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A Coal-Fired Power Plant In India Is Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda (technologyreview.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: In the southern Indian city of Tuticorin, locals are unlikely to suffer from a poorly risen cake. That's because a coal-fired thermal power station in the area captures carbon dioxide and turns it into baking soda. Carbon capture schemes are nothing new. Typically, they use a solvent, such as amine, to catch carbon dioxide and prevent it from escaping into the atmosphere. From there, the CO2 can either be stored away or used. But the Guardian reports that a system installed in the Tuticorin plant uses a new proprietary solvent developed by the company Carbon Clean Solutions. The solvent is reportedly just slightly more efficient than those used conventionally, requiring a little less energy and smaller apparatus to run. The collected CO2 is used to create baking soda, and it claims that as much as 66,000 tons of the gas could be captured at the plant each year. Its operators say that the marginal gain in efficiency is just enough to make it feasible to run the plant without a subsidy. In fact, it's claimed to be the first example of an unsubsidized industrial plant capturing CO2 for use. schwit1 notes: "A 'climate change' project that doesn't involve taxpayer dollars? Is that even allowed?"
Unless they are then entombing the baking soda beneath the earth's crust, this is not really a "capture" of carbon dioxide.
They will be making so much baking soda that they will have to put it back in coal mines to get rid of it.
Cue mdsolar to tell us why capturing CO2 is bad (for his business).
Prost proof or retract. If I had $1.00 for every "we've solved it all" report on Slashdot I'd be a fucking millionaire.
Since it's sodium bicarbonate. I guess they could get it from sea water but then I'd wonder what happens to the left over chloride ions.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
think of the trees!
For one thing, it's got nothing to do with climate change. This is kinda like why I oppose nuclear: it needs to be cheaper and more profitable to do the _right_ thing than the wrong thing or unregulated businesses will do the wrong thing. Every. Figgin. Time. If they didn't they'd be run out of business by the guy who did (and used the cost savings to under cut them).
This is what we sometimes call a "Happy Accident". Like all such things I'm highly skeptical. Anyone want to shoot holes in it? e.g. what other industrial run offs might they have that they're not mentioning...
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What happens when someone splits the baking soda into baking and soda, and uses the baking to make nachos which cause people who eat them to fart, releasing potent GHG methane into the atmosphere, and then people, often the very same ones drink the soda and belch, releasing the evolved carbon dioxide gas right back into the atmosphere from whence it came? It'll only make things worse... we're doomed, I tells ya, doomed!
That visual made me chuckle. If Mythbusters were still on the air, I might have sent them a note mentioning it and seen what happened next.
66000 tons is 59874192840 grams of CO2 Divide by the molecular weight of CO2 of 44g/mole or 1360777110 moles of CO2 per year If this process uses teh standard process of converting CO2 to NaHCO3 CO2 + 2 NaOH -> Na2CO3 + H20 Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O -> 2NaHCO3 Then for every mole of CO2 converted there is also 1 mole of NaHCO3 which has a molecular weight of 88 grams per mole so Converting 66000 tons of CO2 to NaHCO3 will result in 1360777110 moles * 84 g/Mole = 114305277240 grams NaHCO3 or 126,000 tons per year According to http://www.madehow.com/Volume-... only 32000 tons were sold in 1990 a decrease from previous sales So the NaHCO3 produced from THIS ONE PLANT WOULD INCREASE THE WORLD NEED FOR SALES BY NEARLY 400% so yep we are going to be burying this NaHCO3 SOMEWHERE THERE IS NO MARKET AT THIS TIME
This is a good start as finding a stable way to store the carbon is always helpful. But we can't use this baking soda for cooking as that would release much/all of this carefully-stored carbon.
But it's good to have a process that can turn CO2 into something useful. Now if we could just make a closed- carbon loop for energy production we'd be golden. CO2 + renewable energy -> fuel -> work -> CO2. Nothing wrong with burning carbon if it's carbon that was already in the atmosphere (ignoring NOx and particulates).
Your chemistry is fine, but WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING ABOUT IT?
Don't forget, there are some very big holes left when the coal is removed, and 66 kilotons of it probably, unless it's open cast mined from a surface deposit, represents a lot more that that of removed material. So sticking the sodium carbonate back into the hole is easy.
The fact that it's very water soluble is more of a problem, but there are ways around that. It's still better than having it pumped up the chimney, isn't it?
It's also nearly twice the density of coal, so compressed into solid blocks should take about the same volume. At 2.54g/cm3, 126 kilotons of it is about 49606 m3, or a block just under 37 metres on a side. That's not very large in mining terms, there's loads of room under the ground to stick it for decades. Probably in the mine that the coal that plant burned up until now came from, from which all the CO2 did go up the chimney.
It is more efficient. It is only being compared to other carbon capture designs, not to a coal plant without any.
Can they make sure the product achieves food-grade safety?
CO2 isn't the only thing released by burning coal.
Can't we dump it into the ocean to fight ocean acidification? I'm sure I'm missing something here. What is it?
