Is Hb Good For The Environment?

[mash head]

wtf

Whats that skip you havnt read the whole post and Sonnys down the creek with his home made still. Its ok Gary will be here in the chopper soon :lol:

 

[manticle]

wtf

Are you surprised my girlfriend likes to drink my homebrew, that she likes to drink my stout or is my post just unclear?

In summary: Sometimes I make stout. My girlfriend likes it. Therefore she won't ban me making it just because it makes me fart.

I hope all is clear.

 

[remi]

one other good water use suggestion (for those of us that don't already have grey-water/ rainwater systems) is to use rinsing/ cleaning/ cooling water for the washing machine or similar- i fill old fermenters with cooling/ cleaning water during the brew day, and they get gradually tipped into the washing machine over the coming weeks...no garden wastage here (no garden)

remi

 

[notung]

There were some comments about ants and worms on the first page of this thread. Until last year I was maintaining some worm farms for composting reasons and as food for the axolotls. I once made the mistake of grabbing a handful of boiled hops from the hopsock and feeding them to a container of worms. They all died! I think this could be one of the dangers in feeding kettle trub to your compost worms.

 

[notung]

"Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World
By Christopher Mark O'Brien

Fermenting Revolution delivers an empowering message about how individuals can change the world through the simple act of having a beer. It is also the first book to view all of the important trends in human history as fundamentally revolving around beer.

Globalization pitches the corporate worldview that is essentially selfish, rewarding the few while demeaning the many and devastating nature, against the sustainability movement that calls for cooperation, the protection and celebration of nature and the nurturing of equitable communities. Beer exemplifies the struggle. This book:
Traces the path of brewing from a women-led, home-based craft to corporate industry;
Describes how craft breweries and home-brewing are forging stronger communities;
Explains how corporate mega-breweries are saving the world by pioneering industrial ecology; and
Profiles the most inspiring and radical breweries, brewers and beer drinkers that are making the world a better place to live.


The return to beer as a way of life is communal, convivial, democratic, healthful, and natural. The American beer renaissance champions ecologically sustainable production, and is helping to create thriving community places. After reading Fermenting Revolution, mere beer drinkers will become "beer activists," ready to fight corporate-rule by simply meeting their neighbors for a pint at the local brewpub -- saving the world one beer at a time.
About the Contributor(s)
Christopher O'Brien is Director of the Responsible Purchasing Network at The Center for a New American Dream. Part owner of an organic and fair trade brewing supplies company, he is publisher of the online brewsletter, Beeractivist.com."

 

[Renegade]

Whats that skip you havnt read the whole post and Sonnys down the creek with his home made still. Its ok Gary will be here in the chopper soon :lol:

Allegedly he bitters with Eucalyptus leaves too. Weeeeooo- e- Oooh - Oooh. Who knows what sort of neurological damage those native oils cause.

snip/ my girlfriend likes to drink my homebrew,
snip/ she likes to drink my stout
snip/ is my post just
snip/ Sometimes I make stout.
snip/ My girlfriend likes it.
snip/ it makes me fart.

I love reading stuff out of context, dirty old man that I am :unsure:

There were some comments about ants and worms on the first page of this thread. Until last year I was maintaining some worm farms for composting reasons and as food for the axolotls. I once made the mistake of grabbing a handful of boiled hops from the hopsock and feeding them to a container of worms. They all died! I think this could be one of the dangers in feeding kettle trub to your compost worms.

And you are a genocidal maniac in the worm community. Fortunately, very few of the survivors have ever logged into an internet forum. (I dare those worms who have - to speak up NOW.)

I don't think they have the backbone for it.

Perhaps I should visit the "Dry July" thread now and let the gang know that I've fallen off the wagon.

 

[chucke]

Is Hb Good For The Environment?

