“I'm as surprised as you are. And so, when I understood the CO2 value for your industry, I flew to run to you to find a solution”. Tony Will, the Texan CEO of CF Industries, is not the type to get lost in small talk. The first thing he has done is close the fertilizer factory in Teesside, along with a sister plant in Cheshire. Then he continued on to London. And here, under the threat of disruption of the UK food industry chain, in record time he obtained a public grant to restart the production of ammonia from which to obtain the "precious" carbon dioxide, i.e. precisely the CO2, public enemy of the environment, but for now essential for some processesespecially in the food industry.
More or less every yearor 250 million tons of carbon dioxide they take the path of slaughterhouses rather than producers of carbonated drinks or to favor aquatic fauna in aquariums. Or for cleaning oil wells. Not to mention nurseries where ornamental plants and vegetables for the table grow, such as cucumbers. Of course, this is a minor problem compared to the damage of pollution, but also an example of how complicated (and expensive) it is to design a zero-pollution economy. A problem for everyone, but especially for the UK: the chain of CO2 produced by fertilizer factories is short and quick to use, because it is a chain with decidedly limited stocks, also because until the crisis broke out, prices did not justify the existence of large and cumbersome deposits.
“We are the most affected – he explains Christopher Carson, CEO of Bionics, a company that produces CO2 from biogas – because England is an island. When production drops, you are condemned to launch a complex system for imports”. And this, in times of Brexit, is an additional problem for London, the hardest hit by the massive increase in natural gas prices, aggravated by the lack of drivers to transport oil. But the CO2 crisis, then, risks hitting the heart of the British lifestyle even more than petrol. Without gas, in fact, pub activity risks stopping, as had already happened during the 2018 World Cup when an unnatural heat wave, combined with the boom in the consumption of pints of beer, forced more than one chain to ration the precious drink. Now the nightmare risks repeating itself, because government contributions to prevent the closure of the plants of CF Industries or the Norwegian Yara have a duration limited to a few weeks. Few to solve complex and expensive problems: a sharp increase in the rights to pollute risks putting a part of the producers out of the market or making the food price. A little everywhere, more in the United Kingdom where, in view of environmental summit, the Cop 26, in Glasgow, Boris Johnson trumpeted the most ambitious goals on the planet: to eliminate three quarters of net carbon dioxide emissions by 2035, to then zero them by 2050. But, waiting to disappear, CO2 will takes a revenge at the pub.
