Carbon Dioxide and the Green Gases Agenda

Carbon dioxide is generally thought of by those who are not in the gases industries as either a greenhouse gas (heightened by more press than ever surrounding America’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement) or for use in beverage carbonation, and perhaps fire abatement. To those in the gases industries, carbon dioxide (CO2) is known for much more, including growth in green applications. Beyond the above-mentioned subjects are numerous applications, which approach 40% of merchant market use, in various forms of food processing. Then there is significant use in metallurgical applications, pH reduction, chemical feedstock use, and dry ice pressing, to begin with.

What has become particularly interesting today, and the focus of this article, are ‘green’ applications for the product. This can include uses from agricultural in nature, such as commercial closed greenhouse CO2 enrichment uses, to an ingredient in the growth of algae, which is a form of carbon sequestration, and grain fumigation uses. Other green applications include sequestration of the gas in pre-cast concrete, downhole applications for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and enhanced coal bed methane projects. Further uses can include dry ice blast cleaning applications, and supercritical extraction technologies. Of further interest is a newly planned biofuels project in Canada which will have a pipeline-fed operation to a marijuana growing greenhouse operation; again for photosynthesis enhancement