If HB produced dangerous byproducts, like mercury or PCBs, I might give it a thought. As it is

 

[mje1980]

How much electricity does a brewery consume in a 24hr period?? Probably more than you do at home all year ( including non brewing )

How much paperwork does a brewery consume?? A shitload more than you ever will

How many workers in a brewery who drive to work everyday?? Lots of greenhouse gas there

How many delivery trucks driving beer all over the country?? Shitloads, and we know how enviro friendly the big rigs are!!!!

That's just a start. I seriously doubt HB'ing leaves a bigger eco footprint than a mega brewery.

 

[bum]

The brewery employees' cars is the only valid point you've raised. Every other point can be greatly reduced/negated when you consider the volume they produce compared to HBers and the greater efficiency they maintain in regard to water, etc.

 

[Polar Beer]

How much electricity does a brewery consume in a 24hr period?? Probably more than you do at home all year ( including non brewing )

How much paperwork does a brewery consume?? A shitload more than you ever will

How many workers in a brewery who drive to work everyday?? Lots of greenhouse gas there

How many delivery trucks driving beer all over the country?? Shitloads, and we know how enviro friendly the big rigs are!!!!

That's just a start. I seriously doubt HB'ing leaves a bigger eco footprint than a mega brewery.

Almost everyone works. The industry you work in may be even more polluting then mega brewing. You can't compare a home hobby to a fully fledged major employer. The mega brew industry can leverage it's massive scale to deliver the best environmental outcomes but still needs to keep it's shareholders and employees happy. That's something we don't need to worry about at all.
Looking at this question as a process (hb) vs process (mega) to achieve beer in your glass, doesn't IMO result in a meaningful answer. The impact of the HB process should certainly be looked at, but it can only really be compared to what YOU might otherwise be able to achieve with that time, water, money etc. In which case, depending on how efficient you are with your water etc, it's probably not great, but could be much worse.

 

[drtomc]

Think about the huge reduction in your carbon emissions though. Less travelling in a car to buy beer, which is delivered and distributed in fossil fuel burning trucks.

Even a trip to the LHBS would get you enough ingredients to brew a lot more beer than you could fit in your car in just one trip to the local bottle-o.

You make me feel better and better for riding my bike to the HBS. Not so good for buying bulk grain, etc, but I still by mine a brew at a time. The 60L pot on the back of my bike was entertaining.

T. (looking outside at the rain, thinking about my planned lunchtime trip to get the grain for brewing tonight)

 

[bum]

Looking at this question as a process (hb) vs process (mega) to achieve beer in your glass, doesn't IMO result in a meaningful answer. The impact of the HB process should certainly be looked at, but it can only really be compared to what YOU might otherwise be able to achieve with that time, water, money etc.

And looking at the megas can't teach us anything in that regard?

 

[tcraig20]

the corporate worldview that is essentially selfish, rewarding the few while demeaning the many and devastating nature,

Explains how corporate mega-breweries are saving the world by pioneering industrial ecology;

:unsure:

 

[OzMick]

How much electricity does a brewery consume in a 24hr period?? Probably more than you do at home all year ( including non brewing )

How much paperwork does a brewery consume?? A shitload more than you ever will

How many workers in a brewery who drive to work everyday?? Lots of greenhouse gas there

How many delivery trucks driving beer all over the country?? Shitloads, and we know how enviro friendly the big rigs are!!!!

That's just a start. I seriously doubt HB'ing leaves a bigger eco footprint than a mega brewery.

I'll just throw in my two cents here, seeing as I work at a brewery. All of these points quoted ignore economy of scale! If a major brewery does 40 odd brews a week, each one perhaps 4000 times the size of a standard homebrew batch, we are talking 160000x as much of everything per week, assuming 1 brew per week from a homebrewer. A couple hundred employees still means very little in labour and transport costs per litre when compared to the cost of driving to your LHBS for ingredients. And big rigs are a much more fuel efficient way of transporting product than homebrewing, might take 1L of diesel to move a single carton from one side of the country to the other, compared with the maybe 10L of petrol I need to burn to get to my new HBS of choice. Paperwork is surprisingly little these days, almost all electronic, and again, multiply whatever you do each week by 160000 and I'd wager you'd find the brewery comes out well in front. Lets say your 1 batch requires you to use a computer for 10 minutes per brew. For a brewery turning over a brew every couple hours, running a few servers and a dozen terminals to monitor it is still much more efficient than the amount of computer time you've spent on your single brew, in terms of time/litre.

