The Wuming Brewery of Shandong Province
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China is one of the largest beer-producers in the world, and Shandong province ranks first in beer production among the provinces. The Shandong Wuming Brewery is owned by one of the three largest Chinese brewing corporations, Yanjing Beer.
In 2001, the Wuming Brewery was selected to be a Cleaner Production demonstration site for the China-Canada Cooperation Project in Cleaner Production. The demonstration included a pre-audit and audit, then the identification of a list of CP solutions which the Wuming Brewery could implement.
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CP solutions complement plans for expanding capacity. Photo from SNC-Lavalin files |
The Wuming Brewery was finalizing the construction of new facilities which would roughly double its capacity. In doing the audit, it was therefore very important to consider not only the current situation but also the needs of a rapidly expanding brewery. One consequence is that the solutions selected must have a quick pay back period and should be focused on maximizing capacity.
A series of low/no cost, medium cost and high cost CP alternatives were identified which could increase the brewery's efficiency. A typical example would be for the brewery to install a centrifuge in order to extract the beer which remains mixed with the spent yeast at the bottom of the fermenting tanks. This medium cost solution could result in a 2% increase in beer production; right now, that beer is thrown away with the spent yeast.
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| Simple water meters provide valuable data for selecting best CP solutions. Photo from SNC-Lavalin files |
The lessons learned at Wuming can apply to many breweries across China:
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Chinese breweries can indeed become far more efficient.
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To do so they must monitor their operating parameters more carefully and recognize the real cost of the water they consume.
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New brewing technologies can increase large-scale production by 20-30%, maybe more, at no significant increase in impact on the environmental.
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Even with higher productivity, CP can dramatically reduce pollution loads.
Return on Investment at Wuming Brewery
CP audits result in a list of CP options. These are evaluated by managers and staff in terms of various criteria, including Return on Investment (ROI). Eighteen possible CP solutions were identified for Wuming Brewery. These are characterized in the figure (right) according to the importance of the potential ROI resulting from each solution.
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CP options for Wuming Brewery, with potential return on investment (ROI). |
Solutions were discussed with brewery personnel in order to identify potential savings so that priority could be established. Using to this ranking methodology, waste water monitoring and training were selected as the top CP solutions for Wuming Brewery. These are management solutions, not technological ones. Thus they are within the grasp of all breweries, provided that management is aware and recognizes the value in cleaner production.
From this exercise the CP team attempted to quantify the benefits associated with each solution. This proved difficult at Wuming because there were not sufficient data on parameters such as water use: the processes were not monitored sufficiently to generate enough data to quantify the costs and savings associated with many of the solutions.
Estimated benefits for selected solutions are shown below.
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CP Solution |
Coal Saved (t/year) |
Water Saved (m3/year) |
Reduced operating costs (RMB/year) | Supple- mentary profit from additional recovery (RMB/year) |
| Energy conservation (steam traps and insulation) | 2,100 | -- | 388,500 | -- |
| Mixing diatomaceous earth with either coal ashes or spent grain | -- | -- | 12,487 | -- |
| Installation of a fan on top of the hop kettle | 243 | -- | 49,555 | -- |
| Beer recovery
from bottom of the fermenters (2% recovery) |
-- | 3,566 | 3,566 | 8,627,419 |
| High
gravity brewing (10% recovery) |
534 | -- | -- | 43,137,096 |
| Total | 2,877 | 3,566 | 548,298 | 51,764,515 |
For more information about the CP Audit, please see
Shandong Wuming Beer Brewery Co., Ltd.
No. 7 Jiankang Road, Jining, Shandong
Tel: 0537-5212796
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Yanjing Beer -- http://www.yanjing.com.cn/English/
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Research Report on China Beer Industry and Market (2001) -- http://www.acmr.com.cn/english/Industry%20Reports/brev8.htm --
ŠNDRC 2000-2006