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CO2 shortage: Lessons learned from a storm in a pint glass?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jimnotgym 8y agoI asked an expert in the beer trade about this recently and some of the big breweries (Molson Coors who make UK bestseller Carling, for instance) make their own CO2 for supply chain security.
- sandworm101 8y agoI thought beer was naturally carbonated! Not being a drinker, I never gave it much thought.
- DonaldFisk 8y agoDepends what kind. Real ale contains yeast is naturally carbonated as it continues to ferment in the cask or bottle. In keg beer, after fermentation the yeast is filtered from it, the beer is pasteurized, and CO2 is added.
- dogma1138 8y agoReal ale is an arbitrary definition large scale commercial brewing will not risk secondary bottle fermentation for many reasons from quality control to health and safety.
- jsmith99 8y agoThere are some large scale brewers doing it. Duvel alone apparently do 140 million litres a year.
- DonaldFisk 8y agoMy point was that by definition it's naturally carbonated and all other beer isn't. Cask conditioned ale is common throughout the UK and bottle conditioned ales are common in Belgium and elsewhere. (They're also usually higher rated than mass-produced beer but that wasn't the point I was making.)
- jdietrich 8y ago>Real ale is an arbitrary definition In the same sense that any term has an arbitrary definition. The Campaign for Real Ale coined the term to defend the practice of cask and bottle conditioning of beer. Beer is only real ale if it's unfiltered, unpasteurised and is served without additional carbonation. There are plenty of breweries producing real ale on a large scale; many of them are subsidiaries of AB InBev, the world's largest brewing business. Filtered and/or pasteurised beer is more convenient to ship, but other food and drink manufacturers cope just fine with perishable products.
- WaxProlix 8y agoIt often is -- when yeast ferments a substance, it releases CO2. During the fermentation of beer (or again most anything, but I'll just use beer as a shorthand), that CO2 is released through an airlock. When the beer is bottled, any beer made in large quantities will be sterilized first with potassium metabisulfite (I think) so that fermentation doesn't continue in the can, bottle, or keg. If you don't kill the yeast, or if you bottle your beer with an extra batch of yeast (called bottling yeast) and sugar, you'll get fermentation continuing in the bottle, which will result in the CO2 produced being absorbed into the liquid. Obviously this is not as precise and will create different flavors and mouthfeel as a beer ages. If you do kill the yeast but still want fizz, you just force carb your beer with CO2 from a container.
- yread 8y agoFermentation produces huge amounts of CO2 and some breweries collect it and sell it as a byproduct
- dogma1138 8y agoLarge scale breweries are CO2 consumers not producers small scale production with natural carboninzation can potentially produce CO2 but the majority of it is produced form lime stone and other minerals afaik. I’m not aware of any breweries actually collecting it for sale the amounts produced will be so minute and the collection process will be so expensive that it can’t make financial sense.
- AnonymousPlanet 8y agoGerman regulations ("Reinheitsgebot") explicitly forbid adding CO2. So pretty much every major brewery in Germany does not add CO2 into their product. They do use CO2 and other gasses to pressurize casks, however.
- Symbiote 8y agoSome may be like Faxe in Denmark, which uses the CO₂ gained from brewing beer to make soft drinks. (As I read somewhere a week or two ago.)
- dogma1138 8y agoReinheitsgebot isn’t mandatory and covers only Bavaria afaik if you don’t follow those rules you can’t use the trademark on the label but you can sell beer the vast majority of beer in Germany is not carbonated trough secondary fermentation.
- yread 8y agoIt's done regularly in Europe https://www.automationworld.com/beer-brewing-and-carbon-dioxide-recycling https://www.automationworld.com/beer-brewing-and-carbon-diox... https://books.google.nl/books?id=0os_gIvG_ccC&pg=PA349&lpg=PA349&dq=breweries+collecting+co2&source=bl&ots=W4uGe2Z_ur&sig=VfhsGiPaQsXh7oL19wkFp_u3nxY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4tPKSg5PcAhWNyqQKHc0ODpQQ6AEIggEwDg#v=onepage&q=breweries%20collecting%20co2&f=false https://books.google.nl/books?id=0os_gIvG_ccC&pg=PA349&lpg=P... https://foodandbeverage.pentair.com/en/products/haffmans-co2-recovery https://foodandbeverage.pentair.com/en/products/haffmans-co2...