Water, gas and electricity all cost the brewery, and a lot of money is invested in heat recovery, CO2 recovery and water recovery. I'm quite certain CO2 recovery from fermentation *isn't* done by homebrewers, and while some people use a heat exchanger to cool wort, the heat is generally dumped rather than recovered back into the next HLT. Spent grain is also sold for animal feed, and yeast sold to Kraft to turn into Vegemite. Very little is wasted, and it all costs money.

Packaging materials are another story. Homebrew stomps all over retail product (although a brewery's kegs would be better in terms of what goes into cleaning them). No argument that homebrew is better for bottled product.

All said and done, probably break even if you're recovering water onto your lawn/garden and mulching grain waste etc.

 

[mje1980]

Can you tell me how much power the mega brewery you work in uses each week, roughly??. I guarantee no one here uses that much in a year. I know that a Mega brewery is more efficient on a large scale, but they STILL use more energy in a week than we do in a year. Just because they do it more efficiently is irrelevant. The total amount is waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than any of us. The environment doesn't say " Oh well, all the power you use, and the size of your carbon footprint is ok, because you've done it efficiently" does it??


The efficiency of the system doesn't matter, its the TOTAL volume/footprint/enery consumption that is important. Yes, i understand that if our home brewing setups were magnified to produce the same amount as a brewery, we'd be screwed, but my point is, we DONT brew the same volume as a brewery.

 

[OzMick]

Can you tell me how much power the mega brewery you work in uses each week, roughly??. I guarantee no one here uses that much in a year. I know that a Mega brewery is more efficient on a large scale, but they STILL use more energy in a week than we do in a year. Just because they do it more efficiently is irrelevant. The total amount is waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than any of us. The environment doesn't say " Oh well, all the power you use, and the size of your carbon footprint is ok, because you've done it efficiently" does it??


The efficiency of the system doesn't matter, its the TOTAL volume/footprint/enery consumption that is important. Yes, i understand that if our home brewing setups were magnified to produce the same amount as a brewery, we'd be screwed, but my point is, we DONT brew the same volume as a brewery.

I can't provide $$$ info off hand and would be reluctant to provide specifics in any case, but I can say with confidence that you and your dozen best mates combined will never drink the weekly multi-million litre capacity of our brewery in your lifetime so comparing 1 brewery to 1 individual is pointless, and without that the big boys, the drinkers of commercial beer would otherwise have to brew their own, which you've suggested would not scale well. In that sense, centralizing production isn't as bad as the alternative if you want to assess things that way.

I'm not trying to say a big brewery is better or worse, just trying to state some facts because the big boys (one of whom pay my bills admittedly) don't deserve to be bashed over this, a lot of time and money is invested in ensuring things are as clean and efficient as possible (and a lot of the things homebrewers can get away with the big boys would be prosecuted or charged big bucks for, trade waste disposal isn't cheap, and the EPA don't mind handing out big fines). I homebrew myself and do it for the hobby and educational value, so I'd like to think I'm relatively neutral on the subject. Ultimately the total footprint isn't the issue, and things can always be done better by everyone.

 

[Angry Scotsman]

Can you tell me how much power the mega brewery you work in uses each week, roughly??. I guarantee no one here uses that much in a year. I know that a Mega brewery is more efficient on a large scale, but they STILL use more energy in a week than we do in a year. Just because they do it more efficiently is irrelevant. The total amount is waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than any of us. The environment doesn't say " Oh well, all the power you use, and the size of your carbon footprint is ok, because you've done it efficiently" does it??


