the study (or at least a couple of articles that links to the study)! I'm not THAT guy anymore!

Article based on World Commission on Dams Study
Article based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Study

Re:Not entirely clean

[DAtkins]

Crap, should have previewed...

Article based on World Commission on Dams Study

Sorry...

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

You may wish to ignore some of those people who miss the main point of stuff you post.

Re:Not entirely clean

[AaronStJ]

Keep in mind that the vast amounts of CO2 produced is from carbon that was pulled out of the atmosphere that season by the grapes. The grapes you grow next year will pull the CO2 back out. So, in all, there is no net CO2 added to the atmosphere, it's just the same carbon going around and around. Carbon neutral.

The problem with fossil fuels is that they liberate carbon that's been buried and out of the cycle for millions of years.

Re:Not entirely clean

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly corn ethanol is lame - corn is hard to grow, gives a poor return, etc. But you, sir, are just as bad if not worse: promoting misinformation and half-truths, in a word, FUD. To begin, let's separate out biodiesel from ethanol rather than lumping them together as "biofuel", and just consider biodiesel.

Biodiesel is much cleaner than dinofuels:

1. it burns more thoroughly and cleanly, producing far less particulate and other pollution, with the exception of nitrous oxide; you'd far rather have the buses and trucks in your city burning biodiesel than diesel. Public health costs of particulate pollution are astronomical.

2. it is carbon neutral: CO2 released is CO2 that was sequestered last year or so, when it was growing. Dinofuels are adding C02 to the system and never resequestering it.

3. What are you talking about, the production of dinofuels is cleaner than producing biodiesel? That is utter nonsense. You can produce biodiesel in your basement. Many do. The chemistry involved is potentially dangerous in unskilled hands, but it does NOT produce nasty or unclean byproducts. The byproduct besides biodiesel is glycerine (you know, the stuff in fancy hand soap and cosmetics); the catalysts are reused.

4. Who says we *must* grow the crops for biodiesel using dinofuel fertilizers?

4.1. Biodiesel source plants can be used that do not require the intense fertilizer/pesticide regime that certain of our current food crops are set up to use. (Again, corn is one of the worst offenders.)

4.2. Ideally we would switch to using manure and/or treated sewage rather than dinofuel-derivatives anyway. Note you were not arguing about what is *currently most cost effective* but about what is *dirtiest*. Besides which, the cheapness of chemical fertilizers compared to chicken manure is an artifact of our current system and economies of scale. It doesn't mean it will always be this way.

5. "For every gallon of biodiesel produced from vegetable oil, 3 gallons of diesel must be burned to create the energy required to go through the process." This is just baloney. It's based on outdated studies with unreasonable assumptions, in a word, bias.

Parent is not insightful. Parent is FUD.

How about using sewage ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would solve 2 problems at once and take care of the crap !

I hope it gets better

[Anonymous Coward]

660 gallons is about fifteen barrels. 2 kW isn't that much so maybe for my house I need 6 kW. That's approx. forty five barrels. That's a lot of barrels in the back yard.

Re:I hope it gets better

[Mr Jazzizle]

More importantly, that's a lot of beer!

Re:I hope it gets better

[fyngyrz]

2 kW isn't that much so maybe for my house I need 6 kW

Do you need 6 kw while you sleep? Do you need 6kw while you're at work? If not, that same system might serve to give you 6kw for 8 hours by storing the other 4 kw generated during the 16 or so hours of low duty time periods. Storage makes all the difference in the world. Some people might actually consume 6kw all the time, but that seems like an awful lot. I don't, and I live in a pretty big home with a whole slew of electronic gear.

Re:I hope it gets better

[maxume]

What are you going to do with all the beer?

And we are talking gallons and gallons a day to keep a 600 gallon waste tank full.

Re:I hope it gets better

[TooMuchToDo]

Well put. With regards to storage, your water heater at home is a thermal battery. If everyone switched to more efficient tankless hot water heaters (simple heat exchanges), huge amounts of energy would be saved (since energy is used only when water is flowing) but since more energy is drawn down to heat water from 50 degrees F to 115 degrees F, utilities would have a higher peak demand to plan for. With water heaters, more energy is lost to standby heat but the water heater buffers demand for the utilities.

Re:I hope it gets better

[EmagGeek]

If your house needed 6kW all the time, your monthly power bill would be on the order of $700/mo.

Re:I hope it gets better

[mpe]

If everyone switched to more efficient tankless hot water heaters (simple heat exchanges), huge amounts of energy would be saved (since energy is used only when water is flowing) but since more energy is drawn down to heat water from 50 degrees F to 115 degrees F, utilities would have a higher peak demand to plan for.

Since water has a high SHC you need a powerful heater for such a system. In many cases these a gas powered because it's rather easier to deliver 10-20kW of power via a gas pipe than via electrical cable. Whereas with a tank you can get away with a lower power heater. The starting temperature of the water can also vary, especially if it is drawn from outside, rather than an inside storage tank. Thus your average of 10C could end up varying between 1 and 25 depending on the season, but still needs to wind up somewhere around 47C.

