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Earth Power Science Technology

A Coal-Fired Power Plant In India Is Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda (technologyreview.com) 197

Posted by BeauHD from the turn-water-into-wine dept.
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?"
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A Coal-Fired Power Plant In India Is Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda More

A Coal-Fired Power Plant In India Is Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Baking Soda

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  • "captured" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Unless they are then entombing the baking soda beneath the earth's crust, this is not really a "capture" of carbon dioxide.

    • If they can just have an adequate amount of sodium hydroxide - which can be manufactured from salt, they could then run that carbon dioxide through it, and that's the baking soda.

    • If the carbon dioxide is prevented from entering the atmosphere, it has been captured in any meaningful sense of the word.

      • Re:"captured" (Score:5, Insightful)

        by slashrio ( 2584709 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @03:32AM (#53615635)
        As soon as you use the baking soda in baking a cake or in neutralizing the acidity of ascorbic acid by mixing it with baking soda (2 g ascorbic acid : 1 g baking soda) then the CO2 will be liberated again. So no, it's not really 'permanent' capturing.
        However, if the traditional way of making baking soda (I'm too lazy to look that up) involves burning fuel in order to get the CO2, then it is better to use the already produced CO2 from the coal fired plant.
        And you don't even need specifically a coal fired plant, any fossil fuel burning plant will do. I guess this is partly meant to make coal look a bit better.

        • Well if you really want to get pedantic, then no capturing is 'really' permanent because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

          But, if we don't want to get pedantic, then any relatively stable chemical state we can convert the CO2 into would still be capturing it. The coal the carbon was originally part of was such a state.

        • As soon as you use the baking soda in baking a cake or in neutralizing the acidity of ascorbic acid by mixing it with baking soda (2 g ascorbic acid : 1 g baking soda) then the CO2 will be liberated again.

          Which people are doing either way - therefore this is a net win. Period.

          Baking soda also has a lot of other uses that don't involve being turned back into CO2 and salt - I use it as a prewash in my dishwasher, for example. As a matter of fact, all of the uses on the back of the Arm & Hammer bag are pretty much the same as that.

          • The amounts required for any significant CO2 reduction in the atmosphere would most likely require the NaHCO3 be dumped into water where bacteria or algae could consume the carbonate ions into cellular structure or possibly into lipids for biofuels. Another possibility would be to heat the bicarb to release the CO2 for other sequestration, industrial applications.

            India doesn't particularly care about CO2 emissions as they and China are the only countries with significant and increasing emissions.

    • If it replaces baking soda which is otherwise in demand in the marketplace, then even if it is released it has displaced carbon that would otherwise have been released, right?

  • Then they put the baking soda into coal mines! (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @10:35PM (#53614991)
    They will be making so much baking soda that they will have to put it back in coal mines to get rid of it.
    • That can be used in both soap as well as in baking

    • Re:Then they put the baking soda into coal mines! (Score:5, Funny)

      by R3d M3rcury ( 871886 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @11:49PM (#53615215) Journal

      Which is all well and good until the vinegar factory starts dumping their excess in the coal mine.

    • 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.

      • They could probably make quite a hefty profit for designer soap:

        Green soap: clean your body *and* your conscience.

      • Re:Let's look at how much they are using/making (Score:4, Insightful)

        by The Bender ( 801382 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @03:42AM (#53615647) Homepage
        And don't forget that NaOH is produced industrially by electrolysis of seawater. Using electricity. From power stations... that produce CO2, etc, etc.

      • Assuming they could capture all the CO2 - that would equal 2/3 of the total annual baking soda production world wide. Two of these and (since it's a secondary business which can afford to undercut) they can put every baking soda factory on earth out of business.... three and we have a problem of what the fuck to do with all that excess baking soda ?

      • That city's population is ~400k [wikipedia.org], so each person would get ~125 soaps per month. If you spread it throughout India, where the population is 1.2b, then looks like it would be enough for everyone. So convert it into rupees and you'll get ~500M INR. If all that soap is sold to 50M people for 10 INR, that would meet the cost: a higher price would make the margins.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )
      Why not just make a giant pakora?

  • Cue mdsolar (Score:3, Funny)

    by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @10:39PM (#53615011) Journal

    Cue mdsolar to tell us why capturing CO2 is bad (for his business).

