CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water -- by using sugar-consuming bacteria.
The experimental technology was unveiled Wednesday by scientists at Australia's University of Queensland, which was given a 140,000 Australian dollar (US$115,000; euro85,000) state government grant to install a microbial fuel cell at a Foster's Group brewery near Brisbane, the capital of Queensland state.
The fuel cell is essentially a battery in which bacteria consume water-soluble brewing waste such as sugar, starch and alcohol.
The battery produces electricity plus clean water, said Prof. Jurg Keller, the university's wastewater expert.
The complex technology harnesses the chemical energy that the bacteria releases from the organic material, converting it into electrical energy.
The 2,500-liter (660-gallon) fuel cell will be 250 times bigger than a prototype that has been operating effectively at the university laboratory for three months, Keller said.
''Brewery waste water is a particularly good source because it is very biodegradable ... and is highly concentrated, which does help in improving the performance of the cell,'' Keller said.
He expected the brewery cell would produce 2 kilowatts of power -- enough to power a household -- and the technology would eventually be applied in other breweries and wineries owned by Foster's. The cell should be operating at the brewery by September.
''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,'' Keller said.
It's hard to find an economically justified alternative energy source. After insulating and converting to flourescent lighting, our basic energy costs are only about $150US / month, and we only spend about $1,000 a year for heating and cooling. So any payback on a $15,000-$30,000 system just doesn't add up.
A system that produces 2KW and is made of 10 plastic drums is interesting. If I can get energy out of my household waste, and in effect pretreat it for my municipal system, I'm ahead of the game!
well- thank goodness now I an make my own beer and my own energy !! how much beer exactly do I have to make/drink to get the 2 kw to power my home ?
Seriously tho - I AM watching carefully for ways to get my own power from my own whatever - so a nice small 'sits in the garden/basement/shed' system that will do that is just what we all need - might bug the hell out of big oil of course if we all made our own power (:>)
Several years ago I saw on PBS (I think on NOVA) a story about households in India using chicken manure in individual digesters to make methane, which they used in cooking and lighting.
The other byproduct of the digestive process was a slurry which was grade-A fertilizer.
The digester was in the back yard, connected to the house by a pipe. It allowed them to stop using cow dung for their cooking fire. The cow dung smoke is very bad for the health.
I've often wondered whether that same technology couldn't be applied to human waste. The regulatory hurdles would be horrific, but the two outputs of the process are methane and first class plant food, with all the microbial baddies destroyed.
It could be done on either an individual or industrial scale. Just a thought. Didn't Bucky say that waste is only resources we haven't learned how to use yet?
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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deejay
23 Comments
Foster's, scientists team up to generate clean energy from beer-making
I shd imagine that there is a great deal of beer being manufactured in Aus, so why is the good Professor saying that only a limited amount of power will be generated? :-)
But jokes apart, if 2 KW powers a home, then a great many homes cd be powered, resulting in less requirement from the grid, and less large power projects, and less pollution, and less global warming and .......
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