Ep 44 - Is This The Future of CO2 in Breweries? - Dr Alla Silkina Swansea University & Emily Hutchinson Bluestone Brewery

Is This The Future of CO2 in Breweries?

Can algae capture your fermentation CO2 and turn it into useful biomass?

Dr Alla Silkina and Emily Hutchinson walk us through a real pilot at Bluestone Brewery. Setup, quality, cost and how this could scale.

This one for those looking to the future, a truly sustainable one.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:57 Sustainability in Brewing
02:41 The Algae Project: Concept and Goals
04:54 Meet the Guests: Dr. All Sina and Emily Hutchinson
06:07 Project Details: Algae as a Carbon Capture Mechanism
09:07 Technical Insights: Algae Cultivation and CO2 Utilisation
19:08 Challenges and Future Prospects
32:01 Discussing Financial Summaries and Investment
33:36 Cost Breakdown and Return on Investment
35:15 R&D Tax Relief and Brewery Involvement
38:18 Potential Applications of Algae Biomass
39:07 Other Industries and CO2 Utilisation
40:14 Quality and Commercial Potential of Algae Biomass
43:05 Future Steps and Commercialisation
51:53 Collaboration and Research Opportunities
56:51 Conclusion and Next Steps

Links and references

Research paper by Dr Silkina et al: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/23/6125

What the setup looks like in practice: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkI6CFGjMX9/?iigshMnFobWx4Y2JtZWZi

Contact the guests:
•⁠  ⁠a.silkina@swansea.ac.uk
•⁠  ⁠emily@bluestonebrewing.co.uk

For a copy of the SIBA sustainability guide co authored by Chris: barry.watts@siba.co.uk

Bluestone socials: www.instagram.com/bluestonebrewingco

Women In Beer: www.instagram.com/womeninbeeruk

Show Sponsor: Brew Resourceful. New look. Same mission. Reduce brewery COGS with practical efficiency

