UK’s Largest Carbon Capture Project Will Turn 40,000 Tonnes Of CO2 Into Sodium Bicarbonate For Dialysis Machines, Pharmaceutical Tablets And Baking Soda Every Year
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in the Daily Mail.
These bullet points summarise the article.
- A facility that turns carbon dioxide into sodium bicarbonate was opened today
- Tata Chemicals Europe will remove up to 40,000 tonnes of CO2 each year
- The resulting sodium bicarbonate will be used as baking soda and in tablets
- Much of it will be used in haemodialysis to treat people with kidney disease
When I worked at ICI in Runcorn, the company had a facility at Winnington.
- In the 1960s, when I was there the main product was soda ash, which was produced by the Solvay process.
- The plant is now owned by Tata Chemicals Europe, and I suspect the new process is a replacement for the Solvay process.
- The carbon dioxide probably comes from a local 94 MW gas-fired power station on the site.
This ia a good example of Carbon Capture and Use, where a modern process is much better for the environment.
How much better could we protect the environment and the health of everyone, by improving or changing industrial processes?
Memories of the Solvay Process
I went over one of the Solvay processes a couple of times, when I worked at Runcorn.
- I can’t remember why now, but it was probably just to give the newest engineer in the department some experience.
- ICI trained me well at that time, especially in Health and Safety.
- One of the Victorian plants, I went over was built using a framework of oak beams, rather than the steel, we’d use today.
- The thing, that I remember most was the white sodium bicarbonate powder everywhere at the finishing end.
All the grades had uses from baking down to clearing up acid spills. Wikipedia details these uses.
Solvay Process Repurposed
Searching the Internet for more information on Tata Chemicals Europe’s process, I found this article on Scientific American, which is entitled Desalination Breakthrough: Saving The Sea From Salt.
The first paragraph outlines the problem.
Farid Benyahia wants to solve two environmental problems at once: excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and excess salt in the Persian Gulf (aka the Arabian Gulf). Oil and natural gas drive the region’s booming economies—hence the excess CO2—and desalination supplies the vast majority of drinking water, a process that creates concentrated brine waste that is usually dumped back into the gulf.
Benyahia, who is a chemical engineer at Qatar University appears to have solved the problem, by repurposing and simplifying the Solvay process.
I suggest that if you’ve got this far, that you read the Scientific American article all the way through, as it paints a horrific vision of the dangers of water desalination.
Hopefully, though Benyahia has the solution, which turns the problem into baking soda and calcium chloride.
We Can Suck CO2 From The Air And Store It In The Ocean As Baking Soda
The title of this section is the same as that of this article on New Scientist.
I first heard about this process on Radio 5.
It concerns some work by Arup Sen Gupta at LeHigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
He seems the sort of researcher, who does it properly and his research on capturing carbon dioxide and turning it into baking soda, that is stored in the ocean may well be an idea in the right direction.
It further supports my view that research will find new and better ways of reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Worried Council Prepares Official Response To ‘Crackpot’ HS2 Plans
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
This is the first paragraph.
HS2 has been slammed as a “crackpot idea” which won’t benefit local residents by councillors in Northwich as they prepare to submit an official response to the project’s consultation.
This map from HS2 shows how the route will go past Northwich.
On the map purple is the route of HS2 and the dotted line is the West Coast Main Line, which will take HS2 trains to Liverpool and further North. If the quality of the map is anything like the quality of their route planning, then heaven help Northwich.
The Stop HS2 campaign has a page about Northwich,
The area with all the salt lying below the surface is probably a difficult one for building railways, roads or even a brick outhouse.
Improving Services At Northwich
Could the disquiet at Northwich be partly due to the fact that for the good burghers of the town to get any benefit from HS2 to perhaps go to London or Birmingham, they will have to go to Crewe or Manchester first, as they do now.
- Take the one train per hour service (tph) to Manchester and then the three tph service to London is fine, but coming North, you might hang around in Piccadilly for an hour.
- Drive to Crewe and get one of three tph to London.
After 2027, when HS2 reaches Crewe, the railway junction will be just fifty-eight minutes from London.
What is needed is a quick and reliable way to travel the fourteen miles between the two towns.
Under Proposed Future Developments in the Wikipedia entry for Northwich station, there are several suggestions for an improved service at the station.
- The Northern Hub proposes an additional hourly service to run between Greenbank and Stockport.
- Re-instating the passenger service between Northwich and Sandbach has been proposed. This would allow direct trains to Crewe from Knutsford,
- Proposals for a direct link to Manchester Airport from Northwich were first put forward in the 1990s, not much had seemed to materialise from this.
- The running of tram-trains directly in to Manchester.
If Northwich were on the outskirts of Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool or London, it would be likely to have at least two tph and possibly four tph to the major city.
One tph is a disgrace!
The Anonymous Widower 