Renewable Energy

In this section:

• Deriving Renewable Energy from
   Wastewater
• Home Grown Fuel

Anheuser-Busch has been utilizing renewable energy for over two decades through our Bio-Energy Recovery Systems (BERS) technology. Today, we are taking a broader approach as we seek to evaluate available renewable energy options. In this rapidly developing area, our teams of engineers and other professionals are examining cost effective alternatives – such as landfill gas, biomass and other alternative fuels – as well as longer term solutions like solar power and hydrogen fuel cells.

The following initiatives position us to achieve our 2010 goal of obtaining 15 percent of our total fuel use companywide from renewable sources (compared to our current level of 8 percent obtained from renewable sources).

Deriving Renewable Energy From Wastewater

Anheuser-Busch is the world’s largest user of BERS, an anaerobic method for processing brewing-related wastewater and capturing the resulting biogas (methane). We first began using the technology in 1985 at our New Jersey yeast plant. BERS is installed at 9 of our 12 U.S. breweries, and at our brewery in Wuhan, China. Our breweries with BERS burn this renewable energy source for fuel, supplying up to 15 percent of those breweries' on-site energy needs. In 2006, almost 1,888 billion Btus (2 million gigajoules) were generated through the use of BERS, enough to provide heat to more than 25,000 homes. (Based on Energy Information Administration Residential Energy Consumption Surveys.) Anheuser-Busch breweries avoided more than 258 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels by using this renewable fuel. 

Our award-winning BERS provides a number of important environmental and cost benefits:

• Reduces the breweries’ fuel costs and reliance on fossil fuels
• Reduces the electricity demand for community wastewater treatment facilities, by reducing the wastewater strength or organic load
• Substituting biogas for fossil fuels also reduces the emissions of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide that would otherwise result from the amount of power required by traditional aerobic-only wastewater treatment.

The decline in the volume of biogas produced in 2005 and 2006 resulted from a decline in beer process loss, or the amount of biogas-generating material that reaches the BERS process. This is also favorable for overall brewery energy efficiency in that there is less energy consumption throughout the brewing process as a result. We continue to see improvements in the efficiency with which BERS captures the biogas that is generated.

Link:
Managing wastewater with BERS

- Top of Page -

Biogas Use Brings Substantial Savings to Merrimack Brewery

The company’s newest BERS at the Merrimack, New Hampshire, brewery has been operational since August 2006. The Merrimack brewery saves about 10 to 15 percent on its total fuel bill by using biogas to replace a portion of its natural gas or oil use. After being pushed through 320,000-gallon tanks, the wastewater ends up in reactors where “granular biomass” feeds on the organic material and breaks it down into biogas. The biogas is then captured and piped back into the brewery where it is used to fire the boilers used to brew beer.

Home-grown Fuel

Anheuser-Busch’s commitment to renewable fuel sources extends into the research sector. Our land application sites located in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Jacksonville, Florida, are in the process of setting up test plots. At the Fort Collins site, Colorado State University researchers will plant canola and camelina to determine their efficiency as potential fuel crops. Researchers from the University of Florida are conducting similar studies at our brewery in northern Florida for cellulosic ethanol production from native grasses.

Link:
Land application of biosolids

- Top of Page -