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Heroes

In 1997, they were tree-hugging hippies. Today, they're renewable energy pros.

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Green Mountain Energy

The year was 1997.  

You woke up to an actual alarm clock, which was entirely different from your camera, your telephone, and your computer — that is, if you had a computer. The crowning achievement of the technology world was Tickle Me Elmo. It was a different time.

And somewhere in central Vermont, a group of “flannel-wearing, sandal-footed, long-haired tree-huggers” were quietly bringing about the nativity of the green energy industry.

Nearly 20 years ago, renewable energy awareness was near zero.

In 1997, renewable energy wasn’t a global phenomenon waiting to happen. Though it had potential, it was so far only important to a select few.

All images via iStock.

It took pioneering minds to identify and commit torenewability as the future of power and energy.

Green Mountain Energy Company's founders didn’t think they'd be starting a movement. Like Henry Ford and his Model T or the people who put peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, Green Mountain simply realized that they could bring people something that was needed. Then they got to work.

“There was an opportunity to be a green energy pioneer,” says general manager Mark Parsons. The company's founders knew there were reliable ways to power peoples' homes that were also gentle on the Earth. “It became our mission to change the way power is made.”

In its first year, Green Mountain started bringing people residential electricity powered by wind and solar — both renewable sources.

They were facing a tough crowd: It wasn’t easy to convince the people of the '90s that renewable energy was necessary or reliable.

“People were skeptical,” says Parsons. “Traditional fossil fuels were widely accepted, and the future of those resources wasn't questioned like it is today.”

Their burgeoning movement lacked public support. Still, Green Mountain put its trust in the basic idea that if they could create a better, more environmentally responsible product, people would choose it.

And while traditional fossil fuel resources are limited, the supply of green energy is endless. “The sun will shine and the wind will always blow,” says Parsons. All Green Mountain had to do was help people realize they had a choice to harness that sunlight and wind.

One home at a time, Green Mountain built its business on early adopters willing to take a stance and decide to go green with their electricity.

Switching your electricity isn't a flashy ordeal, with hashtags and celebrity endorsements and a free water bottle emblazoned with a leaf. It's just like flipping a switch and choosing to get power from a more renewable source.

It might not seem like much, but it is. 20 years later, all of those little improvement projects in thousands of homes have added up — both for the company and for the world. According to Green Mountain, as of 2016, their customers had prevented more than 54.4 billion pounds of carbon dioxide production by switching to green energy — the equivalent of planting 6.4 million trees or turning the lights out in 49.8 million houses for a year.

These days, green energy isn't just a resource — it's a whole movement.

After two decades in the industry, Green Mountain is an expert on where green energy is going. And they're optimistic about the future.

"The green conversation has gotten easier since 1997 as more information has come available," says Parsons. As society has learned more about renewable energy, switching to cleaner electricity has become a more popular choice.

"People are more knowledgeable and aware that their actions can make a difference," explains Parsons. And that's good news not just for Green Mountain, but for the world.

Today, you don't have to be a genius inventor to figure out that green energy is the future — and to get on board.

In 1997, those Green Mountain hippies from Vermont had to think way out of the box to find the path to their success today. But in 2017, renewable energy is just plain common sense.

"Being green feels good," says Parsons. "It's exciting to be a part of that change as we all aim to help protect the planet through making the right, small choices."

Update 8/21/2017: The share image was changed.

Heroes

This beloved brewery gets electricity from its own beer. Yup: beer energy!

After more than a decade of delicious craft-beer-making, Magic Hat Brewery had grown into a major operation.

They got so big, in fact, that they ... actually couldn't get any bigger.

By 2007, Magic Hat was making more than 3.3 million gallons of beer a year. More than 90% of that final product was water, which was a major problem for the town of South Burlington, Vermont. (And that's not even counting the water used in cleaning and other aspects of production, too.)

