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| (Courtesy Rogue Bore Brewery) |
The product? A geothermal brewery experience with a restaurant, bar and beer tasting located in the steamfield. Keen on brewing his own beer, Mike found his former employers to be incredibly supportive because his endeavours showcased what could be achieved with reusable energy from the geothermal power station at Wairakei.
"Reusable energy is used by big heavy industry, but there is a whole lot of potential for small business," says Mike, who resigned on November 15 to pursue beer making full-time for the Rogue Bore Brewery.
The brewery name comes from the original rogue bore on the Wairakei Steamfield. In 1960, drilling at the site resulted in a catastrophic escape of steam around the drill hole, creating a hole 22 metres deep and 70 metres across. It spent years energetically belching steam visible up to 120km away but is now a benign hole in the ground with tree and foliage-covered slopes.
Chloe Walker and Mike Blair are the founders of the world's first closed-loop fully geothermal brewery. In a nutshell, the energy company has first dibs and they make electricity for the national grid. They want more business lining up for second and even third dibs in what is known as 'cascade heat', where each user takes a few degrees of heat to create energy.
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