The efficiency of the system doesn't matter, its the TOTAL volume/footprint/enery consumption that is important. Yes, i understand that if our home brewing setups were magnified to produce the same amount as a brewery, we'd be screwed, but my point is, we DONT brew the same volume as a brewery.

Individually we don't brew as much as a big brewery but collectively our foot print would be quite large. To me the fact they are so effiecent is irrelevant. I don't work for any brewery but this site all ways comes back to large brewery bashing.

 

[Brewer_010]

I've got one word to say to you all: "offsets"

If you're worried about your carbon footprint from brewing, get signed up to green energy or some other way of reducing the energy impact of your brewing. Personally, I think if you're minimising and/or re-using your water, the worst thing about the hb process is running an extra fridge [or two]. Signing on to getting at least 10% of your electricity from green energy would minimise your footprint.

 

[PostModern]

How much of the malt we use ends up as CO2? Never mind where your power comes from, fermentation and carbonation are direct greenhouse gas injectors. However, as it's come from plants, it's a closed loop.

 

[tcraig20]

Can you tell me how much power the mega brewery you work in uses each week, roughly??. I guarantee no one here uses that much in a year. I know that a Mega brewery is more efficient on a large scale, but they STILL use more energy in a week than we do in a year. Just because they do it more efficiently is irrelevant. The total amount is waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than any of us. The environment doesn't say " Oh well, all the power you use, and the size of your carbon footprint is ok, because you've done it efficiently" does it??


The efficiency of the system doesn't matter, its the TOTAL volume/footprint/enery consumption that is important. Yes, i understand that if our home brewing setups were magnified to produce the same amount as a brewery, we'd be screwed, but my point is, we DONT brew the same volume as a brewery.

So Im cool because I make less pollution than China?

 

[domonsura]

I've got one word to say to you all: "offsets"

If you're worried about your carbon footprint from brewing, get signed up to green energy or some other way of reducing the energy impact of your brewing. Personally, I think if you're minimising and/or re-using your water, the worst thing about the hb process is running an extra fridge [or two]. Signing on to getting at least 10% of your electricity from green energy would minimise your footprint.

Sorry, but this is a pet hate subject of mine.....some of you might want to look away now....(I'm not having a go at you either Brewer010 )

In my every so humble opinion, offsets are a load of rubbish created by politicians and big businesses to try and make us all feel better and this whole carbon footprint thing is a load of sh*t.
The only valid 'offset' as far as I'm concerned is not producing the pollution in the first place, and that comes down to everybody simply reducing the amount of energy they consume across the board in simple ways, not saying 'it's OK because I offset it with something else...'.
Try 'offsetting' it by turning that aircon/light/heater/spa-pool/pool filter/plasma TV/christmas decoration lights all over the house/tennis court floodlights/football night games under floodlights...OFF. Try getting something fixed instead of kicking it to the kerb and replacing it.....Buy your groceries in larger amounts less often with less packaging, less printing and less pretty colours, from LOCAL suppliers to reduce the contained energy per calorie achieved. Buy products that you know will last, instead of something that you know you're only likely to get a few uses out of and then have to replace.

Most of the energy production methods create waste and or destruction somewhere along the line, it all comes back to the simple fact that every action creates and equal and opposite reaction. Paying a little more for your electricity because a utilities company says that theirs is greener is putting your head in the sand and passing responsibility on to someone else (in much the same way that people believe that putting everything in the recycling bin is going to save the world.......how much energy does it take to recycle stuff? Stackloads.....where does the energy/water come from? The same place it always does. Returns=severely diminished....buy things in packaging that doesn't require recycling)

I'll get on the bandwagon immediately for any utilities company that produces ALL their electricity from either wind or solar, and I'll quite happily pay more for it. Until then I reckon it's a load of bollocks and that any utilities company that claims to be green is full of it....