Transcript

0:15

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast with me, your host, Chris Lewington. So whenever I'm out and about, I always get asked, so what's your podcast about? And instantly I like, get panic stricken as I think I always do when anyone asks me what I'm doing. And I revert back to like that elevator style pitch about how it covers all the topics that I believe are important in brewing that just don't get the coverage they deserve. I, I think what most people think, 'cause it's just kind of a ruse for me to be cramming more sustainability and efficiency based topics down the throats of brewers. that's what I do in my every day. But actually. They're not always right, but in this case they'd be exactly spot on. That's exactly what we're gonna be doing in this episode.'cause there's a brewery in Wales who together within the University of Swansea, have been successfully using their fermentation, CO2 to grow algae, specifically spirulina in what I can only describe as a true, highly valuable r and d project in this brewing industry. You know. What no one ever asks me is why I started the podcast only of people is, what is it about? Not why did you start it? And honestly, when I first sat down and thought about doing this, one of the main goals of this podcast was to give a, or create a platform for brewers, breweries, scientists, people who have worked on projects. Within the brewing industry to have like a platform for them to get it out there, to amplify it and build a community of people who hopefully will take action on it. So when I was recording my first ever episode on the kitchen table of my friend's house, I didn't really particularly think that platform would ever exist. But you know, now fast forward two years, there's over a thousand brewers that listen to the podcast now, which I know is like a relatively low number, but I think it's significant to me. a thousand brewers is a lot of brewers to have in one room. So that's the way I try to always picture it. And I just want to say quickly that I actually really, I, I appreciate so much. Every single person who tunes in gets involved, shares the podcast with their friends. This podcast has been a hundred percent organic growth. so your shares go the longest way. Trust me, like your shares have made that number. I haven't actually done that, so I really, really appreciate that. And maybe just before we get into this episode, I just want to share with you some work that I've recently completed just because I think it's, I, I think it's, I was really proud of it and I actually really, really, really love doing it. So I recently co-authored a guide, to easy and accessible profitability measure. And implementations any brewery can make. And I co-authored this with Rod White from the University of Nottingham. most people will know him, rod, because he runs the apprenticeship program for the University of Nottingham for the brewing industry. And, we were commissioned to do this by siba, so we were tasked with creating the 10 of the best ways to increase profitability without spending lots on CapEx, which I know is often tight in most size breweries, and try to make the content applicable to all size breweries. and each of the guys, each of those 10. Ways goes into great detail, so it's actionable information that you can kind of trust. That's the remit of what we were doing. So I would love you to read it. If you have the time and want to increase profitability, we'll learn some stuff around, some of the niche sides of brewing. So yeah, please do check your emails from siba. It was emailed. Around to everyone from SIBA. If you're not on that email list, that's absolutely fine. You can contact Barry at SIBA or myself and, I can put you in contact and we get you a copy over of the guide. but yeah, let me know what you think. Again, it's something I'm really proud of. It's everything I've learned over, not just the last two years, kinda the last 12 years, 13 years, and I got to write it all down. So it was great. and having someone like Rod and the authority of the University of Nottingham really helps, had a lot of access to research and projects, et cetera that I tap into. So yeah, really hope that people, can read it. Have a look, and of course, let me and Barry and Rob know what you think. But right. Let's get into today's episode because this one is properly future facing at Bluestone Brewery. And Pembroke Shere. They're doing something with their CO2 that is not just recapturing it for their own use. They're capturing CO2 from fermentation and feeding it to algae. So their CO2 is creating one of the planet's most talked about superfoods. So with us today are two brilliant guests, Dr. All Sina from the Swansea University. A specialist in Algo Biotechnology and Emily Hutchinson from Bluestone Brewery, a co-owner who's been living this pilot project day to day at the brewery and shouting about it through their channels. We're talking about algae as a carbon capture mechanism, the potential for commercialization, the science of cultivation, real world lessons from installing the system. So if you are bogged down in the day to day of brewing. The relentless negativity surrounding the industry. Then be prepared to finally look forward to the exciting future we have ahead. Sustainability as a topic is really exciting because it's so forward facing and so full of positivity and optimism. So without further ado, let's get into it. Welcome to the show, Emily. And. Hi. Thank you. Hello. it's so great to have you on. I appreciate all my guests coming on, spending some hours during their, their very busy lives So both of you've got very busy lives in, in slightly different sectors, which is really exciting. I think it'll be really fun. Just as always, if we could just start off with, an introduction from you both. Let the listeners know who you are and what you do. Yeah, so, I'm Emily, I'm one of the directors at Bluestone Brewing Company in Pembrokeshire West Wales. I've been at the brewery now coming up to 10 years, so, the brewery Itself's been going for 13, so we're fairly, fairly well established now. and yeah, I tend to run the sort of marketing side of the business and a bit of admin, a bit of, you know, what it's like in a brewery, a bit of everything. but yeah, in terms of this particular project, I've been quite involved with the, the funding and the admin side of it, and then marketing the project, project through our, social media and, and. Website and everything else. So, yeah, that's my involvement with it. That's awesome. Yeah. hello everyone. So my name is Kin I'm Scientist. a algo specialist. I work in, in algae biotech for more than 25 years. And, I traveled the world, different countries, different, application. And in this particular project I'm super excited because it's a pilot study. so when we grow in algae on the brewery site successfully we get quite good results. So yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So Georgia, east London Brew Company first mentioned this to me a while ago and I was like, huh, that's really fascinating. I couldn't really find at the time, I just, it was in the back of my mind. I found it and then when I, I revisited it, I was like, this is like a really cool concept what I can understand. And I was like, it's really great to be able to get. yourself and Emily on. So we can actually go through it just on the basic level and then also like how it works in the brewery and kind of like what the future is as well. I think it's gonna be really exciting for me. I'll also be learning quite a lot as I, as I go as well, I think just for everyone, let's get, can we just have like a, a really simple breakdown of what is this project and, and what are we actually doing here? a bit of background. So, so our head brewer Tom, was a chemical engineer at Swans University before he joined the brewery. so he had a bit of chemistry background and interest in, in science and he'd actually seen something about young Henry's. Brewery in Australia. and they had these big green tanks and they had, they did a really good sort of PR on it and, and it was like this whole thing of, look at what we're doing with algae. But it did look interesting. and