Stumptown Coffee Roasters is retiring the high-temperature afterburner it uses to scrub air from roasting coffee in favor of a new system.
Stumptown Coffee Roasters is retiring the high-temperature afterburner it uses to scrub air from roasting coffee in favor of a new system.
Oregon law requires manufacturers to scrub air before releasing it to the environment. It is an energy-intensive process.
When it moves, Stumptown will retire the afterburner in favor of a “regenerative thermal oxidizer” or RTO. The Energy Trust is contributing about $200,000 toward the cost. Stumptown officials expect the new system to cut its gas bill by a quarter and to pay for itself within three years.
RTO systems are widely used in manufacturing and save energy by capturing heat from the industrial process — roasting coffee in Stumptown’s case — to generate heat to burn off particulate matter. That cuts down on the amount of energy needed to combust particulates.
Read more at Sustainable Business Oregon.
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