Please excuse my ignorance – I’m not a scientist but always wonder: there’s too much CO2 in the atmosphere. There have been successful trials with extracting it from there. CO2 goes into drinks. And yet it is artificially created for that specific purpose. I even heard claims that beer manufacturers have been running short on CO2 due to supply issues and Covid and what not. Can you explain?
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There’s a lot of confusion and misrepresentation in this thread. The facts are:
– Atmospheric CO2 capture technologies work by binding the CO2 molecules to other molecules — namely oxygen and hydrogen — to create sugars. About 70% of the cost of atmospheric CO2 capture technologies actually comes from H2O-splitting. Note if the cost of H20-splitting were meaningfully reduced, not only would atmospheric CO2 capture technologies be more viable, but a hydrogen economy would be more viable as well.
– Industrial CO2 is usually captured from power plant exhaust and it’s captured in a pure, liquid form. I suspect this product is cheaper (even with ongoing inflation) than the product produced by atmospheric CO2 capture technologies, but it’s worth emphasizing it’s actually a different product anyhow.
– Some of the CO2 in beer is a byproduct of the fermentation process which produces alcohol, resulting from the break-down of sugars. But additional CO2 is added in its liquid form. And this CO2 cannot be added as more sugars to be broken-down by the fermentation process because that would also increase alcohol levels.
– CO2 in pop or soda is added in its liquid form. This CO2 cannot be added as more sugars because there’s no fermentation process in pop or soda manufacturing, the product would just have more sugar.
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