Fun fact: Beer is a water-based beverage.
Unfortunately, breweries tend to waste water while concocting some of the tastiest beverages on the planet. An MIT-bred company, however, has developed technology that can make breweries more environmentally friendly and save it money along the way.
Founded in 2006, biotech company Cambrian Innovation has been developing technology capable of turning harmful pollutants into useful resources. Yesterday, the company announced that its EcoVolt water treatment system has been purchased by California craft brewing company Bear Republic.
The brewery is the first to purchase Cambrian's EcoVolt system, which could ultimately cut water treatment costs, produce clean water and onsite energy, and reduce Bear Republic's carbon footprint.
"Bear Republic is not just implementing one of the most advanced water treatment and reuse systems ever developed – they're also saving money from day one," read a statement from Cambrian.
With offices in Boston and the state of California, Cambrian Innovation beat industry giants like General Electric to the punch, creating the world's first industrial-scale, bio-electrically enhanced wastewater treatment and reuse system.
"This approach to enhancing wastewater has never been done before," Cambrian Innovation CEO Matt Silver told BostInno during a phone interview Thursday afternoon.
Using electrically active organism, the EcoVolt system eliminates 80 to 90 percent of the biological oxygen demand (BOD) in the water supply. The system then converts CO2 directly into high-quality gas that Bear Republic can use on-site to generate heat and electricity for its brewing process.
“Sustainable production practices have been a cornerstone of Bear Republic’s business since we started in 1996,” Richard “Ricardo” Norgrove Jr., Bear Republic Brewmaster and COO, said in a statement. “Cambrian’s innovative technology not only fulfills this mission, but also has proven to be a valuable asset for our business, especially as California is in the midst of a drought. By removing barriers to production expansion due to water resource limitations, we can fulfill a family dream of expanding our business within Sonoma County and creating a true destination brewery.”
With EcoVolt in place, Bear Republic is expected to receive an annual return on investment of 25 percent.
Typically, breweries consume up to ten times the amount of water for beer produced. Bear Republic is currently trying to lower that ratio to 3.5 to 1. Now, with EcoVolt in full-swing, the brewery hopes to do even better.
According to Silver, EcoVolt is able to turn what used to be a liability – wasted water – into an advantage. By converting a pollutant like CO2 into "really high-quality gas," EcoVolt is able to generate up to 50 percent of the brewery's energy.
Silver co-founded Cambrian while studying for his PhD at MIT. The company was granted initial funding from NASA to work on the International Space Station project, and underwent seed funding from 2007 to 2011. The company has since been given $8 million in grants, Silver said.
Cambrian launched EcoVolt last October.