- barbegal 8y agoTechnical details of this plant can be found at https://foodandbeverage.pentair.com/~/media/websites/food-and-beverage/downloads/haffmans/co2-heat-recovery-system-liquivap/co2-recovery_heat-recovery-system_liquivap_molson-coors_haffmans_case-study.pdf https://foodandbeverage.pentair.com/~/media/websites/food-an... This is possible because Molson Coors has the largest brewery in the UK and can brew CO2 producing ales and CO2 consuming lagers on the same site. For other brewers this investment wouldn't be economical.
- softwarefounder 8y agoThe amount of foam in that beer makes me uncomfortable.
- lainga 8y agoDon't go to the Yebisu brewery in Tokyo then - they pour a demonstration glass for you and let you watch as the head extrudes itself several inches past the top of the glass, like Arsenio Hall's haircut.
- selimthegrim 8y agoBut does it make the sound the audience used to make on his show?
- N0RMAN 8y agoWelcome to Schweizerhaus (https://www.schweizerhaus.at https://www.schweizerhaus.at)
- LukeB42 8y agoThesis: This phenomena https://i.imgur.com/wi9GLAa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/wi9GLAa.jpg is partly to blame. Antithesis: No one has the director of the NSA's phone number and so one knows how to cogently complain. Synthesis: Landed families will sell your own oxygen back to you within ~100 years if you don't call those you suspect of being culpable out on this at every available opportunity.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- LukeB42 8y agoWhat is it I'm doing wrong and why is this an inappropriate forum for it?
- mercer 8y agoIt's insane to this forum, is what. Whether it is actually insane is irrelevant, it just won't have any traction here and cause needless noise.
- LukeB42 8y agoI was speaking to a different entity. The mod I was speaking to probably wouldn't use an ad hominem as their basis for an unrealistic forecast.
- mercer 8y agoI didn't read your other comments, so it's not an ad hominem. I'm just saying that I'm confident enough that this particular comment of yours or others like it will just be 'noise' here, and possibly an exercise in frustration for you. But you're right that you didn't ask me. I just felt like responding, considering this is a public forum where both you and I have the ability to just say stuff. Anyways, by all means keep at it, if that's what you feel like doing!
- phillc73 8y agoAt least nitrogen powered Guinness draught is safe.
- morio 8y agoGuinness is usually 25/75 (CO2/N2).
- hotdog97 8y ago(Ah, this story finally reached HN. It's been like, what, 2-3 days.) Before anyone starts getting upset about climate changes caused by carbonated beverages - from what I've read it's a totally carbon-neutral affair. Carbon is captured from the atmosphere and eventually burped out back into the atmosphere by carbonated beverage lovers.
- mockingbirdy 8y ago> Bioethanol and chemical factories, for example, also produce carbon dioxide as a by-product. You know what that means. Indirectly we drink that tasty cow fart. I hope they clean the filters.
- gowld 8y agoDo you know what milk and meat are made of?
- mockingbirdy 8y agoI'm vegan for a reason.
- seszett 8y agoThe plants you eat are also indirectly made of your cow farts, though. And much more than just the farts.
- mockingbirdy 8y agoLife is basically consuming cow and dinosaur farts and some of their rotted poo. Disheartening, but now I know. Enlightenment hits me in the form of a cow patty
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- phyzome 8y agoI hadn't quite caught that the manufacture of fertilizer is so carbon-heavy -- it's not just the energy sunk into cracking apart N2, but the H is also coming from fossil fuels. -.-
- barbegal 8y agoA better article about from an industry insider is https://www.gasworld.com/co2-shortage-lessons-learned/2015003.article https://www.gasworld.com/co2-shortage-lessons-learned/201500... An interesting fact that he picks out is that coordinating shutdown periods between suppliers would be in breach of anti-competition rules. The crisis has overall highlighted the fact that shared production can cause issues. Ammonia is worth about $50 billion whereas CO2 is worth about $7 billion worldwide. This makes the CO2 market about 7 times more inelastic in supply than ammonia.
- dang 8y agoOk, we changed the URL to that from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/europes-co2-shortage/564458/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/europes-.... Who can resist Gasworld magazine?
- spraak 8y agoBesides this comment, is there a more transparent way to see when mods have mutated the post?
- molteanu 8y agoI find the gasworld article hard to read in comparison to the atlantic one. Three paragraphs in, and it still doesn't say anything, it just jumps from one subject to another without touching the main issue.
- upofadown 8y ago>...that coordinating shutdown periods between suppliers would be in breach of anti-competition rules. Is this likely to be true? My, perhaps limited, understanding is that collusion is only evidence of illegal anti-competitive behaviour and is not illegal in itself...