Re:I hope it gets better

[Dracolytch]

Heck, you don't even have to store it locally... Just pump the excess back on the electrical grid and turn your meter backwards.

~D

Re:I hope it gets better

[Overzeetop]

Actually, around me that would be about $325 since the rates have gone up, and about $250 before the rate hikes of the last two years. In comparison, my "worst" mosth for electricity was close to $300 this winter. So, in fact, I do need 6kw on an average basis in the coldest month. If you do anuual averaging, I would probably only need 3-3.5kW, but you'd need one heck of a storage system to power average over a 12 month period (yes, I know, it's called selling back to the grid...but that's far less sensational than saying I'd need a pump, generation turbines and a 5 acre lake).

As for why, the answer is that I have a 1960s home with the entire lower level made of panelling over uninsulated concrete masonry, which has an R value of about 4 to 5, including the panels, brick, and airspace. There is no cost effective way to insulate it, and to do a good job even with cost-ineffective ways would require tearing out the entire finished wall system. The heat in the lower level is also primarily electric resistance, which is not very efficient. Of course, it's still more efficient than the old oil-fired boiler that was there when we bought the place - that took ~700 gallons of oil to heat the house in the winter - about 1200 three years ago, and fully double the cost of the electric system which replaced it.

Re:I hope it gets better

[cinnander]

...Not to mention the strange looks you'd get from the neighbors when a tanker from the brewery shows up every day to top up your barrels. "I'm just doing my bit for global warming!" -x- No/few mentions yet of the 'clean' water this process apparently produces -- clean enough to be fed into the house also, I wonder?

Re:I hope it gets better

[Anonymous Coward]

Storage is a waste of resource. Feeding back into the grid during the day is much better.

Re:I hope it gets better

[EmagGeek]

Ahh ok... I live in Southeastern PA where electric rates are about 0.17/kwh at PECO's usurious electric rates. I heat my house with B20 biodiesel and I also have a space heater for my bedroom since it's still cheaper to heat one room with electricity than it is to heat the whole house with oil at night. I bought an 85% efficient air heater when I moved in, and I use about 300 gallons of oil over the winter, at a cost of about $2.50/gal.

I also live in a townhouse with 2 common walls, so I only have two surfaces and the roof exposed. That helps a little.

I, for one, ...

[Anonymous Coward]

fear that People for the Ethical Treatment of Bacteria will shut this one down.

Imagine

[WED Fan]

Imagine a beo...(hic)...a be...(hic)...imagine a...(hic)...imagine...what was I saying?...(hic)...Imagine...John Lennon was the best Beatle.

New Belgium Brewery

[tooyoung]

New Belgium Brewery, most famous for Fat Tire and Sunshine, produce 10% of their electricity using the methane that is produced from bacteria feeding off of their waste water.

Re:New Belgium Brewery

[Hepneck]

Here is the link for New Belgium Brewery's site about how they process their wastewater. The energy that they use at the brewery that is not generated in-house is provided from wind farms in Wyoming (a half hours drive north of Ft. Collins. This makes them the only brewery in the US that is powered not only by renewable energy, but energy that is also sustainable. So enjoy that Fat Tire or Sunshine Wheat guilt-free (well, other than the excuses you make for why you got home from work so late).

Link:
http://www.newbelgium.com/innovation_waste.php

Re:New Belgium Brewery

[davygrvy]

Great follow-up, thank you.

Re:New Belgium Brewery

[Stinking Pig]

Maybe the only 100% sustainable power, but Anderson Valley Brewing Company is 50% solar powered, and the beer doesn't taste like burned grains of paradise. /me loves microbrew, but Fat Tire is undrinkably nasty, especially in bottles. It's better on draft, though still nothing to write home about.

Re:New Belgium Brewery

[Hepneck]

ooh, an opinion from a Californian! That reminds me of a joke: Three men are sitting at a bar in Denver during the Great American Beer Festival (the countries' greatest festival). The one on the left tells the bartender to give him Sam Adams Boston Lager. He drinks half of it, throws the bottle in the air, pulls a gun, shoots the bottle and yells, "I am from Boston, and we have more beer there than we can handle"! Not to be outdone, the dude on the right tells the bartender to bring him Anderson Valley Brewing Boont Amber Ale. He drinks half of it, throws the bottle in the air, shoots the bottle, and yells, "I am from California, and we have more beer there than we can handle"! The gentleman in the middle orders a Fat Tire, drinks it slow, finishes it, pulls a gun, shoots the dudes to his right and left. Then he says, "I am from Colorado, and we have more Yankees and Californians than we know what to do with. But we recycle our bottles".

Oh?

[Dragon By Proxy]

Well... I, for one, welcome our new thoroughly sloshed yet constantly wired overlords!

I can see the Guinness advertisement already

[the_tsi]

"Six bottles in one hand? That's nothing, those lads at Guinness are powering the entirety of Dublin with their brewery!"

