4 ms·

Surely running the exhaust through some sort of absorbent/condenser could both capture the alcohol for non-food purposes and deprive the mold of food?

Angostura 6y ago
That sounds like it might cost money.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jojobas 6y ago
  It would also recover a useful substance.
- mint2 6y ago
  And why spend money yourself when you can just let other people spend their own money cleaning up your mess. After all a corporation’s civic duty is to maximize their profits so they can’t be expected to clean up their pollution when they can off load it for free! Hashtag capitalism gone wrong.
082349872349872 6y ago
> "... such as the ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California." In a market economy, I'm sure the distillery warehousers would be free to decide whether they'd rather capture their emissions or wash their neighbourhoods.
- rob74 6y ago
  ...or use their lawyers and political connections to make sure they don't have to do either of the above - unfortunately, it looks like this is the cheapest option.
  - noarchy 6y ago
    This, most likely. And it isn't as if the whiskey industry is the only one benefiting from being able to ignore the pollution that they create. Though there is a move to change how this works, for the most part air pollution remains something for which we all pay the price, collectively, regardless of its origin.
twic 6y ago
I imagine the alcohol concentration in the air is extremely low, making this quite hard work. The article mentions "ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California", but i couldn't find anything about capturing emissions from ageing. There are a couple of systems for capturing alcohol emissions from fermentation, but that's a different problem: https://www.aromatica.io/process https://www.aromatica.io/process http://nomovo.com/ http://nomovo.com/
mabbo 6y ago
I wonder what the overall concentration of alcohol released per second is. > 200 to 1,000 tons of ethanol emissions every year. 200 to 1000 tons / year = 200 to 1000 tons * 907185 (g per ton) / (365 * 24 * 60 * 60 s per year) = 5.7 to 28g / s Very roughly the equivalent of one shot of vodka every second (presume 1.5 fl oz = 44g total and vodka is half-ish alcohol). But, that's spread out over "hundreds of thousands of barrels". So each barrel is releasing ~100-300 micrograms of alcohol per second. I'm sure it's measurable in the air, but capturable? Hard to say.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Presumably all the barrels sit in just a few buildings. At the very least it should be relatively cheap to destroy by passing the air through something like a blowtorch.

Angostura 6y ago

That sounds like it might cost money.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jojobas 6y ago
It would also recover a useful substance.
mint2 6y ago
And why spend money yourself when you can just let other people spend their own money cleaning up your mess. After all a corporation’s civic duty is to maximize their profits so they can’t be expected to clean up their pollution when they can off load it for free! Hashtag capitalism gone wrong.

082349872349872 6y ago

> "... such as the ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California." In a market economy, I'm sure the distillery warehousers would be free to decide whether they'd rather capture their emissions or wash their neighbourhoods.

rob74 6y ago
...or use their lawyers and political connections to make sure they don't have to do either of the above - unfortunately, it looks like this is the cheapest option.
- noarchy 6y ago
  This, most likely. And it isn't as if the whiskey industry is the only one benefiting from being able to ignore the pollution that they create. Though there is a move to change how this works, for the most part air pollution remains something for which we all pay the price, collectively, regardless of its origin.

twic 6y ago

I imagine the alcohol concentration in the air is extremely low, making this quite hard work. The article mentions "ethanol-capturing equipment used by brandy distilleries in California", but i couldn't find anything about capturing emissions from ageing. There are a couple of systems for capturing alcohol emissions from fermentation, but that's a different problem: https://www.aromatica.io/process https://www.aromatica.io/process http://nomovo.com/ http://nomovo.com/

mabbo 6y ago

I wonder what the overall concentration of alcohol released per second is. > 200 to 1,000 tons of ethanol emissions every year. 200 to 1000 tons / year = 200 to 1000 tons * 907185 (g per ton) / (365 * 24 * 60 * 60 s per year) = 5.7 to 28g / s Very roughly the equivalent of one shot of vodka every second (presume 1.5 fl oz = 44g total and vodka is half-ish alcohol). But, that's spread out over "hundreds of thousands of barrels". So each barrel is releasing ~100-300 micrograms of alcohol per second. I'm sure it's measurable in the air, but capturable? Hard to say.

jojobas 6y ago
Presumably all the barrels sit in just a few buildings. At the very least it should be relatively cheap to destroy by passing the air through something like a blowtorch.