- barbegal 8y agoIts a slightly grey area. This would be seen as illegal because it is an "agreement" to "limit or control production" which is prohibited by EU law article 101(1). However article 101(3) allows these agreements if it "contributes to improving the production or distribution of goods" and "allow consumers a fair share of the resulting benefit". In a case in Australia [1] LNG producers had to apply to the government in order to coordinate shutdowns. The regulator concluded that they could approve this on the basis that there it was "likely to result in a public benefit" and that "reducing competition in the acquisition of maintenance services is unlikely to be significant" [2] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-lng-regulator/australian-regulator-authorises-some-lng-producers-to-coordinate-maintenance-idUSL4N1QJ6SM https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-lng-regulator/aust... [2] https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/authorisations-and-notifications-registers/authorisations-register/western-australian-and-northern-territory-lng-producers https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/authorisations-and-...
- electricslpnsld 8y agoWhy don't more people put their beers on nitro? A few local breweries have nitro IPAs which are freaking delicious.
- skittlebrau 8y agoBeers on "nitro" are still carbonated with CO2. The nitro is used to achieve a higher serving pressure used to force it through a diffusing nozzle on the tap. N2 doesn't actually dissolve in liquid very easily compared to CO2. If you put the CO2 at higher pressure, it makes the beer more carbonated over time.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoIt might be nice but it's a completely different product and not desirable for many styles.
- wcoenen 8y agoCO2 increases acidity, changing the taste. Nitrogen doesn't do this. See "chemistry" section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonated_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonated_water
- toomanybeersies 8y agoOn the note of nitro craft beers, more often than not I find that nitro tap beers are a gimmick and that the beer would be better served be being conventionally carbonated. It's the same story with cask ales. Some styles really don't work well on a handpull.
- cup-of-tea 8y ago> It’s used to stun animals before slaughter What? How? Carbon dioxide is well known to cause a painful death. Why the fuck are they not using nitrogen?
- aarongough 8y agoI think this is poorly written in the article... Likely the Co2 gas is used to power bolt-guns which are in turn used to stun larger animals like cows before slaughter.
- delecti 8y agoNo, the slaughter industry does in fact use CO2 to asphyxiate animals. It even has a fun euphemism, "Controlled Atmosphere Stunning". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_slaughter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation#Animal_...
- aarongough 8y agoInteresting, I didn't realize that was done at scale... As the comment above me said, seems harsh to use CO2 for that...
- barbegal 8y agoBecause it's significantly easier to engineer a system using carbon dioxide than one using nitrogen. This is because carbon dioxide is heavier than air such that the system doesn't need to be enclosed. With nitrogen you need sealed chambers which are more expensive and the process will take longer.
- delecti 8y agoBecause it's cheaper. The slaughter industry really doesn't prioritize animal comfort.
- outworlder 8y agoI didn't know about this. This is outrageous. I don't care that animals are being raised for slaughter – our ancestors would chase and spear animals and that was likely to be very stressful and painful. We can do better today. To actually make animals feel that they are suffocating is beyond inhumane. Even carbon monoxide would be better. We (humans and other animals) are specifically engineered to detect CO2 and trigger the suffocation response, and no other gas. Then the idiots will use exactly the only gas that causes suffering. Is it possible to figure out which companies are doing this?
- roryisok 8y agoWhen I started reading this article I thought it was a work of fiction, imagining a world in which there's a CO2 shortage rather than the famous over abundance which we're currently all aware of. It's odd and sad that there is a demand for the manufacture of carbon dioxide in a world absolutely choking on the excess of it.
- scythe 8y agoIt's like saying that you have access to several tons of gold because you live on the beach. Sure, there's plenty of gold in the ocean. But you can't do anything with it.
- some_random 8y agoExactly, to quote the (current) article, >The caveat to this point, of course, is that this is also not as simplistic or straightforward as it might seem – despite the widespread perception, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is actually very minimal. In fact, it can be pegged at around 500 parts-per-million (ppm), which is less than 0.05%. It's more than enough to cause problems without being trivial to take out and concentrate. Water may very well have enough lead in to damage someone's health without having enough to be economically beneficial to extract for the material alone.
- roryisok 8y agoall good points. I take it back.
- cascom 8y agoNot mentioned here but relative cost of transport is an issue for CO2 - It’s pretty cheap on a nominal basis ($/CF) so transport becomes an issue. Which means it’s a local market, also since it’s a small market - transportation infrastructure hasn’t been built for it. Point being there is no shortage of CO2 - just a shortage in certain places of demand (at non-exhorbinant pricing).