We don't need fancy names for things like 'offset' or some big (pathetic, useless, costly, beuracratic supporting) carbon trading system. We need people to consume only what they NEED (as opposed to what they want and have convinced themselves they need), and use common sense in their approach to everything they do instead of the wasteful just in time disposable society we have become.

Common sense and effort. Y'know, something from the history books........

The long and short of it is that in the western world, energy consumption per head of poulation has quadrupled in the last ten years, and so has the amount of waste created. Waste energy creating rubbish, then waste more trying to deal with the rubbish created... What a way to dig a hole for the whole planet eh? <_<

 

[bum]

So Im cool because I make less pollution than China?

This is way OT but this is one of my pet hates - why do people put China up as the dirtiest country on the planet? Yeah, they are big polluters, but they are also massive producers. It goes hand in hand, you wanna complain about it then don't buy anything made in China (I wish you luck in this regard). The Chinese government employs more people in the renewable energy sector than the entire population of our country. Not meaning to be taking a swipe at you directly, JC.

 

[tcraig20]

This is way OT but this is one of my pet hates - why do people put China up as the dirtiest country on the planet? Yeah, they are big polluters, but they are also massive producers. It goes hand in hand, you wanna complain about it then don't buy anything made in China (I wish you luck in this regard). The Chinese government employs more people in the renewable energy sector than the entire population of our country. Not meaning to be taking a swipe at you directly, JC.

Its a fair enough point Bum, and I wasnt meant to be taking a swipe at China in particular. I could just as easily have said Japan, Germany or even Haiti. China just happened to be the one that I chose. What I was trying to demonstrate was the falsehood of comparing what I do personally with something many orders of magnitude larger to somehow justify my own excesses.

To my mind, things like pollution shouldnt be measured by nations, or even by people and populations, but rather by the volume of economic and manufactured product produced per unit of 'pollution'. In that regard, the amount of beer a megabrewery can produce for, say, a tonne of carbon dioxide, is always going to be much higher than a home brewer could achieve.

 

[Renegade]

In my every so humble opinion, offsets are a load of rubbish created by politicians and big businesses to try and make us all feel better and this whole carbon footprint thing is a load of sh*t.
The only valid 'offset' as far as I'm concerned is not producing the pollution in the first place, and that comes down to everybody simply reducing the amount of energy they consume across the board in simple ways, not saying 'it's OK because I offset it with something else...'.
Try 'offsetting' it by turning that aircon/light/heater/spa-pool/pool filter/plasma TV/christmas decoration lights all over the house/tennis court floodlights/football night games under floodlights...OFF. Try getting something fixed instead of kicking it to the kerb and replacing it.....Buy your groceries in larger amounts less often with less packaging, less printing and less pretty colours, from LOCAL suppliers to reduce the contained energy per calorie achieved. Buy products that you know will last, instead of something that you know you're only likely to get a few uses out of and then have to replace.

Whilst I agree with much of your statement in that we need to activly participate in 'best practice' energy consumption in our lives, the green energy surcharge (that I for one have been paying for years) helps to reduce pollution in the long term, by providing funding towards the creation of more sensible sources such as biomass, solar, wind, etc power. Sure, excess wastage probably wont bite us in the bum, but what about the future of our kids, grandkids etc ? The technology is already here in that we can be a far more efficient society of energy producers. Why isnt the state & federal governemnt doing more - like putting in place a law that requires all new residential developments to have solar panels installed - it would be a very small extra cost on the overall price of a new house or block of apartments. Even cheaper if the government threw in a couple of billion per year to the project instead of, say, campaign advertising. These solar collectors would feed back into the grid (this is a current technology, not a pipe dream) and you will find that with the better efficiency these days with panels, each new home would be producing more electricity than their usage requirements dictate. I would even agree to a 1% PAYG increase. Right now, with minumim outlay you could set up solar panels and probably have a negative bill each quarter from Energy Australia (your meter actually goes backwards!), but if it was more widespread let the energy companies keep charging something, as long as its equal to or less than the present cost of electricty. The end result is going to be a much cleaner source of power (that is, next to no emmissions comapred to coal-power).