"Electrical power from beer effluvia?! BRILLIANT!"

Waste?

[Mr. Flibble]

in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol

Waste? Waste?! Methinks they have not thought this "brewing process" through.

Re:Waste?

[petermgreen]

i bet most brewries produce quite a bit stuff that contains sugar starch and alcohol plus some other crap that is not usable for drinking. Batches that went wrong, stuff from near the beggining/end of a batch that is too contaminated (i belive this applies especially to distillation where you have to chuck the early product because it has a high methanol content) soloutions that have been heated as an alcohol vapour source for fractional distillation and no longer contain enough alcohol to be used for that purpose.

Re:Waste?

[damista]

Mate, we're talking Queenslanders here. A Queenslander would NEVER waste alcohol. Believe me, if they call it waste, it is waste :)

Re:Waste?

[Gryle]

"Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water"
Perhaps they're just trying to find a use for American beer.

Re:Waste?

[arbitraryaardvark]

2000 years later, the government turned wine into water.

That's being done already

[EmbeddedJanitor]

http://www.ccc.govt.nz/WasteWater/TreatmentPlant/F lowDiagram.asp

The digester in this small (330k population) plant generates methane which fires converted gasoline engines to generate electricity. The waste heat goes to warming the digester. There's still solid waste though.

Burning methane is a GoodTHing. Methane has approx 27 times the greenhouse effect of CO2, so burning it produces power and reduces greenhouse gases.

Re:That's being done already

[kes137]

Right, many larger plants utilize anaerobic digesters to reduce the volatile waste solids of a treatment plant. Of the gases produces from digestion, 65-70% of this is methane, a gas that can be easily converted into energy by burning. This simply goes back into heating the digesters so really no energy is gained. Bacteria consuming organic matter for waste treatment is certainly not state of the art, every treatment plant in the world uses some form of this. The article does a poor job of describing how the chemical energy is harnessed. I am failing to see how this differs from any other biological waste treatment technology of today.

Re:That's being done already

[EmagGeek]

>> Burning methane is a GoodTHing. Methane has approx 27 times the greenhouse effect of CO2, so burning it produces power and reduces greenhouse gases.

Thank you! Maybe now the liberal establishment will understand that the 12 Billion chickens we have raised for food consumption create more greenhouse gas than all of the cars on the planet. Yes, can you believe there are approximately 2 chickens alive for every human being on the planet? The average person eats 10 kilos of chicken meat every year, which is about 7 chickens. So, every year, 42 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered for human consumption.

That's a shitload of Methane (pardon the pun).

XXXX

[Anonymous Coward]

Brewers waste hey? They should include Four-X beer. It's Queensland's native brew, but the rest of Australia loves to hate it.

Dollars or Dollars?

[Doc Ruby]

115,000 Australian dollars is 95,404 US dollars as I post this message.

Which is not that great for the space..

[plasmacutter]

660 gallons is a LOT of fluid. for reference the average 100 gallon tank will be 2 yards by 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet.

so this thing would be about the size of a king sized bed at the least, and it's only generating enough to power 20 100 watt bulbs. From the energy ratings i remember on our appliances it wouldn't even power a single family home.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[M. Baranczak]

The electricity isn't the main point. From the article:

"It's not going to make an enormous amount of power -- its primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity,"

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[plasmacutter]

then why the heck is the article titled 660 gallon fuel cell! DAMN YOU EDITORRRS!

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Anonymous Coward]

100 gallon tank will be 2 yards by 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet

Those are the same dimensions as the average american.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Anonymous Coward]

then why the heck is the article titled 660 gallon fuel cell! DAMN YOU EDITORRRS!

You must be new here.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[timmarhy]

people still use 100w incandesants?

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[FateStayNight]

I don't know about you but I have plenty of room inside the ceiling for more than a few of these things. Even for people living in apartments theres more than likely ample roof space up there.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Anonymous Coward]

> 2 yards by 1.5 feet by 1.5 feet

And pray tell sir, how many hogsheads doth this equateh to ?

Sorry but I find Americas conrtinued use of ye olde units most entertaining :)

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[mpe]

then why the heck is the article titled 660 gallon fuel cell!

Is that US or Imperial gallons? No doubt the original specification was in litres anyway.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Anonymous Coward]

And pray tell sir, how many hogsheads doth this equateh to ?
Sorry but I find Americas conrtinued use of ye olde units most entertaining :)

Especially when it comes to measures of volume. Thus it's hard to know if this story is about three thousand litres or just under two and a half thousand...

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Scott7477]

No excuse, but the linked article's title is also misleading: "Beer maker, scientists to create energy"...

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[Gilmoure]

And then it cratered no Mars.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

or 12 55 gallon barrels.

Re:Which is not that great for the space..

[MaximumEntropy]

When I moved to the Northeast US, I was surprised to learn practically every house has a 300 gallon tank in the basement or underground (talk about an environmental problem!) to hold heating oil. It's not a big leap to install one of these...

yum

[Dahamma]

in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol

Also know as Vegemite.