I don't like nuclear because it's cheaper to run an unsafe plant than a safe one. Sooner or later the factory gets privatized in the name of saving money, maintenance gets put off or cut entirely and there's a disaster. This is exactly what happened in Fukushima. The best part? The CEO cried a little on TV and all was forgiven. The man should rot in jail for eternity, but we don't spill the blood of kings.
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Kudos for finding a new use for some of the excess CO2, but it's still only a tiny fraction of the plant's CO2 output.
Given an estimated 13 million tonnes of CO2 emitted annually (based on the 14.9 million tonnes emitted by the 1200 MW Chandrapur plant), then capturing 66 kilotonnes still allows 99.5% of the CO2 to escape.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
That's as baking soda, not the whole of the usage for sodium carbonate.
try soda ash
Carbonic acid? What's the pH of sea water treated with baking soda?
Guess which gas gets produced when baking soda reacts with an acid?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
CO2
44 g/mole
Baking Soda
NaHCO3
84 g/mole
NaOH
40 g/mole
The reaction is CO2 + NaOH => NaHCO3
So 44 g CO2 + 40 g NaOH => 84 g NaHCO3
So to capture 66,000 tons of CO2, you need 10/11*66,000 tons of NaOH (i.e. 60,000 tons) and you get 126,000 tons of soap.
Lets say a family of four uses 1/4 pound of soap per month. This would make enough soap for 100,000,000
people (each month/indefinitely).
Bulk cost of NaOH is $125/ton, so the 60,000 tons of NaOH needed would cost $7,500,000.
I come here for the love
sure, baking soda captures carbon dioxide, but what happens later on when you bake some delicious bread?? it's like you want leavened bread to surpass fossil fuel burning and deforestation in becoming the leading cause of increased anthropogenic carbon dioxide!! screw that! roti for life!!!1
Sodium bicarbonate is not particularly stable and will lose CO2 over time (quickly at 100 degrees C). So, I don't think it can be stored for geological time frames. Also, using it for cooking will immediately release the CO2.
Pretty much all fossil fuels have some level of sulfur (if not - it commands a price premium and unlikely to be used for electrical power generation).
The sulfur would end up in the stack as sulfur dioxide with is likely to be scrubbed out as sodium sulfite (not sulfate). Sulfites salts have various health issues for some people.
I am struggling to see a market for the sodium bicarbonate unless this is a variation of the Solvay process (sodium chloride + calcium carbonate => sodium carbonate + calcium chloride), unfortunately the Solvay process is not without waste products.
1. taking a third (or more) of his paycheck
2. taking out credit in his (and everyone elses) name, leaving him and the rest of society with the debt and compounded interest
3. regulating his speech
4. surveilling his behavior
5. trampling his due process rights
Holy crap, I had no idea service dogs were so versatile!
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!
Can't we dump it into the ocean to fight ocean acidification? I'm sure I'm missing something here. What is it?
Well you can actually try this one at home! Go pour some baking soda into a glass full of Coke (or Pepsi if you're a heathen) and see what happens.
What does it do to the environmental cost of coal extraction?
7, if you apply enough baking soda.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Tons and tons of surplus baking soda will have to be sequestered in mountains, and since acid rain is still a problem with coal plants, when the baking soda containment breaks, all those cheesy science fair volcanoes will suddenly become very accurate!
A witty
On the plus side Indians now have the cleanest fresh feeling teeth in the world.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
it turns back into carbon dioxide when I pour vinegar on it.
I noticed how libtards register their dogs as service dogs so that they can take them everywhere in planes, restaurants (including on top of tables), shops, etc. That made me realize even more how fair and great open carry truly is.
What's your point? Are you scared of service dogs and think you might need to shoot one?
In Soviet Russia you service the dog.
66000 tons is 59874192840 grams
66 000 tons is exactly 66 000 000 000 grams (ignoring decimal precision).
I don't see a thread on this that asks how much energy (e.g. carbon dioxide) is needed to create the new solvent.
Is this a plan to shift the CO2 release to Carbon Clean Solutions?
I've heard of bomb-sniffing dogs (thought they aren't considered service dogs) ... but tax-evasion-sniffer dogs is new to me to.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
No. Open carry mainly serves the same purpose as service dogs.
66000 tons of CO2 @ ~1kg-CO2 per KW-hr electricity means that this plant is either a 7.5 MW plant, or a very large fraction of the CO2 is dumped to atmosphere like any other power plant.
A quick google tells me that that power plant is actually five units totaling 1050 MW. Assuming one unit has the converter installed, that translates to 5% of the CO2 sequestered, and 95% still escaping to atmosphere (assuming I can add at this hour of the morning, while the coffee is still in the pot and not in me).
Which makes this worse than natural gas power plants (which are not good enough to actually stop AGW or anything, they just slow down the onset), much less nuclear, solar, wind, tide....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I don't like nuclear because it's cheaper to run an unsafe plant than a safe one.
Agreed. This is the fundamental problem with the technology. It's true to an extent for fossil fuels too but the consequences of releasing some extra pollutants from a coal fired plant are in most cases unarguably less serious than a significant radiation release from a fission powered plant. While nuclear largely has a good safety record overall and it has some compelling advantages, it's hard to ignore the fact that there is money to be made in cutting corners given the potentially catastrophic consequences of a failure.