Sorry to get off topic, but its a pet hate of MINE to see goverments doing NOTHING constructive, and talking hand-jive about how they are doing so much.

 

[bum]

Sorry, I probably should have mentioned that I see and agree with your original point completely.

 

[MartinS]

The commercials send millions of kilos of spent grain to be used in cattle feed. Transport miles and cow methane farts. My spent grain ends up as compost and keeps me in eggplants, tomatoes, spinach etc.

You're right that many of us save on the transport cost, the cow-fart argument is a bit week.

Someone else pointed out that spent-grain fed cows produce less methane than grass-fed ones. I have no idea if that's true or not, but it wouldn't matter if it weren't. We breed cows for milk and meat, not consuming our grain, so the spent-grain would just be offsetting grass consumption anyway. If the argument is true, then it's a good thing because the cows will produce CO2 instead of CH4, and CH4 is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 (err, I think).

So in your case, where's all that carbon going? When the grain grew, it absorbed a bunch of CO2 from the atmosphere. That has to be released somewhere when we're done with the grain. If you throw it on your garden, the plants aren't going to eat the carbon out of it. The work will be done by bacteria, which will release, you guessed it, CO2 and methane. Sure, your veges might be able to grow bigger courtesy of the nutrients they (indirectly) get out of the grain, which will mean they absorb more CO2, but when you eat them, or they die and rot, they just release that carbon again.

The only significant difference in the way you do it, and the way they do it, is the environmental cost of transporting the grain, and some of that might get recouped by nicer smelling cows.

I'm in an apartment, so I give a litre or two to my worms (any more than that and it stinks to high heaven). The rest goes to the tip. Maybe my local tip will do methane capture one day, and we'll be able to recoup a bit of electricity out of my spent grain.

 

[domonsura]

Whilst I agree with much of your statement in that we need to activly participate in 'best practice' energy consumption in our lives, the green energy surcharge (that I for one have been paying for years) helps to reduce pollution in the long term, by providing funding towards the creation of more sensible sources such as biomass, solar, wind, etc power. Sure, excess wastage probably wont bite us in the bum, but what about the future of our kids, grandkids etc ? The technology is already here in that we can be a far more efficient society of energy producers. Why isnt the state & federal governemnt doing more - like putting in place a law that requires all new residential developments to have solar panels installed - it would be a very small extra cost on the overall price of a new house or block of apartments. Even cheaper if the government threw in a couple of billion per year to the project instead of, say, campaign advertising. These solar collectors would feed back into the grid (this is a current technology, not a pipe dream) and you will find that with the better efficiency these days with panels, each new home would be producing more electricity than their usage requirements dictate. I would even agree to a 1% PAYG increase. Right now, with minumim outlay you could set up solar panels and probably have a negative bill each quarter from Energy Australia (your meter actually goes backwards!), but if it was more widespread let the energy companies keep charging something, as long as its equal to or less than the present cost of electricty. The end result is going to be a much cleaner source of power (that is, next to no emmissions comapred to coal-power).

Sorry to get off topic, but its a pet hate of MINE to see goverments doing NOTHING constructive, and talking hand-jive about how they are doing so much.

