HOW DID THIS NIGHTMARE HAPPEN?

How exquisitely ironic. Here we are, continually told we are damaging the climate by pumping out vast clouds of carbon dioxide and now we’re suddenly struggling to find enough of the gas to make a pint of lager. Pub chain wetherspoon warned yesterday that it is likely to run out of popular brands of beer over the next few days.

The brewer Heineken is reported to have written to pubs asking them not to place large orders for some of its beers, as supplies are running low.

A shortage of beer would be serious enough at any time of the year, but coming in the middle of the world Cup, with English hopes still riding high, it threatens to deal a hefty blow to our ailing pub industry.

That is a real prospect thanks to the sudden and unexpected shortage of carbon dioxide. Many mass- produced beers undergo ‘forced’ carbonisation, in which the gas is pumped in to produce its fizz. The same happens with carbonated soft drinks.

But the invisible, odourless gas, which we produce every time we breathe, is also essential for other everyday products.

Many abattoirs use it to stun pigs and chickens prior to slaughter. The animals are put into a chamber where concentrations build up slowly, depriving them of oxygen.

Because of its inert qualities, the gas is also used in meat packaging, preventing the growth of micro- organisms which depend on oxygen, and prolonging the freshness of packaged meat.

Its use explains why the shortage of the gas is causing such alarm in the meat industry, with chicken-producing plants warning of imminent shortages in supermarkets and one major plant said to have only enough Co2 for one more day’s production. The British Poultry Council is warning that without fresh supplies of Co2 to Britain, where some 2.2 million chickens are consumed daily, 60 per cent of chicken production will have to be suspended in days.

But a shortage of Co2 gas will also affect a wide variety of foods, from cooked and fresh meat and ready meals through to pre-packaged salads, the British Meat Processors Association warns.

Carbon dioxide is widely used in the fruit and vegetable industry to keep food fresh while it is being stored and transported.

As they ripen, fruit and vegetables take in oxygen and ‘breathe’ out carbon dioxode. By flooding the sheds they are stored in with Co2, the amount of oxygen is reduced which means they take less in, and ripening is put on hold. The gas also helps lessen the damage caused by chilling during transport while moulds and insects are killed.

But although the most immediate impact of this shortage will be felt in the food and drink industries, Co2 is a crucial compound in manufacturing as well. Fire extinguishers contain frozen carbon dioxide because it smothers fires and won’t burn.

It’s used to make plastics, in water treatment plants, in the assembly of electronic circuit boards, in the oil industry, in the manufacture of chemicals... in fact, it has an extraordinary number of applications.

WHICHmakes it all the more staggering that we are running short of Co2, which forms 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere by volume, too small to make extraction commercially viable. So how did this crisis come about?

The reason is that the bulk of the Co2 used commercially is a by-product from ammonia production. If ammonia plants did not sell the gas, they would have to find some way of disposing it.

It makes sense, therefore, for beer and food and other industries to source most of their carbon dioxide from ammonia plants – with smaller quantities coming from the production of bio- ethanol, a ‘ green’ fuel made from crops. The trouble is that ammonia plants often shut for maintenance during the summer. The main use for ammonia is to make agricultural fertilisers, and demand from farmers is at its lowest at this time of year as crops are by now well established.

Summer also happens to be when the production of beer and soft drinks peaks so there is often some kind of supply crunch around June.

The problem has been compounded by a fall in global ammonia prices. The British fertiliser industry is finding it cheaper to source ammonia from abroad so some UK production has been put on hold.

ATpresent, only one large plant in Britain is believed to be producing ammonia and, therefore, carbon dioxide. The shortage exposes just how vulnerable UK manufacturing is to the availability of raw materials.

we think of manufacturing as being a global industry. Yet when it comes to hard-totransport goods such as Co2, industry is still heavily reliant on local sources.

The same is true of beer. A remarkable number of them are brewed in Britain. who would have guessed that when you swig a can of ‘Danish’ Carlsberg you are drinking a product brewed in Northampton?

Just as most European countries had far better gas storage facilities than Britain to cope with the Beast from the East, so too are they better protected against the shortage of Co2. with a less-depleted industrial base, they have access to more plants supplying the gas.

All of which points to the folly of letting our nation become dependent on foreign supplies of important goods such as Co2. And which means that if Harry Kane does end up lifting the world Cup, we might have to celebrate with water or good old-fashioned bitter, which isn’t made with Co2.

while the Germans drown their sorrows with lager, full of fizz made with their own carbon dioxide which won’t have run out.