The Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. is using a bunch of Tesla batteries, along with solar power and a microturbine generator, to help make beer brewing more environmentally friendly at its Chico, California facility.
The company has installed a 1MWh Tesla Powerpack battery system, taking power from an existing 10,751-panel, two-megawatt solar installation — the largest owned by any US brewery — and a two megawatt microturbine. In all, the setup allows Sierra Nevada to offset around 20 percent of its yearly electricity use.
[...] The beer-brewing process uses a lot of electricity, heating and cooling batches of water and beer over several weeks of production. Big industrial operations like Sierra Nevada pay for electricity both on overall use as well as peak usage over the course of a month — and anything companies can do to reduce that peak use can result in significant cost savings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:10PM
But can a Musky engine make engine block eggs?
Can an LED lightbulb heat an easy bake oven?
Can a digital TV make analog snow?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:31PM
The story is about a brewery using solar power and a microturbine to offset its electricity costs, but that's technically boring. But wait! They're using a Tesla battery pack! Awesome! Hold the presses! The new title is Tesla saves the day!!!!
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:10PM
Respectfully, I disagree completely. Actually using solar power for something useful (as opposed to "look, we have solar cells!") is very interesting. Anyone making renewable energy work is doing good work that benefits our society; nonrenewable hydrocarbon products will probably not last forever and it would be nice to have other energy systems up to speed by the time we need them.
The point of the whole Tesla connection is that the Tesla batteries are made in Nevada, as is the beer. Like you, I question Tesla getting first billing here; it's the brewery setup that's impressive and interesting, as mentioned above, and the fact that they are using off-the-shelf Tesla batteries is great but probably not make-or-break.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:51PM
I know that people don't read the article, but perhaps you could read the summary:
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:46AM
Fair enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:56PM
LUDDITE!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:12PM
We've done "green" beer before. I know we have. I distinctly remember pointing out that alcoholic fermentation kicks out shit tons of CO2 and isn't remotely green in any way, shape, or form.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:18PM
I don't think it's a dupe. Just dumb.
I like Sierra Nevada but I'm making most of my own alcohol now.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:54PM
I don't understand your response; is it just an insecure neckbeard's way of telling others that he homebrews?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:01PM
At least I'm not posting it under my real name or on Facebook.
Oops, I'm social signaling to anonymous cowards that I hate social media while using a form of (anti)social media!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:48PM
Nearly everything organic eventually decays into CO2. Clearing the land to grow hops and grains might add a little but that's minor and self limiting. Worry about coal, oil, natural gas, cement and refining iron, in roughly that order, but not beer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:04PM
I didn't say I was worried about it. I lurve beer. And since I know precisely how anti-green it is, I get a good laugh at hipsters and otherwise tree huggers when I see them drinking it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:50PM
That CO2 is released from the malt sugar; it just gets bound up again in new grains, making the process neutral.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:08PM
See, that only works if you assume barren fields if beer were not being made. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Anything grown there not destined to be fermented would be greener.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by theluggage on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:55PM
I distinctly remember pointing out that alcoholic fermentation kicks out shit tons of CO2 and isn't remotely green in any way, shape, or form.
However, you've conveniently forgotten the difference between carbon released from fossil fuels and carbon released from last summer's barley harvest.
You know, the way one has been out of circulation since it was captured 300 million years ago and increases the net CO2 levels in the current atmosphere, while the other is offset by the CO2 absorbed by next year's barley crop?
OK, so there are wider environmental issues vis. cutting down rain forests to grow barley etc. but the climate change problem is primarily caused by the human race's current determination to find, dig up and release a whole geological era's worth of ancient carbon in the space of a century, because anything else would require thinking beyond next quarter's profits.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:59PM
I think we should bioengineer forests of truly giant trees to absorb all the extra CO2 and allow us to live like Ewoks.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by wirelessduck on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:27AM
Surely the Wookies had bigger trees on Kashyyyk than the Ewoks did on Endor?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:12PM
That would be a valid point except for the fact that any other crop would be greener than fermentation fuel. You're taking up acres and acres of land that would otherwise be actively sequestering carbon and turning it carbon-neutral. That is a step in the wrong direction for those who say the sky is falling.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday January 20 2017, @03:32PM
You're taking up acres and acres of land that would otherwise be actively sequestering carbon and turning it carbon-neutral.
Except this thread was talking about using solar power to save fossil carbon emissions when making beer. I completely agree that schemes to produce massive quantities of alcohol for biofuel need very, very careful scrutiny...
...and if you want to cut beer production to save the planet then for fuck's sake start with the mighty Bud and its frosty piss cousins - certainly not Sierra Nevada, which is rather nice!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 20 2017, @10:26PM
Me, I value beer over the climate. Just making a point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:07PM
Lithium is a safe, non-toxic, renewable, and sustainable energy storage resource, right?
(Score: 1) by morrowwm on Wednesday January 18 2017, @09:10PM
That's hardly micro. I'd be tempted to call it a mini-turbine.
It gives you an idea of the energy contained in fossil fuels (natural gas in this case) compared to PV.