we already had quite a big sort of background of sustainability at the brewery. We'd won a, a few awards and we were trying a few different projects. and because we are based on a working farm as well, we've got the benefit of quite a lot of space up there to, to trial and error. We're not too restricted. so yeah, because Tom had been at Swansea and we are not too far distance wise from, from the university. Tom reached out and, and saw if anybody might be interested in, in looking to see if we could do something similar. and that's where Ella came in. And Ella will maybe explain it a little bit on the, on the actual project and what, what it's covering. Yeah. So yeah, so this, adverts was all around internet about growing algae inside of the fermentation room in the brewery in Australia. like I say, okay, because we, in Swans University got our own algo research laboratory where specialized actually on scale up application of different cultivation processes. And they said, okay, we can do something better than, than even just green tank inside of the cultivation, like fermentation room and then we install pilot two configurations. So two different setups for cultivating algae to test which one is working better and like will be more feasible for the long term application. Other brewery potentially will be interested in, so see also feasibility. And this was COVID time, so this was a little bit long story, so when we start to think how we can do it all and installation and, so traveling as well from one side to another. then we apply for grant for Welsh government, grant. they basically allowed us to, to reuse our system. What is, was, was not in use at Swans University. Then we installed it at the brewery location. So this is was two setups. so one is, was, raceway, so it's a thousand liter, like a big. so with a wheel mixing culture. And another one is, photo more sophisticated photo bioreactors, tubular construction, also running now give this force of pump, so, and get light access and so on. the, from the brewery side, we got, poly tunnel because obviously, so to protect these systems from rain and other contaminants and then the seal to supply from fermentation tanks to the, pilot of algal cultivation. So it took us some time, but to be honest, it went quite smoothly. What is was great and then we start our journey with cultivating and adapting different lgal species and to see which one is working best, basically. one did you land on? What, what are you, what are you currently growing, which. at the, at the moment, so we test two different species. One is, called C Desmos or Tetra Desmos with a new tax taxonomy is changing all the time with a new genetic tools, to identify species. And another one is wellknown. Spirulina, scientific name is Li. Nickname is Lira. so this is two fresh water. I'll give, one is the pro, another one is E. So, but the, the core, kind of, mm. Process itself is the photosynthetic reaction. So basically algae is, unicellular organisms growing in a water environment and they need CO2 for the photosynthesis. So they auto trough, they produce food for themself using water, CO2 and, light, so sunlight or, or artificial light. With this, this particular project, we use only sunlight it. And basically when all these requirements, given to, so to the culture, so this conditions provided for the culture, they start to reproduce themselves. So they double in cells every 24 hours. So creating new biomass and, this biomass could be harvested, replenished with new water, and then the process, so going again and again. yeah, so, so we find the spirulina, was better for growing in this particular condition because it's less, Difficult, so in dealing better with contaminants and, so some, Hmm you know, other conditions, so, and it's long, could run quite, quite a long time. So, for example, so inoculation, for the last run it was in April and until October, we just par partially harvested and we didn't replenish or anything, so it was really stable culture, so, Hmm. What is the sort of like rough timeline of algae creation in this scenario? So from. Like CO2, leaving the brewery to, I dunno, from, you said inoculation, right? So you're inoculating some water with like, Yeah. with algae, and then over the course of a time it's growing, is that right? Through the c2? that how, and you said that started in April? Mm-hmm. Yeah, this, this, no, this particular trial, so we usually run, the system roughly 300 days a year. Again, because our cultivation facilities is pull tunnel outside of the fermentation kind of facilities, so it's not heated. So obviously if we got some heat you a more solid construction, then eventually, potentially we can probably do so we may run it, like all year round, so, so we stop for winter season just because it's not enough light and not enough, temperature basically, it's quite cold to cultivate algae. usually we stop, we actually stop it right now, so in mid-November and we'll restart, sometime in February when it's kind of, we'll be more stable temperature conditions, Yeah, a good question actually. What, what are the ideal conditions for, I guess it depends on the algae, right? But on the type of algae, but let's say spirulina, what's its ideal growing conditions? I mean, spirulina is interesting one, so it's actually strain what was, I mean, species was isolated from Africa, from desert, so, and it's some, I mean, lots of people say, and it's, they like to be growing in warm condition. And it's true when you start the culture, it need to be. Provide optimized condition in quite high temperature. but you know, so this species is growing in very, robust. so, so basically strain is really robust. So why is the robust robustness is because they not affected by contaminants, So, and it's quite stable, stabilize itself, so it can grow long term without, so worried about it too much and they good production of biomass as well. And obviously when they of reach the capacity of, good concentration, so they start to remediate loss of CO2. this is what was the, basically, focus from, from this research application? Yeah. And how has spirulina usually grown? If it's because I, I see it available. Right? So as assuming someone's growing it somewhere, how has it usually grown? So lots of, facilities, in Europe and all around the world, is basically, growing them in a raceway. So this is, like I say, it's like a little pond with the wheel moving culture. So it's more like a pond, because Lina, making like serpentine, culture, colonies, so when cells attach to each other and make the like little stripes, so, for this device called spirulina, because it's spiral colonies, they, floating basically in the water, so to try to get access to the light, so, so the pond doesn't need to be deep because, so obviously light penetration will be affected by it, and then culture will be, difficulty to get enough, growth, for the CO2 remediation, or, so in this, in this particular case. And, yeah, so it's, quite stable, but, so basically lots of spirulina farms as, as we call it, so, because when we start to grow this in thousand liters and more, so it's, it's become not, really kind of, research even, so it's really like a farming application, So, so lots of these farms located in, France, so, I particularly visit, several. So usually people, growing it outside of, power station or something like this, so when they get access to the heat and, so heated facilities, so this is how they do it, so, and recycling of water as well. So yeah, this is, how it's usually growing, in our particular case, we use, like normal water and, so the, the only only things we, we use to recycle is, was CO2 for us in this particular pilots. Yeah. And do they usually inject CO2 into the algae farms that they're using, or are they're just using atmospheric, they're, yeah, inject. Yeah, it could be used atmospheric, CO2, but if you'd like to boost the, Hmm growth of culture, we need to inject CO2 because they, they increase for the synthetic crate, so they increase biomass productivity and obviously, so the CO2, capture, re regionalization, so, yeah. hmm. And that's why, I guess this is why this has such a big has such a big name in the sustainability