I was joking to myself about using the waste gas from a coal fired power station to make fizzy drinks.
Knowing already that a coal fired power station produces too much waste gas.

Realising that the waste gas is (after bag and electroststic filter and sulfur dioxide scrubber) about 70% nitrogen and 30% CO2.

When I suddenly thought, why not.
Why not use a mixture of CO2 and N2 in fizzy drinks rather than pure CO2?
In fire extinguishers, too, a mixture of CO2 and N2 could substitute for a CO2 extinguisher.
And in spray cans which are now pressurised by N2, a mixture of N2 and CO2 would work.

A mixture of CO2 and N2 in a gas bottle would be much cheaper than pure CO2, and probably suffice for just about any purpose that pure CO2 or N2 is now used.

Then I remembered that fizzy drink manufacturers get their CO2 from an on-site furnace. So do they already use a mixture of CO2 and N2?

Checking BOC gases. They do sell bottled 30% CO2 in nitrogen.
But list it as “this is a specialist gas that is made on request”.

Let’s just check that fizzy drink usage is much smaller than coal-fired station output.
The entire use for fizzy drink gases worldwide would come to something like (give or take a factor of 3) – 5,000 litres per second.
That’s roughly 5 kg/s, 430 tonnes per day.
Compare with a power station. “a 1000 MWe coal plant uses 9000 tonnes of coal per day”
9000 tonnes of coal makes 70,000 tonnes of CO2 + nitrogen. Yep, heaps larger.

Any way, going back to my questions:
Do fizzy drinks already contain 30% CO2 and 70% N2?
Could they, without jeopardising the taste?
What about fire extinguishers?
What about pressurised spray cans?

mollwollfumble said:

I was joking to myself about using the waste gas from a coal fired power station to make fizzy drinks.
Knowing already that a coal fired power station produces too much waste gas.

Realising that the waste gas is (after bag and electroststic filter and sulfur dioxide scrubber) about 70% nitrogen and 30% CO2.

When I suddenly thought, why not.
Why not use a mixture of CO2 and N2 in fizzy drinks rather than pure CO2?
In fire extinguishers, too, a mixture of CO2 and N2 could substitute for a CO2 extinguisher.
And in spray cans which are now pressurised by N2, a mixture of N2 and CO2 would work.

A mixture of CO2 and N2 in a gas bottle would be much cheaper than pure CO2, and probably suffice for just about any purpose that pure CO2 or N2 is now used.

Then I remembered that fizzy drink manufacturers get their CO2 from an on-site furnace. So do they already use a mixture of CO2 and N2?

Checking BOC gases. They do sell bottled 30% CO2 in nitrogen.
But list it as “this is a specialist gas that is made on request”.

Let’s just check that fizzy drink usage is much smaller than coal-fired station output.
The entire use for fizzy drink gases worldwide would come to something like (give or take a factor of 3) – 5,000 litres per second.
That’s roughly 5 kg/s, 430 tonnes per day.
Compare with a power station. “a 1000 MWe coal plant uses 9000 tonnes of coal per day”
9000 tonnes of coal makes 70,000 tonnes of CO2 + nitrogen. Yep, heaps larger.

Any way, going back to my questions:
Do fizzy drinks already contain 30% CO2 and 70% N2?
Could they, without jeopardising the taste?
What about fire extinguishers?
What about pressurised spray cans?

You could do it if you needed to, but why? It eventually ends up in the atmosphere anyway.

I reuse the CO2 that comes off my fermenting beer to purge the oxygen from my kegs prior to filling them.

Dark Orange said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was joking to myself about using the waste gas from a coal fired power station to make fizzy drinks.
Knowing already that a coal fired power station produces too much waste gas.

Realising that the waste gas is (after bag and electroststic filter and sulfur dioxide scrubber) about 70% nitrogen and 30% CO2.

When I suddenly thought, why not.
Why not use a mixture of CO2 and N2 in fizzy drinks rather than pure CO2?
In fire extinguishers, too, a mixture of CO2 and N2 could substitute for a CO2 extinguisher.
And in spray cans which are now pressurised by N2, a mixture of N2 and CO2 would work.

A mixture of CO2 and N2 in a gas bottle would be much cheaper than pure CO2, and probably suffice for just about any purpose that pure CO2 or N2 is now used.

