In 2021, Maine Beer Company faced a carbon dioxide shortage that threatened its bottling and kegging operations. The brewery turned to technology originally developed for NASA missions to Mars. Pioneer Astronautics, which received multiple Small Business Innovation Research contracts from the Johnson Space Center starting in the 1990s, designed compact systems to capture carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere.
Robert Zubrin, founder of Pioneer Astronautics, adapted these systems to capture carbon dioxide during the brewing process. By 2015, the Craft Brewery Recovery System entered production. Amy George founded Earthly Labs in 2016 and secured an exclusive license for this technology to provide small-scale carbon capture solutions for the beverage industry.
The technology has since expanded beyond breweries to include wineries, distilleries, and energy companies that generate carbon dioxide as a byproduct. It is also applied in helium production to separate gases needed for microchip and fiber-optic cable manufacturing. Market interest has grown due to ongoing carbon dioxide supply volatility.
In 2021, Earthly Labs was acquired by Chart Industries Inc. The parent company, which specializes in cryogenic equipment engineering, has scaled the technology for larger applications, including use at power plants.