I was being a bit flip

[Anonymous Coward]

How much electricity one uses is determined by what one does with the electricity. If we count all the energy used by a family, both at home and at work, and for heating and airconditioning, 6 kW isn't a bad estimate. If we were to supply all our energy by this process, we would have the equivalent of a whole bunch of barrels in every back yard. Unless the process improves, we are talking about some serious realestate.

One thing

[can56]

I'm curious about is how often the 660 gallon tank has to be refilled, or what the flow rate (in beers/hour?) is. A technology that takes waste products, and turns it into clean water and electricity is something to be applauded (think pulp mills), but 2 Kwh from a 3-ton battery does not seem very efficient -- my own body (fueled on beer alone) can do better than that. However, the pure water output is one thing this device produces, unlike my chemical plant.

Re:One thing

[Hemi Rodner]

my own body (fueled on beer alone) can do better than that

I doubt it. Ever tried to produce 100w? It's so hard!

Re:One thing

[EmagGeek]

My lactose threshold is 337 watts, but then again, I am a trained cyclist. The most I have ever exerted over a 5 second interval was 1108 watts. Professional cyclists can push 1500 watts over a 5s interval and have a lactose threshold around 400-450 watts (which may not seem like much more than 337, but believe me, those 60-110 extra watts HURT).

Re:One thing

[can56]

I should have said that I could produce more power per ton, than this battery. (And I'm only a little fella).

m6od down

[Anonymous Coward]

According tothis Users', BigAz1z, Cre3k, abysmal

Fosters *ugh*

[Bester]

Finally someone found a good use for Fosters beer. It's certainly not good for drinking.

Although we do manage to sell it to the Americans and claim that it is beer, they seem to buy it.

Charles
--
Violence is the first refuge of the idiot.

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anybody who drinks the "Fosters" branded beer but I don't mind some of their wines (pepper jack was the last one) and I know quite a few people who drink their Cascade, Carlton or even the occasional VB (or is that BV after a few)

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[miskate]

You can't even buy Fosters Lager in most parts of Australia. Most Australians wouldn't touch it.

That said, Fosters have bought out and continued on with a lot of good labels, including the Cascade and Carlton brands.

What? oh yeah... and they own VB now too.

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know anybody who drinks the "Fosters" branded beer

I don't know anyone that drinks that shit either. But you have to remember the Fosters sold overseas is nothing like the horse-piss they call Fosters in Australia, as it's made in Canada by Molson.

And whilst we're on the topic, Coopers Sparkling Ale and Boag's Premium are the best commercial Aussie beers IMHO.

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[Anonymous Coward]

And whilst we're on the topic, Coopers Sparkling Ale and Boag's Premium are the best commercial Aussie beers IMHO.

Amen, brother! Cooper's is the best stuff from the Antipodes.

I have the rels bring as many as they can carry in their luggage when they visit us here in the US of A. Imagine my joy when I found a place in NYC and Philadelphia that stock it regularly (I live in the other Garden State).

-- Anonymous Coward and Cooper's Club Member since 1998.

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[dajak]

In the US Budweiser, a "beer" made from rice, has a 50% market share. And normal Heineken beer, which is a crappy cheap lager to start with, is turned into "Heineken export" for the US market by sweetening it. Yuck. After the "export treatment" all lagers taste the same. It's beer vandalism.

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[Codifex Maximus]

Fosters is a whole lot better than Coors or Budwieser. Just what kind of beer are you Aussies not sending to America?

Re:Fosters *ugh*

[ate50eggs]

"You can't even buy Fosters Lager in most parts of Australia. Most Australians wouldn't touch it."

Let's not be snobs. The crappy macrobrews in Australia are just like the crappy macrobrews here, just more expensive. Is 4X or VB preferable to Fosters? I saw a 6pack of Bud Light for sale in a grocery store in Townsville for $20 AUD. Granted Townsville is a little touristy. But for the record, I've seen a lot of Australians drinking Fosters. I think they accidentally imported too many of our commercials.

My advice is to drink wine there.

They're throwing away...

[gondwannabe]

...perfectly good sugar, starch and alcohol!

Isn't that what beer is???

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[lordmatthias215]

Aye, I would guess that the next step would be adding a way to scrub/store the CO2 exhaust. There has to be some use for it, and the output would be in a small contained area with a low output, perfect for capturing in tanks for some use. Any ideas?

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[lordmatthias215]

Ooh, I just thought of one after I hit submit- circulate it (obviously not at 100% concentration) through small sealed greenhouses used to grow the plants needed to feed the power cell's bacteria- not only does the CO2 boost plant production, but you'd be producing fresh O2 for release back into the atmosphere, as long as you time it so you don't leak CO2 when you open the greenhouse to harvest (cut the CO2 input off with enough time for the plants to consume it down to normal atmospheric levels by the time they're ready for harvest). IANA botanist, but I'm sure they could find a way to make it work.