Then I remembered that fizzy drink manufacturers get their CO2 from an on-site furnace. So do they already use a mixture of CO2 and N2?

Checking BOC gases. They do sell bottled 30% CO2 in nitrogen.
But list it as “this is a specialist gas that is made on request”.

Let’s just check that fizzy drink usage is much smaller than coal-fired station output.
The entire use for fizzy drink gases worldwide would come to something like (give or take a factor of 3) – 5,000 litres per second.
That’s roughly 5 kg/s, 430 tonnes per day.
Compare with a power station. “a 1000 MWe coal plant uses 9000 tonnes of coal per day”
9000 tonnes of coal makes 70,000 tonnes of CO2 + nitrogen. Yep, heaps larger.

Any way, going back to my questions:
Do fizzy drinks already contain 30% CO2 and 70% N2?
Could they, without jeopardising the taste?
What about fire extinguishers?
What about pressurised spray cans?

You could do it if you needed to, but why? It eventually ends up in the atmosphere anyway.

If the manufacturers are currently making their own CO2 supplies by burning coal in a furnace, then re-using the waste CO2 from power stations would reduce total CO2 emissions.

Albeit by a tiny amount.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Dark Orange said:

mollwollfumble said:

I was joking to myself about using the waste gas from a coal fired power station to make fizzy drinks.
Knowing already that a coal fired power station produces too much waste gas.

Realising that the waste gas is (after bag and electroststic filter and sulfur dioxide scrubber) about 70% nitrogen and 30% CO2.

When I suddenly thought, why not.
Why not use a mixture of CO2 and N2 in fizzy drinks rather than pure CO2?
In fire extinguishers, too, a mixture of CO2 and N2 could substitute for a CO2 extinguisher.
And in spray cans which are now pressurised by N2, a mixture of N2 and CO2 would work.

A mixture of CO2 and N2 in a gas bottle would be much cheaper than pure CO2, and probably suffice for just about any purpose that pure CO2 or N2 is now used.

Then I remembered that fizzy drink manufacturers get their CO2 from an on-site furnace. So do they already use a mixture of CO2 and N2?

Checking BOC gases. They do sell bottled 30% CO2 in nitrogen.
But list it as “this is a specialist gas that is made on request”.

Let’s just check that fizzy drink usage is much smaller than coal-fired station output.
The entire use for fizzy drink gases worldwide would come to something like (give or take a factor of 3) – 5,000 litres per second.
That’s roughly 5 kg/s, 430 tonnes per day.
Compare with a power station. “a 1000 MWe coal plant uses 9000 tonnes of coal per day”
9000 tonnes of coal makes 70,000 tonnes of CO2 + nitrogen. Yep, heaps larger.

Any way, going back to my questions:
Do fizzy drinks already contain 30% CO2 and 70% N2?
Could they, without jeopardising the taste?
What about fire extinguishers?
What about pressurised spray cans?

You could do it if you needed to, but why? It eventually ends up in the atmosphere anyway.

If the manufacturers are currently making their own CO2 supplies by burning coal in a furnace, then re-using the waste CO2 from power stations would reduce total CO2 emissions.

Albeit by a tiny amount.

Transport from power station to soft drink factory would reduce that amount even more.

Tamb said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Dark Orange said:

You could do it if you needed to, but why? It eventually ends up in the atmosphere anyway.

If the manufacturers are currently making their own CO2 supplies by burning coal in a furnace, then re-using the waste CO2 from power stations would reduce total CO2 emissions.

Albeit by a tiny amount.

Transport from power station to soft drink factory would reduce that amount even more.

Transport would of course be by electric vehicle, using non-fossil fuelled electricity, so the reduction in the tiny amount would be even tinier by several orders of magnitude.

Just put coal in the soft drinks.

Bogsnorkler said:

Just put coal in the soft drinks.

Coke, surely.

Bogsnorkler said:

Just put coal in the soft drinks.

Popular coal.

Dark Orange said:

mollwollfumble said:

Any way, going back to my questions:
Do fizzy drinks already contain 30% CO2 and 70% N2?
Could they, without jeopardising the taste?
What about fire extinguishers?
What about pressurised spray cans?

You could do it if you needed to, but why? It eventually ends up in the atmosphere anyway.

A couple of Google links to “Why?” and “Why not?” and “Does” and “Does not”.