Colorado has a great selection of breweries- there's Crabtree here in Greeley, and then the more well known Anheuser-Busch and Coors, and that means CO2. Good old carbon dioxide. We love it in soda, use it as dry ice, need it to brew beer, but read about it these days with conflicting feelings. Isn't it what's accumulating in the atmosphere and reaching concentrations of over 380 parts per million, which is causing climate change? Yep.
I love beer and also love the idea that excess carbon dioxide from brewing beer could be a way to feed CO2 loving algae. Why algae? There's a company right here in Colorado that is using the excess CO2 from breweries and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)-a wast from industry- to grow algae because that's what they use to grow! Some algae photosynthesize and produce copious amounts of oil. They are really efficient at this and don't take any land from food crops, such as corn and soybeans, because they can be grown in small places within labs. No worries about soils being used or having shortages of food crops for this oil which is a great biofuel. Even better the carbohydrates that are waste products can be used to make ethanol or animal feed. If you are a nerd like me, check out SOLIX and read more. Now, if we can just convince scientists to figure out a way to use Kudzu as biofuel...you'd see southerners hacking away at those vines night and day!
No comments:
Post a Comment