Thus the profit spake,

[HackingYodel]

Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. --Benjamin Franklin.


A man who knew a bit about both beer and electricity. Think he's smiling down from heaven about this, or puzzled it took us so long?

Re:Thus the profit spake,

[apathy maybe]

He's dead Jim. That means he's doing nothing because he no longer exists.

Apologises if you are actually a materialist and were just saying it to be stupid.

New Belgium Brewry has been doing this already

[strangeattraction]

Sorry been there done that. Buy Fat Tire beeer and save the planet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Belgium_Brewing_C ompany They generate 1/3 of their power from beer waste generating methane. (See energy prectices)

Wait a minute...

[LynnwoodRooster]

You take yeast, sugar and alcohol and get water?

WHAT A WASTE OF GOOD ALCOHOL!

It would give a new meaing to

[Mogster]

the phrase 'drunk with power'

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Sj0]

It would work better if you simply made it a continuous process. Have it so the "greenhouse" is actually a very slow moving conveyor upon which a medium of sugar water or something is poured(again, very slowly), and then pace it so the plants at the end have reached a certain mass by the time they reach the end. The only issue is that it would be so ridiculously slow and inefficient that you might not as well do it. The byproducts are part of the carbon cycle anyway(Thus carbon neutral), so quit whining.

Adam Savage said it best...

[nitehawk214]

"Beer plus Science... equals good!"

All a side effect of E=mc^2

[Mal-2]

So many discoveries end up being spinoffs of other discoveries. This fuel cell is a pleasant but unanticipated result of experiments to split the beer atom and put the bubbles back in beer. You may think I'm a yahoo, but no, I'm serious.

Mal-2

Economics

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I'm not so worried about companies going green.
Fact of the matter is ALL pollution can be considered an inefficiency.
Our economics system is designed to reward and continually improve efficiency.
As time approaches infinity pollution will approach zero.
The only question is if that's enough to save us.
I personally believe that we at one of the two extremes: either we aren't appreciatively changing the climate or we are already screwed.
By screwed, I mean even if you killed all the humans and stopped all factories the Earth's climate will still deteriorate to the point where humans can survive.
I also believe, based on our understanding of climate change, we can't determine which one we are at.

Re:Economics

[Gilmoure]

But if space is infinite, and pollution is finite, can it be said that we are really polluting at all? What's the percentage of pollution/infinite space?

Oblig. Men at work - "Down Under" lyrics.

[TapeCutter]

Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

"Do yourselves a favour and try some Marmite." - and be labeled a traitor, never!

Units

[MacroRex]

Just a nitpick, but is it really 2500 liters instead if 660 gallons? TFA says

The 660-gallon fuel cell will be 250 times bigger than a prototype that has been operating at the university laboratory and according to Google 660 gallons is about 2498 liters, so it sounds to me like the prototype is "10 liters" instead of "2.64 gallons". A two and a half cubic meter container is quite large in any case.

Re:Units

[Anonymous Coward]

6kW per Hour would be a rate of acceleration of electrical production. kW is already a rate of electricity flow/production. 1 Watt is 1 joule per second.

You're probably getting it confused with the commonly used kWH as a unit of energy (why not use MJ instead? Stupid power companies)

Clearly

[rantingkitten]

it must be dollaridoos.

You are pretending to be efficient.

[dinther]

Dumb ass, why are you living is such a ridiculous large home? Live smaller and you save so much more. Living in a 5000 square foot house with compact florescent bulbs is like driving a hybrid SUV or drinking diet coke. They are all stupid and only done by people who want to buy a conscience that they are doing their part.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. And dont reproduce. Remember, there's nothing more wasteful than kids!Be efficient!!

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[JavaRob]

No, no -- we all need big houses, to put all our stuff in.

We need all our stuff (and the house) to keep up with the Joneses, and to watch TV without being sad about all those shiny things we don't have.

We need to keep up with the Joneses and buy the things on TV because lots of consumption keeps our economy going.

We need to keep the economy going so we can have well-paying jobs, manufacturing and supporting more and more stuff.

We need well-paying jobs to pay all the bills for repairing/maintaining our stuff.
Oh, and to pay the mortgage on our big houses.

[...not necessarily a direct comment on the GP post; this is just a cycle I've been thinking about...]

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a part of this cycle (I live in a tiny room in a shared house in a foreign country so I can't really talk to my neighbors or watch TV, I have an academic "job" that pays below minimum wage), so I'm confident that this is an unbiased opinion.

"Stuff" is pretty damn nice in itself. Big sofas, big HDTVs, expensive new PCs and game consoles, a house big enough to throw a decent party - these things are all genuinely enjoyable, when I get to play with them I love it. Conspicuous consumption isn't the only motivation for owning this "stuff"... particularly the games consoles, since your neighbors will just think you're a weird nerd instead of respecting your money-making acumen.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[Anonymous Coward]

"No, no -- we all need big houses, to put all our stuff in."

