Making Baking Soda out of Pollution: A New Way to Reduce Emissions

The breakthrough may be exciting, but Carbon Capture and Storage also has its share of critics.

(Graphic: Rahul Gupta/The Quint)

In a recent breakthrough, Carbon Clean Solutions, a company started by two Indian entrepreneurs, has come up with a cost-effective way to convert carbon dioxide to baking soda.

This method has been implemented by a firm called Tuticorin Alkali Chemicals at their plant.

This technology belongs to the exciting world of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), a field that has its share of supporters and detractors.

What is Carbon Capture and Storage?

CCS is one of the many "solutions" proposed for controlling the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Most commonly used in the context of industrial processes, CCS refers to the various methods of trapping carbon dioxide that would ordinarily be emitted at its source, and either storing it (for example, in underground depleted oil and gas field) or converting it to less harmful forms.

(Infographic: Rahul Gupta/The Quint)

Sounds Great! Everybody Loves the Idea, Right?

Not so much! CCS technologies have attracted a fair share of detractors. Criticisms have ranged from the high cost involved in such projects as well as the possibility that the storage sites might be unstable and lead to massive amounts of carbon being suddenly injected into the atmosphere.

A more fundamental criticism though, arises from the many who believe that carbon dioxide emissions are merely a symptom of our unsustainable lifestyles and at the heart of our problems with climate change. Thus, tackling the issue of climate change means actually tackling the root causes of high emissions and cutting down on them, rather than simply capturing these emissions.

Focusing on the symptoms rather than the cause simply allows us to ignore the basic reasons why we're in the mess that we're in and brings about a false sense of complacency than technological innovations, rather than basic behavioural changes is what's needed to combat climate change.

The electricity generation sector is one of the most polluting industries. (Photo: iStock)

The Carbon Clean Story

Carbon Clean worked out a solution that answers two major criticisms of CCS – namely, cost and stable storage. The firm claims that over 60,000 tonnes of CO2 will be captured annually from the coal-powered plant in Tuticorin. This will be used to make baking soda. Interestingly, the cost-effective technology has not received any government subsidy – this would make it one of the very few examples of subsidy free CCS solutions globally. Most importantly, by making carbon dioxide a raw material for producing an economically valuable good, it makes the CCS commercially viable.

So far the ideas for carbon capture have mostly looked at big projects, and the risk is so high that they are very expensive to finance. We want to set up small-scale plants that de-risk the technology by making it a completely normal commercial option.

Carbon Clean CEO

The bottom line is that CCS is not a panacea for all our climate change and emission problems and shouldn't be looked at in that light at all. Having said that, it would be foolish to ignore it as one of the many solutions we need to investigate in order to balance the issues of economic growth and environmental concerns.