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Looking into replacing the family car this year I have quickly realised it is now important to look at the CO2 emissions as the new VRT and motor tax systems are based emissions. I seems yer avarage car will emit about 150g of CO2 per killlometer --- Humm--- that’s the weight of a bag and a half of hops per K/M --- seems a lot to me <!-- s:o --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_surprised.gif" alt="" title="Surprised" /><!-- s:o -->

Perhaps we are all doomed and global warming is not just an excuse for goverment types to go on jollys to Bali

I am now feeeling very guilty about that little air lock on top of my fermenter and wondering how much CO2 is coming out of that? Not to mention the electric boiler going for hours on end?

Should we all give up brewing and save the plannet?

Hmmm, the way I see it, the brewing CO2 is "renewable" in that it's coming from crops which will be grown again. Your car however is using fossil fuel, which was never meant to be released into the atmosphere, so offsetting that is much more difficult.

Man, I'm sounding like a tree hugger <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I plan on growing my own hops, so that'll salve any bit of conscience I have <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

As far as the brewing not including electrical equipment, home brewing should have a net loss in carbon to the environment. As the growing grain/ hops will absorb CO2, not all of this is released in the brewing process as there are lot of calories and alcohol in the final beer. So the is still carbon trapped in the produced. Also the grown of grain and hop is a renewable resource unlike the burning of fossil fuel which is the problem.

I know that boiling wort looks like a lot of energy, but I have seen fan heaters with a higher wattage than my boiler. If you look at the kilowatt hours on your ESB bill and work out how much of that is from your boiler, I think you'll find that it is a drop in the ocean. The car really is the big problem. Even in an energy hungry western society like ours, half of your family's carbon footprint comes from the family car.

I'd say foodmiles are the biggest carbon problem with homebrewing: presumably all of your grains, hops and yeast are coming from abroad.

Agreed. Hops and yeast don't weigh much, so I wouldn't worry too much about them, but my grain also comes from the UK. I would much rather buy Irish malt, but the Irish maltsters just can't be arsed. They sell their grain to Diageo et. al. and it goes straight from the silo straight into the back of a lorry. They have no interest in putting the stuff into bags.