How do you know his situation? Maybe he has a 5k sq ft house because he's got 7 kids and his elderly parents live in the first floor master bedroom and they in second. Maybe he's using LESS average square footage per person than you are in your studio apartment.

btw, my parents 6,500 square foot home uses less energy than my retrofitted in 1980s 100 year old farm house of around 2,500 sq ft. Larger buildings are more likely to use the newest tech, have solar, geothermal, higher SEER and energy star appliances, etc. Being comfortable lends itself HUGELY to spreading wealth, more energy efficient lifestyles and hence a better lifestyle, and the like. Fact is, people like yourself would probably go to the movie theater thinking it better, not realizing the gas alone easily outstrip what a home movie watcher uses in electricity.

"We need all our stuff (and the house) to keep up with the Joneses, and to watch TV without being sad about all those shiny things we don't have."

So what have YOU done about it? I bet you don't wear a burlap bag for clothes and 3 strips of wood per foot for shoes. If you are, then you aren't a hypocrite. If you don't, then you contributed to the excesses that you pretend to fight against.

"We need to keep the economy going so we can have well-paying jobs, manufacturing and supporting more and more stuff."

Well paying jobs reduces crime rates, keeps people happy, and improves human lives. Medical, pschyological, and social benefits abound which contribute to society. What you are proposing would be the opposite of what human civilization has been doing since the advent of history.

You seem to lack the ability to put together intrinsic human charateristics and couple them with well-thought out plans of reduction of impact.

"We need well-paying jobs to pay all the bills for repairing/maintaining our stuff.
Oh, and to pay the mortgage on our big houses."

Your cynacism makes little sense. A few negatives does not mean we throw out the whole.

The simple fact is, if we stop doing what we are doing now, the problem will continue because we do not have the ability to restrict everyone's ability to live, care for others, and enjoy life. If we continue on our path, humans have the ability to become more energy efficient to the point of reversing global warming and pollution--that's the nature of human progress, inclusive of technology, norms, policy, and legislation.

"[...not necessarily a direct comment on the GP post; this is just a cycle I've been thinking about...]"

Then YOU need to get better before you spout your crap.

Reduction of consumption is a good thing. Independence on energy is a good thing. But I hear more people bitching about what others should do, not taking care of what THEY can do themselves. Fact is, the very simple truth is that the solutions to energy and pollution will come from people doing more, not from those advocating others to reduce the quality of their lives.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a great cycle.

Recently I bought a dreamcast off of someone who bought a PS3.
I've gotten some fairly ok stuff for free from people making more room in their big house for nicer stuff.
I don't watch TV, so I don't know how far behind on keeping up I am.

The more people play in that cycle, the better my life from the run-off gets.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[JavaRob]

What foreign country? Maybe you *should* watch TV, to help you with the language....

Anyway, it's a mixed bag, in my experience & observations.

Solid, well-functioning things are a pleasure to work with on a daily basis. These are very rarely cutting-edge technology, and you rarely need many of them.

I was thinking partly of those guys who get a super expensive car, then double-park it way out in the parking lot and freak out if a shopping cart veers towards it. Better get a high-tech security system, too, huh. And that big engine is real useful in getting them up to the speed limit +5 real fast.. but then they just have to sit there, unless they're a daredevil and/or don't care about the speeding tickets. I got a car that's good enough to be reliable, but already has a few dings (so I don't even wince if I bump the curb while parking, or if someone nicks it with a door in the parking lot). And it's got a puny diesel engine (and takes a little while to get up to speed..), but gets me where I want to go at 50 mpg.

Enough space in the house for a party -- maybe, if you are going to host a ton of parties. But you don't need 30 foot ceilings for that (everyone is going to be in the kitchen, anyway). The more I think about human resource consumption, etc., the more swimming pools, big houses, big cars, expensive entertainment and so on start to bug me. Isn't there something *wrong* if I spend 8 hours a day gaming? Or watching fluff TV? Is that the pinnacle of civilization -- I'm not forced to work, so I can at last become a useless lump on a (comfortable!) couch? If America is sucking down far more than our share of the earth's resources mostly just entertaining ourselves, aren't we doing something wrong?

Seriously (trying to swing away from self-righteous prick territory..), I'm not some kind of monk, nor do I think people should be (e.g., it's not hard to find the travel photos on my website.. at least that's partly educational). I'm just starting to feel more like we should know the real costs of what we buy -- in resources required (for manufacture, use, and disposal), in hazardous waste generated, in envy incited, in potential pain upon theft/damage/loss/failure, and so on. We don't take those into account normally.

It's not as if you can't put some effort into making your life a pleasant place to be. But there has to be more to life than *just* that pursuit.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[JavaRob]

Here's an incredible example:
    http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/

This family's actually doing what I sort of partly do.

Re:You are pretending to be efficient.

[JavaRob]

How do you know his situation?

I don't, hence my comment at the end about "not necessarily a comment on the GP post". I guess I'd also say the chances seem low that he's in an 11-person household.