    • Re:Cue mdsolar (Score:5, Funny)

      by BlueStrat ( 756137 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @10:50PM (#53615047)

      Cue mdsolar to tell us why capturing CO2 is bad (for his business).

      Why, could you begin to imagine the results of a railroad tanker-car full of vinegar derailing and causing a spill that hit that 66,000 tons of baking soda!?!?! Do you even realize how many science-fair volcanoes that would equal!?!?! My God, the humanity!

      Strat

      • 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.

        • I think I found my way to the Guinness book of records. World's largest soda/vinegar volcano - here we come !

  • So wait, where do they get the sodium? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NotSoHeavyD3 ( 1400425 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @10:43PM (#53615021) Journal
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cstacy ( 534252 )

      Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.

      Would mod Troll, but...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      I'd wonder what happens to the left over chloride ions.

      Sell them to the city to treat the drinking water?

    • Actually now that I think of it wouldn't lye work? I mean you bubble the CO2 through water to get carbonic acid.( H2CO3) Then apply NaOH to get NaHCO3 and water. Anyway wonder what chemical they're using for their sodium source.

    • The chloride ions can be made into HCL, right?

      Sounds like a literal definition of 'clean coal'

    • In the Solvay process it would be
      (1) NaCl + CO2 + NH3 + H2O NaHCO3 + NH4Cl
      (2) 2 NH4Cl + CaO 2 NH3 + CaCl2 + H2O

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khyber ( 864651 )

      Use them to leach lithium from raw ores that aren't brine-based and get yourself lithium chloride.

    • Wait isn't the process for sodium and chloride separation by electrolysis expensive by itself, and hence the reason we mostly use the Solvay process? Additionally, the Solvay process creates by-products that have no current use. Actually I think that's the reason Onondaga Lake is a superfund site today because they just kept dumping the by-product in the lake.

      Do we have a clean, cheap way to separate sodium and chloride? Because I'm not coming up with one in my mind, but it's been forever since I studied

  • What was that last parting shot at the end for? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @10:52PM (#53615057)
    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...

  • Unforeseen problems. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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!

  • 66000 tons of CO2 would produce 126000 Tons NaHCO3 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wizzerking ( 1036902 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @11:06PM (#53615103)
    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-... [madehow.com] 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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      On the plus side Indians now have the cleanest fresh feeling teeth in the world.

    • 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

  • Gonna have to bury it somewhere (Score:3)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @11:24PM (#53615151)

    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).

    • Turning CO2 into something else is useful. Doing it with coal is not useful. Better to avoid the coal altogether, it is a dead technology and it only wants such gimmicks to artificially extend its lifetime.

    • 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.

  • That's nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Namarrgon ( 105036 ) on Thursday January 05, 2017 @11:47PM (#53615209) Homepage

    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 [epa.gov] by the 1200 MW Chandrapur plant), then capturing 66 kilotonnes still allows 99.5% of the CO2 to escape.

    • I was wondering about this part... so they run this scrubber and get this giant mountain of baking soda out, and still most of the CO2 escapes to the atmosphere. They'd save more CO2 with a "lights out when you leave the room" campaign in the schools.

    • CO2 is good for plants. Extra CO2 could strongly improve food production.

      • Yes but only if you're retarded.

      • Assuming you also supply those plants with plenty of nutrients, water, and sunlight; adding more CO2 alone won't do much for most farms. And assuming the associated climate change doesn't cause more droughts, floods, or extreme weather in your area.

  • kicking the can down the road (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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

  • Would not use the product for food production (Score:3)

    by ZombieEngineer ( 738752 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @01:19AM (#53615347)

    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.

  • What does it do to the environmental cost of coal extraction?

  • 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!

  • it turns back into carbon dioxide when I pour vinegar on it.

  • where does it go? (Score:3)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Friday January 06, 2017 @09:54AM (#53616727)
    Where does the CO2 go after the baking soda is used?

  • 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.

    • You just add an acid to turn baking soda into baking powder, they usual use alum which releases sulphuric acid and aluminium hydroxide when it gets wetted.

  • 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.

    • Alternatively, the CO2 could be separated into carbon and oxygen through electrolysis

      The main source of human-released CO2 involves burning fossil fuels for energy. It takes at least as much energy to electrolyze CO2 as is released by burning the carbon. If we have enough power to electrolyze the CO2, we have enough that we can just turn off that power plant and use the clean energy in its stead.

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