STA space, is because it can, it can, well, it's photosynthesis, right? But you can accelerate it. what sort of CO2 are they using in these maj in these other farms? is it a reuse CO2 or is it like, is it purchased like anything else? I mean at university facilities, because obviously, so it is, we got also similar setups, but we use bottle CO2, so Hmm. it so it costs money Yeah. Yeah. lots, yeah. So, brewers. No, it's not a cheap, No, no, it's not cheap. It's the most expensive, yeah. of the cultivation of algae, so, so obviously in this particular case Yeah. using bottle CO2, we use natural CO2 process and, I, I dunno, in other places, I dunno. So Hmm. people use bottle seal to, sometimes they try to recycle it, but, what is was good. We previously worked with heavy industry when we use flue gas, but the bio quality of biomass was not that great as we, getting it from brewery because brewery, CO2, fermentation process, it's all, kind of food drink great, so it is not getting any toxic compounds or anything like this. So it's just a really good combination, so of conditions, what we provide for the cultivation and obviously, so we get good quality biomass coming out of the process. Yeah, that's, it's, it's a really cool concept to be using like such a prominent source of natural waste, CO2 of purchasing bottle. I think it's such a great concept. how did this come about? Like I, you mentioned Tom worked there before, but how did this, what, what drew you to thinking the brewing industry? Or did you know this from, it was a byproduct of fermentation, in the CO2, in the brewery, which has often just gone to waste. Like, how did this all come about? I guess we, we were conscious, like I said, we've been, conscious of our sort of sustainability efforts and, and we've had awards and things like that where we've had to put projects together and we look at all of the different areas of waste in the business and it's like, okay, we've got the cardboard sorted and we've got the glass bottle sorted and this, that and the other. And the, the main thing that always comes up with a lot of breweries is this waste CO2, that we're just kind of, venting off into the atmosphere and no one's really talking about what we're doing with it. so that was an area when we were looking at our own sustainability that was, okay, how can we reduce that? Or what can we do? With that. and then I think it, it was just prompted by Tom then seeing that article about, about Young Henrys and then the, the sort of link from Tom via Swans University. and again, like Alice said, it was kind of coming out of COVID during COVID. Everyone was, had a bit more time on their hands than we do now. We were all very excited and enthusiastic at the start 'cause we had loads of time to focus on it. but yeah, it, it was more just like, okay, let's have, have a play around. And in terms of our investment, really, like we only paid for the Polytunnel. I mean, it is still a significant investment for us. The other breweries may not feel they want to make, because it's not something we had to do. So we did spend money on it, but it was fairly minimal in that sense because we had the Welsh government grant. Funding and, and support from the university. So for us it was like, okay, we can put a tonnel up and we can do a bit of work on piping and, and that to get the CO2 across. but otherwise it was just quite a fun project to see if, see if something came from it. And it was also, it is, it is good for marketing it, it helps us to then be able to give a, a fuller picture of, of our, yeah, of us reducing waste and, and kind of making sure that every aspect of the business is as sustainable as it can be really. Yeah, I mean, firstly just wanna say I respect it so much to be able to like, to look through your waste streams and actively go out and seek something like this, go and get the funding. I, it's not a small uptake of time. I appreciate you said it when it was, when, COVID and we'll have a bit more time potentially. But like I have a lot of respect for doing that. I think it's such a, all businesses were acted like this, it would, the world would be in a much better place. So I do really, respect what, what you've been doing. I think you touched on something I really, I'm really keen on is like the infrastructure side of this. So we probably have two sides. We probably have the brewery. Infrastructure, like what you had to do in the brewery to get, I mean, CO2, how do you do that? Do you have hookup points, et cetera, to go through into the, algae section and then the algae section of what infrastructure and how does that look? Be really good. Maybe we could start in the brewery, Emily, and then we can move over to the, the algae side. Yeah. Again, I can start, Alan might help me a little bit as we go because, Yeah, in terms of, so like I said, I'm involved with the brewery, but not necessarily the actual production side. So it was a little bit more Tom o on that side of things. but yeah, generally, so as I explained at the start, we are, yeah, based on a farm. so we do have the benefit of a bit of extra, extra space. So there's, there's an area that we were able to put a Polytunnel, up, and then we've yeah, piped the, a link from the brewery over into the polytunnel there. But, yeah, in terms of the brewery setup, again, like I said, there was, a cost to it, but it, it wasn't substantial. I think it's more to do with the space to be able to do it. there's a lot of breweries who are based in like sort of small commercial units or it, I think we really did have the luxury of being able to, to put the polytunnel up, which maybe not every brewery can do. but yeah, all will probably be able to say a little bit more about how the CO2 was being taken from the tanks. She was more involved with that than I. so basically, because we did like a little bit of, we publish, a scientific paper on this case, so it is quite highly cited now. So it's, getting lots of interest from, academic, society as well. So what is good, so because I like Right. research, proper application, so before start for the infrastructure, say I was highly believing in this project because, at the beginning, like I say, we work with heavy industry with lots of CO2, big CO2 providers, so, and Algi obviously utilize CO2, but they get biological limits. So I want to try something, more feasible, so then like, so just. Do like a small, impact or small effect on like a, like a big steel production or some, other companies before I work. So it was quite enthusiastic from the beginning because basically how this works. So Algi getting, c to for the photosynthesis, but usually it was calculated and again, we, we. Slightly modify these numbers, working, on, on a brewery site, as well. So each kilogram of algae can absorb, in the literatures 1.8 kilograms of CO2. So this is kind of, proportion, so, so in brewery site we increase it for spirulina, so we go 2.2 kilograms of CO 2 4, 1 kilogram of algae. So it was quite good, like Emily said, so infrastructure, coming from the fermentation, so usually. so in the, in the breweries, so all CO2 is produced by fermentation process, when they be, basically produced, part of the CO2 and most of the CO2 is, used for the carbonization of drinks, so after the fermentation process is finished, but usually it's like, four kilogram, 400 liters of beer. So four kilogram of CO2 produced, 400 liters of beer. And then we potentially could use three kilograms for decarbonization. And then one kilogram of CO2 is just basically going to the atmosphere for each a hundred liters of beer. And then, so in this case, we collect all the CO2 and it was, we, we thought about to get like, some kind of reservoir to, to keep it, so, and use, it is needed. But at the end, we didn't do it like this, so obviously, so we directly pump it to. Our cultivation setup. So, so it's, like I said, already was, use polyol, and then inside we got thousand liter raceway and 400, 400 liters, for the bioreactor. So we got in, in total capacity, 1.4, thousand liters, so of the system. And, so we got like, flow rates, set up a specific flow rate to go like slow release, so whenever is available and, in this particular application, and again, Bluestone