Larger buildings are more likely to use the newest tech, have solar, geothermal, higher SEER and energy star appliances, etc.

Houses are not made out of air, they are constructed from natural resources and chemicals. Rooms in a house are not left empty, they are furnished. Energy is not "saved" - it's either consumed, or not. How does your parents' resource and energy consumption and waste production in their 6,500 square foot home compare with the average human? How will our natural resources hold out if everyone managed to set themselves up similarly?

Being comfortable lends itself HUGELY to spreading wealth, more energy efficient lifestyles and hence a better lifestyle, and the like. Fact is, people like yourself would probably go to the movie theater thinking it better, not realizing the gas alone easily outstrip what a home movie watcher uses in electricity.

Really, more energy-efficient lifestyles? Spreading wealth means buying more stuff, which means the stuff must be manufactured and then will need to be disposed of. High-tech gadgetry is often more fragile (and will probably break sooner) and contains more electronics w/ hazardous materials. In a way, you're right -- take one family who buys all of their appliances, gadgets, TVs, computers, grill, etc. paying top dollar, and compare another family who buys exactly the same number of things, but the cheapest models possible... obviously the first one wins. But it's pretty easy to beat *them* in turn, by simply buying fewer things.

Movie theater vs. home movie -- actually, I do think about those things. But you don't have to live in a hole and wear burlap to change your resource usage. My biggest resource usage problem is probably that my wife's family and mine live on different sides of the earth, and we don't see either of them very often but when we do... well, air travel is pretty expensive in these terms. I'm aware of it, and we could afford to travel much more often than we do. Other areas of our lives we're doing better.

So what have YOU done about it? I bet you don't wear a burlap bag for clothes and 3 strips of wood per foot for shoes. If you are, then you aren't a hypocrite. If you don't, then you contributed to the excesses that you pretend to fight against.

First, that has no bearing on whether my points are good (just on how convincing I can be...), but I'm not all noise. I traded down for a car that's twice as efficient, and I don't drive much. I don't wear burlap bags, but I don't spend much money on clothes and shoes, either (I don't think I've bought any shoes in years, actually...); I get stuff that lasts, and don't retire it at the first scuff. It doesn't reduce the quality of my life.

Your cynacism makes little sense. A few negatives does not mean we throw out the whole.

I don't argue for throwing out the whole. A communist system, for example, doesn't work well just because of human nature. We're always going to have a competitive streak, and we all have an interest in physical comfort, etc. -- I'm puzzling over ways to direct that less negatively. The TV-driven economy definitely isn't helping, though.

And I'm certainly not anti-technology -- at this point, we're pretty well screwed without some major technological leaps. The difference is that I don't think we can ignore the problems because "science" is working away on them.

The simple fact is, if we stop doing what we are doing now, the problem will continue because we do not have the ability to restrict everyone's ability to live, care for others, and enjoy life.

Correction -- the problem will be slightly smaller. And if your peers have any respect for you and your opinions, and model their behavior o

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Gotta ask yourself..]

There has to be some use for it, and the output would be in a small contained area with a low output, perfect for capturing in tanks for some use. Any ideas?

Just use it to generate fresh, clean, sparkling water. D'oh!

This is HORRIBLE!

[boyfaceddog]

"This fuel cell type is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol ...."

Its not bad enough that we're killing off honey bees, polar bears, dolphins, tigers, and pandas, but now we need to do THIS?
SUGAR, STARCH, and ALCOLHOL IS NOT WASTE!!! THAT'S **BEER**!!!!!

Why, for the love of all that's holy, do we need to create something that might one day consume all of the beer in the world.

STOP THE MADNESS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

It's Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny this guy converted it to gallons for the americans out there, now for everyone else, that's 2.5 kilolitres.

Re:It's Australia

[Gilmoure]

...

that's 2.5 kilolitres. Them there's tourorrist terms. You thinking of esploding something?

Waste material???

[simm1701]

Ok so what waste material are they talking about?

In making beer (and I do this at home so I feel I know atleast a little about it) you have several stages with "waste" product - but I wouldn't exactly describe them as starch, sugar and alcahol - to be honest its mostly fibre... or atleast so I thought...

First you malt the barley (basically a slow roast though thats an oversimplification).... can't really see any waste coming from here.

Then you mash the grains, ie keep in water at about 60-65C for a couple of hours, this causes the enzymes in the grain to convert the stored starch in the grain into sugar that yeast can later consume.
You then sparge the grain (think pouring a watering can with a fine spray) over the grain the gentle extract this sugar. How you throw whats left of the grain away (waste product 1 - mashed grain)
Now you boil the water you collected along with hops to add flavour, strain off the water and you are left with hops (waste product 2, hops that have been boiled in high sugar content water)
Then you leave the beer to ferment and for a commerical brewery parsturising, carbonate and can/bottle the beer (a terrible and evil process, but then not everyone has the taste for real ale) there will be sediment left in the fermenter than is the final waste product, this will also have some beer in it... waste product 3.

