Brewery Makes Beer With A Secret Ingredient—Algae—To Fight Climate Change
Image via Shutterstock
Young Henrys brewery from Sydney, Australia has collaborated with the University of Technology Sydney Climate Change Cluster (C3), harnessing new technology to make beer-brewing lighter on emissions. And that technology? Algae.
A sustainability resource not to be reckoned with, algae produces more than 50% of the world’s oxygen supply, and also absorbs carbon dioxide. Microalgae, the type used in this brewery’s project, are—as the name suggests—microscopic in size, and can grow in freshwater and saltwater.
Young Henrys states that CO2 produced from the fermentation of a single six-pack of beer would take a tree two full days to absorb. In context of how much beer is produced globally every day, it’s clear to see that it would take a huge toll on the Earth’s ecosystem.
Each milliliter housed in the glowing green “bioreactor” contains roughly five million microalgae cells. With a total of 400 liters, Young Henrys Newtown brewery produces as much oxygen as an entire hectare, or 107,639-square-feet, of Australian forest via photosynthesis. Additionally, this grows more algae, which can be used for a wide range of other purposes, if not for emissions-offset projects like these.
"We’d like to get to the point where we can put a C02 catchment system internally and basically it would be a closed-loop within the brewery,” says cofounder Oscar McMahon in a statement obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald.
LIQUID GOLD... or should we say liquid green?
— Young Henrys (@younghenrys) May 28, 2021
Our partnership with UTS Science allows us to house two algae tanks at our Newtown brewery, which bubble away, producing oxygen which offsets the CO2 from brewing.
To learn more head to: https://t.co/qybuTrqsua pic.twitter.com/1x2rS1cTGv
[via The BBC, image via Shutterstock]
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