Brewery is, is not a big, brewery facilities and we use couple of tanks also to, to get the CO2 to the system, so we calculate, I mean, to re remediate all CO2 from brewery, so we need to get four times bigger, cultivation system of algae and obviously functioning all year round. So we didn't remediate. a hundred percent, so, Mm-hmm. did a good chunk. Yeah. Because again, this feasibility study and, so we got funding, but this was not big funding. So we just, use the facilities from university. Again, we didn't buy it for this funding because we didn't have enough money. Yeah. That, that's really interesting. So, just for a go over like how of the fermentation CO2 is captured by or converted by the, current system that you have. So, in the current system, we convert in, again, this, 300, we, we calculate 300 days of cultivation cycle per year. 300 days. Yeah. So at the moment we remediating, because we test two species, so first species was remediated, roughly 250 kilograms of CO2 and the spirulina one, it was higher. So it was, roughly 300 8400 kilogram of CO2 per year with this setup, Mm-hmm. we calculate for Bluestone Brewery, waste, CO2 is about 1,200. Yeah. basically roughly three, four times facilities need to be, so bigger. Operating longer again, so Yeah. Yeah. I see. And you said, so there's a, just to get my head around it again. So you've got the CO2 coming out of the fermentation tanks and then it into some buffer tanks. Was that, did you say there was a couple of things? No, sorry. Then it goes into a reservoir and then no, no. Reserv No. go directly to the system, so, yeah. so it is literally going straight in. Yeah. So we basically monitor it, like how say we provide a specific flow rate, so obviously, so, but ideally, so if we, we will do it, so as a new setup for the bigger system, we, we would like to have a reservoir just in case, to store CO2, Yes. obviously, fermentation cycle and cultivation cycle of algi, sometimes there's no matching, so, Yeah, I was gonna say, because it's not permanent, the, the amount of, or the production of CO2, even the volume of CO2 that comes out of a tank. So, yeah, that, but I see in a com, let's say a commercial system, non-pilot, you would, you would have a buffer or a reservoir, whatever the, yeah, absolutely. To, build up the pressure and like, make it, so yeah, I, I was just gonna add as well that we, so we are based in Pembrokeshire, which is very sort of seasonal, touristy area. And in the summer we could be easily brewing five days a week and producing lots. And then come like this time of year now, we could easily go a week where we maybe don't brew, or it might be one or two brews a fortnight or something like that. So our production can change dramatically across the year as well. so like Alice said, this has been very much like a, a trial and a experiment, and that's where the funding has got us to at the moment. But it's quite, yeah, those sort of things, if you were looking to do it more permanently, it would be great if we could store up, everything that we use and then be able to use it a bit more consistently throughout the year. Yeah, I mean for us it's good because summertime is also super productive Yeah. for Swarm. So basically it's Yeah. So, because we got, longer days, more sunlight, Mm warmer temperature, so obviously is all of these factors, So, give a good productivity for Agricul as well. Yeah, mm Yeah, that's a really good point on the seasonality of business as well as the yeah. Yeah, that's such a good point. so you said that in a, maybe not in ideal system, not the right term, but in a, let's say a commercial system, you would likely have heat and potentially like lights to it to do it, but you don't have that in this system, right? You are, it is literally like all natural. All natural. So things, actually things break when we get a frost. yes, We turned it all off last year because, yeah, as soon as the cold weather comes in, it doesn't work so well, does it? No. no, no. frozen. It's lots of water, So then obviously, it's freeze. Yeah. we got a bit of heating and, and so light, external light as well, like artificial light. yeah, if system could be more productive, but again, it's absolutely, I, I, I think it is need to be, absolutely connected with the need of brewery as well, Mm. yeah. Yeah. And I, I was thinking, I was wondering what the, like the cost inputs are, but actually in this system pretty, pretty minimal, I assume, really? you said 300 kilos of CO2, is that correct? Yeah. so if it's, I dunno if this is a linear it might be a really annoying question, but if there's 300 kilos of CO2 that you've converted, what biomass of, in this case, I guess, spirulina, would you expect to get out? Oh, I, Yeah, I knew. Do you know, that's the sort of questions you ask and everyone's like, oh, that's, I like it should gimme an advance. I can calculate it, yeah. maybe I'll put the answer in the show notes. There. Go, I'll gimme some time to do it, and then I'll just type in, in the show notes so people could go look. Yeah, so obviously, so in ideal world, so to use using like 300 kilograms of CO2, so we need to produce like roughly like a hundred kilograms of algae, so roughly Okay. know, but obviously, so for us it was Yeah. target, so we were more studied, the process itself, so we produced biomass for both species and different settings and different CO2 rates and so on. And um, yeah, so we got dry biomass or, or frozen fresh kind of, so wet biomass, but it was, again, it was not, specifically focused on biomass production only, So yeah, for us this was more. I, in an ideal world, you can get all of this resource, so biomass or spirulina or other species, whatever will, will be selected in in the application. mm-hmm. Yeah, I get that. So what are the ballpark figures for the, a cost of this setup? it doesn't have to be specific, but, I'm, are we talking a hundred thousand, 10 thousands, a thousand for a setup like this? Like what sort of ballpark figures are there? Yeah, it's a good question. back to our old I application. Yeah, all the application and papers as well. I mean, we can share, it's published, kind of, some financial summaries for the, for this setup. So obviously, so it is, so open access, so kind of piece of, scientific work, so approved basically by scientific community, so in publishing accessible to anyone. they will provide in some bulk costs basically of investment, so in, and we would like to see when is on return on investment would happen, so how much CO2 could be remediate and what products could become out of the biomass. So, but yeah, to be honest, like, we. Use, system, what we bought from one of the commercial companies. So basically after this study we, we focus more on like foot bioreactor, more sophisticated, more expensive system. It's basically tubular setup when we run in culture, like in a close loop. but tap, so like the raceway is cheaper and to be honest, in brewery setting we think, rather to use the sophisticated system. We got, couple of more on this simplistic system because it's a good quality of CO2, it's good quality of water, so, and it's Hmm. culture is growing so it doesn't need to be, so obviously in the closed system we got more CO2 remediation, but you know, again, if you get more systems of like system, it also will be fine. yeah, this is kind of main conclusion. I just looked on the paper that you sent me before a, it says 2025 pounds for total cost. Is that per year? is it? Yeah. Yeah. That's hardware and operations, electricity, consumables, transportation and downstream processing. It says 2000 here with the think it's 2000 is again, with the cost of setups, we not buying them every year. So Yeah, That's amazing. That's what I was thinking. 