Could Coca Cola save the PLANET? Carbon dioxide made by burning fossil fuels could be used to make fizzy drinks, claims report

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A report suggests that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels could be captured and used to produce the fizz in Cola (stock image shown)

We may be told that fizzy drinks aren’t good for our health, but there's a chance that they could be beneficial to the planet.

An Australian government report suggests that carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels could be captured and used to produce the fizz in Cola.

Many nations are looking into Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies as a way to cut their greenhouse house emissions, of which carbon dioxide plays a large role.

CCS refers to the process of capturing carbon released by burning fossil fuels and storing it in porous rock layers in areas such as depleted oil and gas reservoirs. 

The technology has the potential to reduce the emissions of a typical coal-power plant by up to 90 per cent, but there are concerns over storing such huge amounts of carbon underground.

The government’s Energy White Paper has an idea of how to overcome this.

After noting that industrial processes, which rely on the combustion of fossil fuels, are responsible for a significant proportion of Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions, it says: ‘If the CO2 can be captured before it is released to the atmosphere it can either be utilised in other products or permanently stored in deep geological formations. 

‘Australia has worked closely with other countries which rely heavily on fossil fuels to investigate opportunities to utilise CO2 in products such as carbonated drinks and plastics or to enhance the growth of oil-rich algae in solar bioreactors to produce biofuel.’ 

This implies that as well as investigating the production of biofuels, carbon dioxide could be stashed in fizzy drinks.

However, the report goes on to note that: ‘While these processes are promising, there is no commercial CO2 re-use in Australia, largely reflecting the high cost of capturing the CO2 from a flue gas stream.’ 

Of course, cans of fizzy drinks emit gas when they are opened, as shown by the sharp hissing noise, and there is no mention of how this gas could be captured too. 

The Register obtained consumption data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that suggest 944 million litres of fizzy drinks are consumed in Australia in a year.

It’s previously been calculated that there are 2.2 grams of carbon dioxide in a typical can of Coke, which means that just over 2,000 tonnes of carbon emissions could be saved if the gas was captured in cans – and not released again.

It's estimated that 3,299 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released every day from people drinking Coca Cola alone, according to an article in the Herald Sun.

So if the gas came from a recycled source, it could play a small role in helping the environment.

GEOLOGISTS BLAST UN CONCERNS OVER SAFETY OF CCS 

Last April, an IPCC report highlighted a number of barriers to using CCS, including fatal CO2 leaks, transport issues and operational risks, such as seismic tremors.

But geologists came to the defence of the controvertial method of mitigating global warming.

The report said: ‘Barriers to large‐scale deployment of CCS technologies include concerns about the operational safety and long‐term integrity of CO2 storage as well as transport risks.’

But Stuart Haszeldine, a professor of CCS at Edinburgh University, told MailOnline that with regard to carbon capture, the IPCC report was 'inherently conservative' and 'outdated.'

Although there are concerns about burying billions of tonnes of CO2 underground, engineers have been doing something similar for decades.

Since the 1930s, the oil and gas industry has been injecting various fluids underground, and since then, researchers have been attempting to understand the risks this poses to human safety.

Last April, an IPCC report highlighted a number of barriers to using CCS, including fatal CO2 leaks, transport issues and operational risks, such as seismic tremors. A CCS storage facility in Schwarze Pumpe, Brandenburg, Germany, is pictured

One of the main concerns over CCS is the pressure that it can exert on the porous rock deep underground.

‘It’s like putting more air into your car tyre,’ explained Professor Haszeldine. ‘Because you’ve got a volume of air in there already, when you increase pressure you can crack rock.’

But he added that the oil and gas industry has the technologies to monitor this pressure and prevent subsurface cracks from appearing.

‘The other type of risk is there are geological faults underground, and if you increase the pressure, then that can lubricate that fault and create a small tremor on it,’ said Professor Haszeldine.

‘That hasn’t happened with carbon dioxide disposal, but it has happened with dams on a tiny scale.’

If a tremor is large enough, it could cause CO2 to leak back to the surface and into the atmosphere.

This would be a hazard because CO2 at high concentrations is an asphyxiant and fatal to humans.

In 2010, a study by Duke University found that leaks from carbon dioxide injected deep underground could bubble up into drinking water aquifers near the surface, driving up levels of contaminants in the water ten-fold.

Professor Haszeldine, however, said their more recent studies have placed the risk level to humans dying from a CCS leak at one in 30 million. 

Last year, the UK government said it will fund a multi-million pound project to design a carbon capture and storage plant at the Peterhead power station in Scotland.

Meanwhile the U.S. has 19 large-scale CCS projects in operation or in various stages of development – the greatest amount for any country.