The US is experiencing a carbon dioxide shortage, which has now been intensified by natural contaminants found in the CO2 supply that comes from an extinct volcano in Mississippi. This underground CO2 source is particularly crucial for bubbly beverage makers and food processing companies.
While the US has multiple sources of natural carbon dioxide, the CO2 reservoir beneath an uplifted area known as the is the only large underground deposit east of the Mississippi River. Both the CO2 and Jackson Dome were created by a now-extinct volcano, buried 880 metres below Mississippi鈥檚 capital of Jackson, which once emitted huge amounts of carbon dioxide before falling silent prior to the end of the Cretaceous period about 66 million years ago.
Since oil and gas companies discovered the deposit in the 1970s, Jackson Dome has become a significant source of CO2听for both US Gulf Coast oil production and a $1.5 billion merchant market that includes food and beverage processing. This deposit 鈥渞epresents almost 15 per cent of US merchant CO2听capacity鈥�, says at Intelligas Consulting in Massachusetts. 鈥淪o it is a very important source for the market, especially the food and beverage industry which represents 70 per cent of demand.鈥�
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The Jackson Dome deposit, owned by the Texas energy company Denbury, is an unusually pure natural source of carbon dioxide with about 98 per cent purity, says at the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. That is because the carbon dioxide ended up in an underwater reservoir made of quartz sandstone. 鈥淚t was void of anything other than salt water,鈥� Dockery says. 鈥淎nd so, when the carbon dioxide came from the volcano, it went into a clean reservoir.鈥�
But some companies that get their carbon dioxide from Denbury鈥檚 Jackson Dome operation recently found that the supply contained elevated levels of benzene and sulphur, says at Advanced Cryogenics, a consulting firm for the CO2 industry in Florida. Both benzene and sulphur are naturally occurring components that can be toxic at higher levels in the case of benzene or create a distasteful odour in the case of sulphur.
These elevated levels of chemicals make it more difficult to process the CO2 to meet food and beverage standards for brewing beer or creating other fizzy drinks.
Rushing and Garvey say the issue may have stemmed from Denbury tapping alternative CO2 wells at the Jackson Dome location. While Denbury stated that the CO2 being produced at Jackson Dome meets all 鈥渞egulatory requirements鈥� and 鈥渃ontractual specifications鈥�, the company noted that it and its customers are 鈥渨ell aware that the CO2 from Jackson Dome includes small amounts of other naturally occurring components鈥�. A spokesperson for Denbury declined to go on the record in commenting on the cause of the recent issue.
In the US, ammonia plants are the second biggest source of CO2 behind ethanol production. But many that produce carbon dioxide along with fertiliser have been undergoing scheduled shutdowns during the summer months when fertiliser is not in demand.
The result is that even a temporary supply disruption at Jackson Dome may have caught some customers off guard, even if they were anticipating a summer shortage because of the fertiliser plants going offline, says Garvey.
The good news is that the supply issue at Jackson Dome has apparently been resolved, according to one company that produces beverage-grade CO2, says Rushing. But the spectre of broader CO2听shortages still looms as market demand has been outpacing supply in recent years.