:lol: we're pretty much on the same page by the sounds of it. Totally agree with you about funding needing to go directly towards the development of better energy sources, and equally in agreement that the best place to start would be with introducing legislation as you suggest. My problem is that with current schemes, my understanding is that what happens to the extra you pay towards your greener energy here in Australia is a very convoluted and parasitic process that I believe could be much more direct and not involve the electricity companies at all. At the moment, it's essentially paying an electricity company to try to create electricity in a more environmentally friendly fashion, when the fact is that's what they should be doing in the first place in order to survive in a market of consumers who should be insisting that their energy isn't created in a way that does the amount of damage that it does. Such funding should be coming from government, independent of the influence of utilities providers (in my opinion). That to me defines what Government is and should be. Decisions of what steps will be taken from within the industry are so often subject to influences that have nothing to do with the greater good, but more to do with profit margins. Placing the responsibility for moving forward in the hands of the very people responsible for continuing to do business in an un-sustainable way is a bit pointless.
Is my view somewhat idealistic and naieve? Probably. Am I a cynic when it comes to faith in the energy industry to do what's best for us all. Most definitely. Just look at their track record. Am I foolish enough to think that this can all happen overnight? Nope. (I am a cynic after all).

To answer the original post - Yes. Most definitely, homebrew is good for the environment. If only because it gives us all time to pause and reflect on life and all the things that we as humans should be doing in a more organic way and a much slower pace. I wish all my neighbours were home brewers who, grew their own vegies, worked less, played with their kids more and had time to lean on the fence and yarn with me while we share a couple of beers & enjoy the sunshine and the smell of fresh cut grass. Everybody take a moment, close your eyes and imagine........mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Now open. Sorry to disappoint the vast majority of you - we're still here in the real world.

:lol: yes, I know I'm a prick. But it's ......................

Saturday, it's the name of the day.
And it aint ever gonna change....WO WO WO (cmon kiwis, join in)
Saturday, it;'s the name of the game..
and Blotto is the name of the game.........

Have a great weekend everybody......

 

[Brewer_010]

Sorry, but this is a pet hate subject of mine.....some of you might want to look away now....(I'm not having a go at you either Brewer010 )

In my every so humble opinion, offsets are a load of rubbish created by politicians and big businesses to try and make us all feel better and this whole carbon footprint thing is a load of sh*t.
The only valid 'offset' as far as I'm concerned is not producing the pollution in the first place, and that comes down to everybody simply reducing the amount of energy they consume across the board in simple ways, not saying 'it's OK because I offset it with something else...'.
Try 'offsetting' it by turning that aircon/light/heater/spa-pool/pool filter/plasma TV/christmas decoration lights all over the house/tennis court floodlights/football night games under floodlights...OFF. Try getting something fixed instead of kicking it to the kerb and replacing it.....Buy your groceries in larger amounts less often with less packaging, less printing and less pretty colours, from LOCAL suppliers to reduce the contained energy per calorie achieved. Buy products that you know will last, instead of something that you know you're only likely to get a few uses out of and then have to replace.

Most of the energy production methods create waste and or destruction somewhere along the line, it all comes back to the simple fact that every action creates and equal and opposite reaction. Paying a little more for your electricity because a utilities company says that theirs is greener is putting your head in the sand and passing responsibility on to someone else (in much the same way that people believe that putting everything in the recycling bin is going to save the world.......how much energy does it take to recycle stuff? Stackloads.....where does the energy/water come from? The same place it always does. Returns=severely diminished....buy things in packaging that doesn't require recycling)

I'll get on the bandwagon immediately for any utilities company that produces ALL their electricity from either wind or solar, and I'll quite happily pay more for it. Until then I reckon it's a load of bollocks and that any utilities company that claims to be green is full of it....

We don't need fancy names for things like 'offset' or some big (pathetic, useless, costly, beuracratic supporting) carbon trading system. We need people to consume only what they NEED (as opposed to what they want and have convinced themselves they need), and use common sense in their approach to everything they do instead of the wasteful just in time disposable society we have become.

Common sense and effort. Y'know, something from the history books........

