The UK’s shortage of carbon dioxide has remained among the
top news stories for the last two weeks, due to demand outstripping supply.
However, just as when KFC ran out of chicken when changing their distributor
[link], the disruption in CO2 supply could have been foreseen:
summer plus World Cup equals beer and barbecue, with CO2 used to
provide fizz to the beer, while food has a longer shelf life free of mould.
Heineken was the first company to warn of problems, although
competitor AB Inbev, owners of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Foster’s, are less affected
because their brewing process reuses CO2. Coca-Cola announced it was
reducing production for a while, as carbonated water is only added to the US-made
syrup at the bottling plants, and supermarkets started rationing sales of some
products as a precautionary measure.
However, once Warburtons, the UK’s largest producer of crumpets,
halted production at two of its four plants after running out altogether, and
once the Food and Drink Federation starts to say, "If a similar issue were
to affect the water industry... then you feel government would be acting with
far greater urgency," you do have to wonder why this headless-chicken-running
doesn’t happen more often.
There are lessons to be learnt by everyone here, as I had
never given thought to the process by which a gas – one of the two I can make
myself - is produced en masse, let alone how finds its way into my Diet Coke.
Five plants in the UK produce the majority of the CO2 it
uses, based in Ipswich, Manchester, Ince, Wilton and Billingham. However, the
primary use of these plants is to produce ammonia, a compound of nitrogen, from
air, and hydrogen (NH3), where CO2 is a by-product of the
process used to create it – the gas captured is then purified and sold as gas,
refrigerated liquid or dry ice. The ammonia is used in fertiliser – and here is
the problem, because ammonia is the reason for building the plants, with CO2
becoming a lucrative side business.
At the time of writing, the plants are reopening, following
a shutdown period for maintenance purposes – the plants in Manchester and Ince
have restarted, with the others to follow. The shutdown was planned, as only so
much ammonia is required by the fertiliser industry, but the increased demand
for CO2 means the food and drink industry is relying on the
production cycle of the fertiliser industry. This is not in the same manner as
any industries relying on electricity, as electricity is still as much of a utility
as gas and water, despite the industry required to fulfil that need – the CO2
is needed, and it’s just as well that someone can provide it.
It is inefficient to distil CO2 from air, but the
race is on to improve: for example, the Swiss start-up company Climeworks opened
the first direct air capture plant in June 2017 with the intention of proving the
concept is worth pursuing. The
plant currently feeds its CO2 back into a greenhouse to increase food
production, but the eventual goal is to assist in producing carbon-neutral fuels.
Other methods being developed focus on producing cells that can replicate
photosynthesis. However, the current production cost of producing a ton of CO2
is $600 for Climeworks, versus $80 per ton using the capture method deployed
at the ammonia plants, while competing with other fuel sources require that amount
to be virtually zero.
The alternative is less useful – you can buy canisters of “food
fresh nitrogen” (N2) to use in food packaging, the most well-known
example being bags of Walkers crisps, while users of Tupperware already know storing
food in a vacuum is also effective. However, while the slightly tart taste of “sparkling”
carbonated water is due to CO2 bonding with some water molecules to
form carbonic acid (H2CO3), too much nitrogen in water is
harmful to life, and is never added, with only a few milligrams of nitrates
found in mineral water.
In the UK, all we can do right now is wait for fertiliser
production to reach normal levels, and probably find something else to drink
and eat in the meantime.
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