BREWING giant Tennent’s is to capture the carbon dioxide gas given off when it makes its beer and use it to keep its lager fizzy.
Two giant 25-tonne tanks were lifted into place over the weekend to catch the gas at the company’s Wellpark brewery in Glasgow.
A crane weighing 1,000 tonnes was needed to lift the tanks 60 metres above the brewery’s silos, the largest lifting machine ever used on the site.
Carbon dioxide is produced naturally when yeasts turn the sugars found in cereals into alcohol.
It’s one of the gases that contributes to climate change and so capturing the gas instead of letting it enter the atmosphere will help Tennent’s to reduce its carbon footprint.
Tennent’s expects to catch and store the equivalent of more than 4,200 tonnes of carbon each year – that’s the same amount produced during 27,000 flights from Glasgow to London.
The brewery has already promised to be “net carbon zero” by 2025.
Carbon dioxide is also used to help keep lager fizzy and so Tennent’s will be able to recycle the gas it captures and use it on site.
That means it won’t have to buy carbon dioxide from south of the Border, saving 100,000 kilometres of tanker journeys each year, further cutting the carbon footprint of the brewery’s supply chain.
Martin Doogan, engineering manager at C&C Group, which owns Tennent’s, said: “It’s been fantastic seeing the tanks put into place and everything come together and we are eagerly anticipating having everything operational later in the year.
“To be able to support the brewery’s needs using carbon dioxide that is produced by the fermentation process improves our local environment in the east end of Glasgow and is a significant step in our goal to be carbon neutral by 2025.”
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