10 times less than I thought it would be. exactly. So we, we are running the system already for I dunno, three years probably. Is Yeah, I think so. Maybe longer. yeah. Even longer. Yeah. So obviously it's for these setups, investment needs to be done from the beginning, but then it's could last, more than 10 years plus, so, yeah. Yeah, it's saying here's 20, it says, 300 days per year hardware costs calculated based on a 20 year lifespan. Okay. so the cost per year? Yeah. Okay. 925. operation was 1,100. The total cost being 2025. And then the benefit of doing this, was effect, I won't go through, break it down, but it was, 1,217. So we can call that like Yeah. a year and a half payback effectively, those numbers are correct. So that's great. Yeah, but this is, we not taking in account any like, how to say green, green credit, Yeah, we Exactly. Yeah. Such a good point. and so on, because in Wales, the proper system in place will be from 2030, and then we'll see how it all will go. But obviously, so it's a good step upfront, so just to reduce this Yeah. Mm. other thing worth mentioning as well from the brewery side of it is, we were able to claim some r and d tax relief for this project. which I was surprised 'cause I, I thought that maybe because it had been funded and stuff, there may be some complications or anything with that, but it wasn't, and because we had, so we were able to acclaim for some of the money that we had invested ourselves. So, so we paid for the poly tunnel, but we did also then lay some, like, gravel and stuff to clear the area and we had to do a few things with pipe work and, and things like that. So yeah, we were able to, to claim some relief on that for, for the research and development as well. I mean, this feels like genuine research and Yeah. know those r and d tax credits get, Yeah, the, they get, people really pull what the, what an r and d really means to get those tax yeah, been a part of those, things yeah. I'd, I'd say as, as well, I dunno if Alan might agree, but obviously for us, it's been so involved with Swans University and they've been like the, the guide with it all, and then obviously they've come and they've introduced the new cultures or they've done any of the testings and things like that. I think that for a brewery to just go and do this, that, that, that cost has to be thought about as well, because a brewery could easily just buy a raceway true. online maybe and get one delivered, but actually like the expertise of knowing what, what to do and, and how to make sure it's working properly, it is quite important that you've got, you're, you're paying for somebody's time to help with that as well. Yeah. Yeah, because like I say in the beginning needs basically some specialist involvement. But then, so it could be learning process, so, but yeah, it's true. To start by own is quite Yeah. I, I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe the space thing is gonna, eliminate. And when you're saying that Emily, and you're saying small commercial units, I was like, I live in London. I was just thinking of all those railway Yeah. I was like, not is a premium, It, if anything, actually if you think when this brew is closer together, it really amplifies this because they could in equally all pipe to the same, bioreactor, et cetera. Yeah. wasn't the terminology, into the, into the same system. And actually you can multiply the, Hmm. the amount I. CO2 removed. it could be really interesting as well, because it just show like the, the point of this is a research project, so if it shows that, yeah, like Alice said, like the, the CO2 is really clean and good quality, that it's, it's doable on this sort of scale that it like there's gonna be clever people out there who can work out like an easier way of doing it for breweries with less space or like you said, like some sort of communal area that several breweries can, can send it to or, yeah, I think it's, it's exciting to be able to just say, look, we've, we've worked out that there's some promise in this and there's, there's there's reason to look into it further. and yeah, maybe in a few years time everyone will have many compact raceways on a. Elevated system around the top of the brewery or something like that. Okay. yeah, I'm just want to add, so obviously, the, from the beginning, the Australian company with the growing algae inside of the fermentation room, so this is possibility as well, so, and then also like, I understand in, in, city setting or something like this, again, roof space could be potentially used, so as well. So maybe not raceway, but you know, like serpentine system or something, so like vertical farming almost, something could be also introduced, but again, it need investment and need to like thinking through like engineering design and so on. But the process, biological process of CO2 capture from, fermentation process, I think it's, it's, it's doable. Yeah. But need a little bit more involvement of other sectors as Yeah. So I actually, something I've been, I wanted to ask, 'cause Hmm. a lot of people ask me this question when I'm talking about, different sustainability projects in the brewing industry, but they're always like, are we, is the brewing industry the first people to be implementing this? Or are there other industries that are using their way, CO2 to grow algae? Or is this one of the first examples of this? it is not really first example actually, So, first it, it didn't even cross my mind because again, brewery, fermentation, CO2 is not the major problems, in our society. So we're obviously, yeah, when we think about, carbon, carbon release, we thinking about like, again, steel making, industry, cement making industry, so, so the bigger players, in this, and, to be honest, like, I was involved in two, big projects, so is one of this was. To grow in algae on CO2 flue gas and then, flu gas from, from steel making. And then also we got nickel factory as well, so when they produce lots of CO2 with, other compounds, so, and, and it was successfully proven. But again, like I say, for brewery, because all of this flu gas, they're quite toxic, so they get other component, not only CO2. So I think and, and then we got regulation, how to use the biomass produce on like, dirty flu gas, so because this algae biomass contain lots of heavy metals and some other, biological or like other contaminants, so we prove, so the, the, the biomass from produce using CO2 from, brewery is, is good quality. we didn't check it as a food grade, but this was the plan actually, so to, to get to this level, so that, yeah. that's taking the next question right outta my mind. Is this like, is the biomass, algae that produced, is it food grade? Like, is it sellable on the, on that market? Yeah. I mean, to be honest like it is because, so the CO2 is really clean and then, so, but you know, we didn't get any contamination or anything, but we didn't go to the step of, like certification, on so on, because it was not in scope of the project, So. Yeah. Totally understand. Yeah. biomass is, specific specifically for this, trial when we use cine, Desmos and spirulina. So spirulina get, really high, content of protein. So at the moment it's used lots in different application from, supplement, food supplement for like addition of, I dunno, some different juices, smoothies, So even this summer I saw in Pretti was selling coffee with a short of spirulina, so as a blue fco signin another fco signin. So basically we got, pigment from, spirulina, what is called FICA signin. And this pigment get lots of health benefits and like, so, and again, people now start to be ready and, and they understand from the marketing perspective as well. Hmm. So it is less resistant to, to take the supplement, and use on daily basis basically. Yeah. Yeah, it's got, it is quite an exciting thing. I was like one of the only alies I could tell. I can name you spirulina, to be honest. well known Yeah, it is. Yeah. know? So, yeah. Was in Pratt. Must be well known, exactly, yeah. So I mean, we got many other species as chlorella or, so others, so I mean, if we talk about algae use, so most of the use algae is, hemo. Occus. So this is one of the strain producing, astaxanthin is a red pigment and the salmon industry. so we, we can see red, Like, fish, so, but this is not produced by fish because animal body cannot produce these pigments. It's come from food, So, and then they accumulate in their body and we using health benefit, so for like Omega-3 and omega six oils, what everyone is needed Hmm. their, for metabolism and so on. But animal body cannot produce it. Only it's come from plants in, from alga Hmm. marine setting, So, yeah. Hmm. That's so fascinating. That's