A “climate change” project that doesn’t involve taxpayer dollars? Is that even allowed?
Word for word? And the user notes it word for word?
I don't know about him but I'm allergic to animal dander. When people lie about their pets being service animals just to be able to take them places, it does harm me.
Liberal, Conservative, Anarchist, Libertarian or whatever... those people are just assholes.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Comfort animals are not registered service animals. They don't have to allow them in any of those places. My local supermarket actually has a sign up about it, because we have more retirees than average here in Lake County, CA and therefore more people wanting to walk around supermarkets petting something that licks its asshole and then licks its fur, and then touching everything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
so Converting 66000 tons of CO2 to NaHCO3 will result in 1360777110 moles
We can stop right there. Moles are critters that live underground, so the CO2 becomes self-sequestering!
Just wait until Alex Jones and the Natural News crowd here about this, I can almost see the headline now. You'll never guess what India is trying to poison America's food supply with.
the major component is now even more available lol
Read the Guardian article closely. It's the Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals plant, which presumably was producing baking soda anyway (as it's an alkali chemical) and "is now using the CO2 from its own boiler" in the process.
So they're now using their waste CO2 in a process to produce baking soda. There's nothing in this indicating this would be economical if power production was the goal.
Where does the CO2 go after the baking soda is used?
Eat it. Surely it tastes better than that insipid curry shit they would otherwise eat. At least soap wouldn't give them the runs.
Carbonic acid? What's the pH of sea water treated with baking soda?
Sea water is currently about PH 8, Baking Soda is about PH 9, so I would guess it would be between 8 and 9 depending on the proportions.
In the southern Indian city of Tuticorin, locals are unlikely to suffer from a poorly risen cake.
Uh, baking soda != baking powder. I guess this is why nerds shouldn't bake a cake.
Bottle rockets!
I suspect it's laden with all sorts of toxic impurities. If you can't bake with it, it's sodium bicarbonate, not baking soda.
All of that was done by Republicans. The last time we had a balanced budget we had those other guys in office. In fact we had a surplus but W et. al. squandered it.
And the Republicans are the libertarians darlings. Go figure.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
And this is why we need a balanced budget amendment. Reps and Dems have proven untrustworthy and unwilling to face reality when it comes to our nations finances. Eight years of progressive governance have moved a significant number of state legislatures into the conservative column - nearly enough to completely bypass congress to amend the constitution. States can't run budget deficits so there's an entrenched behavior there. So the thinking would go if my state can't run a deficit, then neither can the feds (except in a declared war).
Oh goody! The one of the stupidest people on all of Slashdot is glad he can carry a gun,
Don't worry, he's most likely to shoot himself.
Right, so strapping a gun to their belt helps blind people cross the street safely. Makes sense to me.
Bicarbonate Up to just over 8pH, after about 8.5 carbonate starts to dominate.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
The other day a gang of federalized IRS dogs accosted me, cleaned out my wallet, put a lien on my car, taxed my unborn children and garnished my wages. It was a small miracle I wasn't then thrown in debtors prison.
They built a CO2 producing plant to capture CO2? Brilliant!!!
neither can the feds (except in a declared war).
We've been under a declaration of war basically since 2001. A bullshit declaration, but, I digress...
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Rocket ship propellant using vinegar and baking soda? Sure some carbon might be released back into the atmosphere, but much of it used it space would just be gone... Perhaps not the most efficient, but maybe someone can science the shit out of that.
Actually, I don't believe you are correct in that statement.
Comfort animals, assuming they're registered and you've gotten a shrink to say you're depressed/etc., become *medical devices* which are then covered by various laws. In short, your supermarket is wrong and violating federal law as far as I'm aware.
I just recently watched a 'friend' force a landlord (in subsidized housing no less!) to allow her unruly dog to live there using the same tactics. It's disgusting and unreasonable that people are abusing the laws meant to protect those TRULY* disabled and in need. Even worse, reading the FB posts about how she's gunna go get this and that done so she can get her way. SMDH
*and I don't want to hear crap about someone with minor depression who wants to be recognized as 'disabled' :) freaking millennials need to get off my lawn
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
At least soap wouldn't give them the runs.
I take it your parents didn't mind you swearing when you were a kid, or you'd know otherwise.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Instead of making baking soda, why not make limestone CaCO3 instead. The limestone can be safely buried in the ground or applied to lawns.
Alternatively, the CO2 could be separated into carbon and oxygen through electrolysis. The carbon could be used to make batteries and the oxygen could be dumped into the atmosphere or compressed and stored in tanks for reuse.
Actually, I don't believe you are correct in that statement.
I just went to the supermarket today and their notice doesn't just say they don't have to permit them, it says THEY ARE PROHIBITED. I'm pretty sure I am correct in that statement.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
until no one is looking and then get a slap on the wrist mentioned on page 3 of a newspaper not even the Japanese still read. That's how these things are done. I think the word is 'theater'.
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If both she-bitch and dog-bitch were shot dead, how would the moral-energy-balance equation figure out? Termination of progressives is usually considered an energy-freeing process.