So we have the malted barely that has been mashed and sparged, mashing should have converted as much of the starch to sugar as possible. Spraying should has washed off as much of that sugar as possible, the remains? the non starch part of the grain

The hops will have soaked up some of the wort (effectively sugared water) and then you have the material the hops are made of, some starch and mostly fibre like any seed.

The sediment should not contain and sugar, but it will hard the same or close) alacohol content as the final beer... it probably also contains plenty of yeast (dead and still viable)

Actually I think writing this out I may have convinced myself.... its stuff that they would be throwing out anyway and it is fairly well concentrated (atleast compared to raw harvesting of bio matter) as long as the alcohol is not too toxic to the baterial breaking it down I start to see how this would work...

Interesting idea... not worth trying myself - making 5 gallons of beer I wouldn't have enough waste product to fill a 1 gallon bucket, but scaled up it would be interesting to see!!

strange brew that's good for you

[Anonymous Coward]

kombucha

how absurd to present that digits/machines can remedy yOUR nearly infactdead health care system. it will more likely require properly trained & motivated (ie: other than by greed/ego) people, & time.

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Cheerio Boy]

Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide, aka, greenhouse gas)

Easy! CO2 powered keg tappers!

The symmetry of the solution appeals to me for some reason.

*wanders off in search of a breakfast beer*

In this language, however, it's

[benhocking]

42-65-65-72
or
42-65-65-72-2c-20-62-65-65-72-2c-20-62-65-65-72-2c -20-6d-6d-6d-6d-2c-20-62-65-65-72-2e

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[RagnarokGod]

we need a lot of carbon for the nanotube elevator cable, start storing this stuff up, and cranking out the production line ... in the event that the current tech is not up to it, just make what we can and stockpile it, until technology catches up and we can put the hundreds of thousands of tonnes required to ggod use, and keep that carbon out of our greenhouse cycle ...

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[lordmatthias215]

Well I realize that the process would be carbon neutral once you're growing plants to process, I was mainly thinking of the fact that since we're producing CO2 in high concentration, we may as well use it in high concentration to boost plant growth. The next step would be just making sure the CO2 isn't able to hit the atmosphere at large before the plants have a chance to use it. Other than that, you're right- it doesn't really matter if the CO2 gets out there as long as there are plenty of plants to compensate.

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Anonymous Coward]

population control is the answer

Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

Beer gives the world light!

Beer, is there anything it can't do?

Re:Beer

[Anonymous Coward]

Make any girl from Baywatch sleep with you

Guess I can't try this with my home brewing

[jerryodom]

There really isn't much left over when you brew beer.(only used up grain) Sugar is completely fermented out and typically all that remains in the fermenter is some yeast.

I guess with these big brewers they have alot of waste from mistakes and protocols for maintaining sanitary conditions? Pretty cool and probably fun way to prevent beer abuse. Don't throw that away!, Put it in the battery.

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[grs1969]

The CO2 output does not make a net contribution to atmospheric CO2 because it was originally pulled from the atmosphere by the plants used to make the brewing ingredients.

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[drinkypoo]

You could take the approach the government used at sandia national labs when testing the viability of algae for biodiesel over a decade ago: bubble the CO2 output through an algae raceway pond. They claimed they could capture over 80% of the CO2 output of a power plant, surely they can do the same here. The resulting algae can be made into biodiesel and ethanol (from its fats and carbs, respectively.) But it's true that you could use it as supplemental CO2 in greenhouse situations.

Re:Oblig. Men at work - "Down Under" lyrics.

[whyloginwhysubscribe]

Well - it's not even owned by an Australian company anymore is it?

Units

[perrin5]

Ummm...

6 kW. That's good. 6 kW per Hour? per Minute? per 660 gallons? One of the biggest problems with biological fuel cells is not their byproducts, but the rate of electricity generation.

Set the electrons free.

I'd also like to point out that this is using waste water, not alcohol laden beer. This is what's left. This is along the same lines as generating methane from your cow's waste to power your farm. It's useful, but mostly as a way to get rid of the poop.

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[YourMotherCalled]

Airsoft and paintball gun tanks!

waste?

[chachacha]

in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol Um... where is this "waste" they speak of?

Slashdot mods fail it again. Still. Continuously.

[fyngyrz]

Parent: underrated++, insightful++

Re:Don't forget the waste : Co2 (carbon dioxide)

[Anonymous Coward]

but let me guess -- you're not volunteering to go first?

Re:Oblig. Men at work - "Down Under" lyrics.

[TapeCutter]

Oh well, pass the marmite if you must.

terminal frustration

[billdale]

I spent the last two days or so trying to figure out how to understand this discussion board, and how to navigate it; I posted a reply to a message a day or so ago, and have not even been able to find my own post, and cannot understand how to use this. Sorry, guys, I give up. It's too obtuse for me, and there are way too many pointless posts to weed through to try to use it.