awesome. Hmm. If you had to do this project again, from scratch today, with all the knowledge you have now, what would you do differently? Oh. So it, probably not do anything different, but for the next step I will focus on biomass now, Hmm. because we kind of complete the first step and then, what, what we can do with the biomass. So we, we got several application for it, so, and. We still ongoing because we got lots of interest of the circularity of approach, so because we use waste material producing new product and how we can use it next. So we got lots of companies and lots of academic, even research focused and interested by this process itself. Hmm. But yeah, the new avenue is coming. Yeah. And where does the, where can you sell? Do you sell this out, the Sperling that you create in the brewing, and if so, what? Or if not, where does it go? Like where, who buys it? Can people buy it? So at the minute, again, just because it is purely a research project at the moment, it's, it's not, no, nothing's been sold or so, so for the time being, swans University will come and take the, samples away, and do the testing. And so at, at the minute, it's just been used for testing. Hmm but yeah, we, I mean we've, we've done a few of our own experiments putting the spirulina in the beer. Yeah, it was tasty. yeah, that's it. It looks like very green when you first put it in, but we're, we're not, yeah, we're not confident enough yet to, we either put it in a can or a keg and, and expect that it will still be the same color by the time it's poured. But yeah, so we, we are sort of playing around with that a little bit and hopefully we might get to a point where we can use it in, in a bit of a marketing thing and, and bring a bit more attention to the project, by selling it within the beer. but yeah, I guess eventually, I mean, again, ally will say a little bit more in this, but we were linked with another company in Wales called Fighter Quest, in the original project. And, and they were looking at sort of pharmaceutical use, of, of some of the, the biomass producer. So there's, there's option, again, correct me if I'm wrong ala, but I would say that maybe the, the amount that we would produce is not gonna be huge to suddenly make a business out of it. But it could just be a nice little thing that's an add-on to the existing brewery that, sparks a bit of interest, but maybe, far bigger scale breweries they could actually make, make some money Profitable. Yeah. Products. Yeah, yeah, It's, totally, yeah. It's, it's only was research projects. Obviously we are Yeah. Yeah. entities, so the main focus of Bluestone Brewer was to still beer, so, and then, so we kind of recycle all the other Yeah. so Hmm. research, research perspective, so we analyze the biomass again, is clean, good biomass with good amount of protein. And foc signin, which kind of foc signin is as a pigments cost lots of money. So it could be as well as, Potential product for commercialization. And I know some of the companies is producing another drink, like, food, more like a health supplement, so drink for, from fco Signin. so, yeah, again, our scale was not big, so in the main focus was not on the biomass production and create another Yeah. product from the algo biomass. So, to be honest, like, the commercial revenue, again, it could be from avoid, not avoiding, but you know, so covering the taxation, for the carbon and then also for the, recycling. Is it like, if I'm Hmm. I'm not correct, but then biomass itself is good, quality biomass. because again, in the setting of Bluestone Brewery, because it's really beautiful place, there's no pollution around or anything, so, so this algae is growing so amazing quality of the biomass. So they fight the quest. they took some extracts of, different species and they said it was a good potential for the, some biomedical application, but I dunno, they didn't develop commercial products from it yet, so it is, still an ongoing process. we also got some activities. So at the moment we got another r and d project, for the biomass use, with, another, scientific group from, Swan University from ENG by, chemical engineer group connected with a company called Battery, what is located in Wales as well. And they want to use the biomass produce, recycling carbon, so, but the biomass itself contain lots of carbon as well. So they want to use this carbon as a battery pre, sodium ion battery preparation. So it's still ongoing research, so we didn't get the results yet, but it like a cool application. So recycle carbon to use carbon for something other useful product, but not like a food or health, so application. But then, to be honest, like this biomass could be used as a food supplement. As a food or feed, so for animals as well, so, yeah. There was a, another project on chicken feed, wasn't there? yeah, chicken, chicken feed and even like cosmetics or, so other application could be, yeah, It's so cool. yet. No, but it just shows there's so much potential, isn't it? we're like, we're a, a really tiny brewery in the, in the grand scheme of things, and you just look at how many breweries there are that if everyone put their heads together what we could, but we could do, Achieve. all the chickens in the UK via battery powered chicken feeders. Yeah, I know it's mental because I, I, I'm a sucker for the commercial opportunity in a good way. when it, when it's, when people are like, it's obviously solving an issue, which is CO2 by just being created during the brewing process and often just goes Yeah. so, solving that problem, but then actually using it for something that's useful within in the world, it just seems like it's such a cool opportunity. And, if those numbers that, you know, if the infrastructure's not super expensive, then, there's a, there's a reason for this, a business or people can go into people's brews and put that in and just sell off the, algae, to, to return their own commercial gain. But then the breweries also having their problems solved to the CO2 coming Yeah. a good time. It seems like a win-win win. It's a really, really cool thing. It's, It's absolutely win-win. Yeah. But yeah. obviously, so this was like a feasibility study, so pilot operation as well. But yeah, the big application will be amazing. There's a lot of breweries. A lot, yeah. There's a lot of breweries out there. Do you think a Alec, you, you just said then that like where we are, obviously we've got very low pollution and it's very rural setting. Do you think that a brewery in the middle of London would, like, if they could have a similar setup, do you think they would get quite different results? Hmm. I, I dunno. So obviously we need to test, so to say it's for sure, so, but like I say, algo biomass is also, is not only one product coming out, so if you do extraction of, specific pigments and it cost fortune, so the rest whatever is in the biomass, it could be chuck in the hmm. digest digester or something, so, and it'll be Yeah. Hmm. But I mean, obviously, so algae is like, like a plant or like mushroom, if they grow in like really polluted areas, better not to eat it, So I think it'll be quite similar, I think, but, but you can extract one of the compound what is will be, but primarily goat is goal is just to reduce the sea to, go into the atmosphere. And, and this is successfully proven and it's in city setting, actually in Singapore and some other places they do like now, like a panel with algal cultivation, so for the, a purification purpose, only, so they don't even care about the biomass or like, I dunno. So yeah, some other places now in the Middle East, so, because the air quality there like, so it's, it's not, it's not good. So, yeah. Okay. Hmm. So it's also cleaning the air as well? Well, London could definitely do with some of that. Hmm. Yeah. That'd be great. Yeah, it's really fascinating. And again, once again, I just wanna say like for for both of you and, and obviously Tom and everyone else who's involved, I think it's such a great project and this is like, for me, this feels like true r and Hmm. like from, from the offset and it's, the potential of, it just sounds like seriously exciting to me and I'm sure to a lot of people listening, they're going like this, is it unreasonable in the next, I dunno, 5, 10, 15 years that every brewery's or breweries are beginning to use, convert into algae and actually selling that on or using that to purify extra X, y and z. It seems like a really cool opportunity and yeah, I think it's amazing. So I just wanna say like, congratulations, like this is like true r and d and I really think it's, this is what the industry could really do with loads more. