The Baking Soda Carbon Fix

“SkyMines” turn power plant effluvia into an odor-fighting household product. But can you bake with it?

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If the Austin-based company Skyonic has its way, we will one day have tons more baking soda on hand that could fill cakes or fight fridge odors. CEO Joe David Jones, a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) pioneer, discovered a simple process to turn power plant carbon dioxide emissions into the ubiquitous household powder. His “SkyMine” technology combines a plant’s emissions with lye—created on-site with little more than salt, water, electricity, and waste heat from the plant—to produce food-grade baking soda.

The byproducts are hydrogen and chlorine from lye, which plants can sell for a profit along with the baking soda. The process removes 97 percent of the heavy metals that power plants belch, and 99 percent of acid-rain gases, meaning companies can offset costs by bypassing expensive scrubber systems and avoiding carbon emissions taxes.

According to Skyonic’s spokeswoman, Stacy MacDiarmid, Texas energy company Luminant has been operating a pilot SkyMine since July 2007 with “no major stumbling blocks.” If that remains true, it’s likely more plants will follow.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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