As it was, the brewery's water bills were costing them about $200,000 a year, and the treatment facilities in their hometown were already working at full capacity. They wanted to start making more beer. But if they did, there wouldn't be any water left for the city's 18,000 residents.

Inside the "Artifactory" at the Magic Hat Brewery in South Burlington, Vermont. All photos by Thom Dunn/Upworthy, unless otherwise specified.

The brewery owners thought about building their own water treatment plant right at their brewery. But then a better idea presented itself.

PurposeEnergy, a small start-up founded by an MIT graduate named Eric Fitch, approached Magic Hat and offered to solve their water problem.

Fitch had been working on a prototype for what he called the "tribrid bioreactor." It was a hybrid of three different digester systems that would not only clean a brewery's wastewater, but also convert the biosolid waste (which is organic material such as spent grains, hops, and trub) into electricity.

Fitch had been looking for a place to put his prototype into action. Magic Hat was looking for ways to expand without ruining the city's water supply. It was a match made in Hop Heaven.

Converting their leftover beer parts into sustainable electricity? That was just an added bonus.

Hasper Kuno of PurposeEnergy inside the company's biogas generator at the Magic Hat Brewery.

How does something called a tribrid bioreactor work, exactly?

Basically, like this:

Image courtesy of Magic Hat Brewery and PurposeEnergy, used with permission.

"We basically allow Magic Hat to keep on expanding their production and not really be a burden on the local town," explained Hasper Kuno, who oversees PurposeEnergy's facility in South Burlington.

"What we send down the drain here, it’s literally cleaner than your typical household. And also we’re producing electricity on it, so it’s a no-brainer."

The thin black sludge on the left is how digested beer waste looks coming out of the digester; the clear cup on the right is how it looks after it's gone through the system's water clarifier.

According to Kuno, PurposeEnergy's tribrid bioreactor system can convert 93% of the brewery's waste into biogas and then electricity, allowing them to produce up to 220 kilowatts of energy daily — enough to power more than 200 average-size homes. Over the last five years, they've cumulatively produced more than 2.4 gigawatts of energy — which is twice as much as it took Doc Brown to power the Flux Capacitor that sent his beloved DeLorean back in time in "Back to the Future." So that's a lot.

"As far as we know, this is the most efficient digester in the world," Kuno said.

Oh, and that leftover 7% of waste that doesn't get converted into energy? It's still rich enough in nutrients to work as a hyper-concentrated fertilizer, which PurposeEnergy gives away to local farms — that is, when they're not using it as a soil substitute to grow their own hops.

Hops growing up the side of the water treatment tank behind the Magic Hat Brewery — with no actual soil, just a plant bed of leftover biowaste. So far, the hops are only being used for homebrewing, not commercial beer.

Since 2010, several other major U.S. breweries have adopted PurposeEnergy's epically sustainable brewing system too.

The bioreactor at Delaware's Dogfish Head Brewery is twice the size of the one at Magic Hat. The 1 million gallon system was built in 2014, and it has enabled the brewery to reduce its overall water consumption by more than half.

And in March 2016, PurposeEnergy broke ground on another new facility at Kona Brewing Company in Hawaii.

Kuno believes that big breweries will eventually hop on board with this trend, too. Companies like Molson Coors already have their own water treatment facilities on-premises, but the systems at those breweries have a life span of around 50 years.

"When that time is up, then we’ll come in and get them a new digester," Kuno said.

"No parking" because this is where the burn-off from the gas-to-energy conversion happens — meaning that big copper pipe sometimes shoots out fireballs, which are much less tasty than beer.

The best part about this whole thing? This sustainability system isn't limited to just beer.

As long as there's some kind of organic waste in a system, the bioreactor can convert it into energy.

"We’ve got a couple of dairies that we’re hoping to install some systems," Kuno said. "Acid whey makes a lot of electricity, and that’s the byproduct of Greek yogurt, which is huge right now."

If a brewery could power an entire neighborhood with just its own beer, who knows what other amazing ways we can find to make our world more sustainable?

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