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, just, just to add to it. Yeah. Thank you. It's, like, good communication between like, academic partner for us and industry. Bluestone Brewery was amazing. It was, went really smoothly. We understand each other, so this was like main, problem sometimes, so because people could be like overprotective about the place and so on, Mm-hmm. also from university perspective, again, blue sky research, is great, but you know, so more focus now on impact and application as well. So what's this coming? I mean, it's good for me because I like this applied research, you Yeah. even now I'm working in, kind of center what is called Biohub, as well. So they're promoting actually academia, business interaction, so in more research for it, so in, Bluestone, swans University, our project is kind of one of the first when we kind of highlight and demonstrate and. Academia can work with business very successfully. so overtaking all of these admin problems and expectations and so on. So yeah, it's, it's really important. So the Green Economy Center is one of the big project now I'm working on we work with other companies as well, so, but yeah, it's facilitate the interaction. Yeah. That's great. It feels like, a big opportunity here for this. yeah, I think it's, I think it's awesome. Ali, you mentioned and I read from your, one of the papers you wrote, is there, I okay to share a link to that on the show notes? Is there any other information where can people go out and find more find out more on this? I mean, paper is good start, so, I think, any question I would be happy to answer, so please contact us, but also Bluestone Brewery, website and linking page. So, because there's lots of, information from the trials and so on, is Yeah. there? So. and as well, like we are a bit out in the sticks, but if anybody wants to come and visit us, they're always welcome. we organized a day with Swans University where we invited people along, where Ella did a talk and we presented the findings and then did, a small tour of the brewery and, and showed them all the kits. So, yeah, pembro is a lovely place to come and visit. And we've got a tap room where you can try all the beers as well. but yeah, people, we we're more than happy for people to come and look and, and find out more about it. So I'd say come in the, in the summer months 'cause it's just a bit more fun to look at when there's actually stuff going on in there. Yeah, but yeah, we're, mean, we plan to, restart the cultivation in February, so for next year. yeah. So please come along and visit. Yeah, we'll be good. Yeah. Yeah, I, I mean I myself, I was like, I want to come and visit it. I just wanna see it with my own two eyes. Like, I think me, I guess like many other brewers, like very visual, I just, I kind of wanna see it and like see how it looks, see all the pipe work and everything, and the inputs and outputs and I'd be like, that's, I just wanna see it. So, yeah, if that's okay, I'd definitely love to Yeah. Yeah. You'd be more than welcome. I would, obviously it'd be great when it's running, so maybe like, and probably Yeah. benefit of enjoying yeah, exactly. Yeah. join being outside more. So yeah, maybe like February, March time. I dunno if any listeners wanna come, we could always do a little trip yeah. to do that on like February, March. That'd be awesome. can facilitate, organize it, so, yeah. That'd be really fun. and yeah, again, great, great work on the, on the genuine r and d. There must be some major grant funding out for something like this to be commercialized. yeah. on the back of this research and pilot work, like it seems like such a solid foundation of like real data and real application I'd say that's one thing as well, we, I. We've always been quite fortunate with funding, not, not just with this like, for equipment and things like that in the brewery as well, but I think there is actually a lot out there to, I mean, we are very fortunate in Wales. I can't say the same, I, I've not had a brewery in England. I dunno if it's the same, but there is help out there for this sort of thing, or there might be help out there. and, our experience with the university has only been positive and they were really, keen to get involved and, and stuff. So if people are interested in doing it, then, just pick up the phone and, and get in touch with your local university or, or do a bit of, there, there might be help out there that you don't know about. it doesn't have to be a big cost to the business. You might, you might find that there's already some sort of project in the pipeline or there's funding there that you didn't know about, so. it's a good point. It's a good point. And actually what you guys did at Bluestone you have that vision of like, well, we have this waste, we want something to do with it. And let's talk to people like. Talk to people who can help us solve that problem. And then it, you know, r and d and project work comes out from that sort of like passion and drive to change something in your process or your waste stream or something. I think it's, yeah, Bruce could take a lot from that way of thinking as well. Not just this specific project, but actually just that way of thinking of like, well, I've got this problem, And then you can go speak to a university, a research partner or someone, or get together with other groups of brewers and, and actually try to solve that problem. That's why I think it's so, I like commend it at the start because I see it's like, it's actually a thought process from, from you and Tom and other people. It's like, I want to solve this problem. And then from the back of that we've got this amazing r and d research. Good. look, thank you so much for joining me on the Modern Brewer podcast. I really, really appreciate it. And yeah, I will leave your contact details in the show notes if that's okay. Any questions from anyone? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Please do fire 'em away. I think, I was, actually love getting messages about this, so don't feel like you're pestering or harassing. So I think it's really nice and just start that conversation again. And, especially with episodes like this where it's very like forward facing and very exciting new projects. I think the more we talk about it, the better it is. So you so much both for coming on and spending your time sharing your, like, quite frankly, amazing research with us. So thank you so Thank you. Chris. Thank Thank. Well, I truly loved that kind of episode, new technology r and d. One of the reasons I started this podcast was to give those types of things a good platform to get into the ears of brewers. But what I really hope is that people take action. Please do reach out to Emily and Ella, to myself, to anyone, and. Tackling waste streams in the brewery, as you can see, takes a, it's a lot of work. That was not an easy project to start and embark on, but the outcome can be, could potentially be really significant. So I hope it really acts as inspirational to, to brewers as well. Now the next episode is going to be a return of probably the one type of episode I get asked about the most, which is, bringing real life brewing problems and asking people to solve them. I did it about this time last year and I have got an absolute banger of a problem to bring to you in the next episode. I've got a guest with me as well 'cause that person brought that problem to me and I thought it was, I couldn't crack it and I was like, this is great. I want to hear more and I think everyone wants to hear more. so yeah, that's gonna be the next episode, the Christmas episode. Once again, I'm, I'm actually buzzing for it. So yes, that will be in the next few weeks time and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Modern Brewer Podcast.