The long and short of it is that in the western world, energy consumption per head of poulation has quadrupled in the last ten years, and so has the amount of waste created. Waste energy creating rubbish, then waste more trying to deal with the rubbish created... What a way to dig a hole for the whole planet eh? <_<

Agree totally. Normal offsets (read: a "promise" to plant trees that most never end up getting planted) are a pet hate of mine too. Offsetting your normal power usage (from fossil fuels) with a truly 'renweable' source is a step in the right direction. A scientist from CSIRO suggested a while ago that instead of taking money to plant trees we should be using it to set up renewable power projects.
A power company that supplies 'green energy' is required by law to source a certain % from renewables, and they're audited so it's pretty legit. I'm more skeptical of those tree-planters who will take your $$ and promise to plant a tree or ten.
A lot of people waste power, granted, but that may be more about pricing or that people don't really think about it. My household (four people, nearly twice the average) uses only 11kwh per day, which I'd like to get down more if possible.
Cheers (says I supping from my low carbon footprint beer in a glass washed with low potassium detergent) :icon_chickcheers:

 

[tcraig20]

Normal offsets (read: a "promise" to plant trees that most never end up getting planted) are a pet hate of mine too.

Some offset 'schemes' are even worse. Say you build a wind plant in India. If you didnt build it, someone would have had to have built a coal plant instead. Your wind plant therefore saves all the CO2 that would have otherwise been produced by the coal plant. Therefore, you have a right to sell this never-made pollution as an 'offset'.

In 91 years we'll probably be looking back on that little chestnut as one of the top five scams of the 21st century.

 

[ant]

I'll just throw in my two cents here, seeing as I work at a brewery. All of these points quoted ignore economy of scale! If a major brewery does 40 odd brews a week, each one perhaps 4000 times the size of a standard homebrew batch, we are talking 160000x as much of everything per week, assuming 1 brew per week from a homebrewer. A couple hundred employees still means very little in labour and transport costs per litre when compared to the cost of driving to your LHBS for ingredients. And big rigs are a much more fuel efficient way of transporting product than homebrewing, might take 1L of diesel to move a single carton from one side of the country to the other, compared with the maybe 10L of petrol I need to burn to get to my new HBS of choice. Paperwork is surprisingly little these days, almost all electronic, and again, multiply whatever you do each week by 160000 and I'd wager you'd find the brewery comes out well in front. Lets say your 1 batch requires you to use a computer for 10 minutes per brew. For a brewery turning over a brew every couple hours, running a few servers and a dozen terminals to monitor it is still much more efficient than the amount of computer time you've spent on your single brew, in terms of time/litre.

Water, gas and electricity all cost the brewery, and a lot of money is invested in heat recovery, CO2 recovery and water recovery. I'm quite certain CO2 recovery from fermentation *isn't* done by homebrewers, and while some people use a heat exchanger to cool wort, the heat is generally dumped rather than recovered back into the next HLT. Spent grain is also sold for animal feed, and yeast sold to Kraft to turn into Vegemite. Very little is wasted, and it all costs money.

Packaging materials are another story. Homebrew stomps all over retail product (although a brewery's kegs would be better in terms of what goes into cleaning them). No argument that homebrew is better for bottled product.

All said and done, probably break even if you're recovering water onto your lawn/garden and mulching grain waste etc.

Top post OzMick, and you go right to the heart of the argument here by raising economy of scale issues. When you bring environmental impact back to a common denominator (ie look at the entire lifecycle of the process, factoring in growing of ingredients, associated transport of ingredients, water and energy consumption during brewing, chemical consumption, heating and cooling, packaging, transport of finished product, transport of product to distributor to point of sale, associated cooling, transport associated with purchase of product, disposal/recycling of containers) you can compare the impact of HB to macro brewing on a volumetric basis, eg per litre of beer, who comes out on top.

In an ISO lifecycle assessment, short of growing and malting your own grain, growing your own hops, cultivating your own yeast, generating your own renewable power, using your own rainwater... the big boys will come out on top. Sorry, but that's how it is. You can't get close to the economies of scale the majors use.