I’m truly sorry for the title, but it says what I think about this succinctly. I tried half a dozen variations and kept coming back to the one word.
There are days when I think I just won’t see anything stupider cross my inbox. Then, today brings a new surprise on the winds of change. Carbon Free Sugar. Let me repeat that. Carbon Free Sugar – certified even.
Those of you who remember their basic high school chemistry might remember this simple and indelible truth: sugar contains carbon.
There is no getting around that. Don’t believe me? Try frying up some sugar in a sauce pan and watch the results. Or just pick up a used mass spectrograph on Ebay and run an analysis.
Or just consult any number of chemical handbooks. Sucrose is common table sugar (as pictured in the bag) and has the chemical formula: C12H22O11
Looks like twelve atoms of carbon combined with eleven molecules of H2O doesn’t it? That’s why it is called (drum roll please) a carbohydrate.
Eating and digesting sugar turns it into water and carbon dioxide that we exhale, so for it to be truly “carbon free” as the label says, we have to get those twelve molecules of Carbon out. So how do they get the carbon out of that sucrose anyway? It’s really easy, all we need is a catalyst.
Reacting sucrose with sulfuric acid (H2SO4) dehydrates the sucrose and forms the element carbon, as demonstrated in the following chemical equation:
- C12H22O11 + H2SO4 (as catalyst) → 12 C + 11 H2O
So assuming they get the acid out of the mix, we are left with some pure carbon and a bunch of water. Yummm! Perfect for cereal in the morning.
Ok, I’m being a bit extreme, I realize the idea is to promote a carbon neutral production of sugar.
But really, couldn’t the marketing people at Domino realize how stupid this claim sounds? I’ll bet the guys at the Domino company labs are having a fit. I’d love to see the emails that went flying when they learned of this one. Beakers were probably flying across the lab too.
But some companies will do anything to appear green these days, because they want to keep that “other green footprint” high.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
QUoting:
“- but make no mistake about it: the atmospheric composition and the oceanic P.H. are being significantly affected by burning of fossil fuels.”
Commenting:
Ad the prefix “in” to the word “significantly” and you might have a workable hypothesis.
Otherwise, I laugh on you!
Erik:
Please cite the studies that show that man is “fundamentally changing the atmosphere and the oceans”. Arond here, we look long and hard for these studies.
I would be laughing if I were not already crying at the lack of scientific understanding all around me.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41):
Eric, you need to back up. First, you have not shown that CO2 is harmful [and based simply on your designation of pH as “P.H.”, it appears that you’re not science oriented, but are just parroting the ubiquitous alarmism that permeates the media. That’s what they want you to do. But you’re better off thinking for yourself].
In the geologic past, CO2 levels have been many thousands of parts per million higher than today — for millions of years at a time — without “acidifying” the oceans or “fundamentally changing the atmosphere.” There is nothing to become alarmed about.
Geologically speaking, when CO2 was much, much higher than its current very low levels, there was no runaway global warming, and the extent and diversity of life on Earth was abundant. It exceeded today’s. CO2 is beneficial, not harmful. More is better at today’s low levels. Life could not exist without CO2. The planet needs more of this minor trace gas, not less.
Saying: “It is 100% guaranteed that you will lose that argument” is simply wishful thinking. The CO2=AGW hypothesis has already been falsified by the planet itself: as CO2 rises, global temperatures continue to fall.
I just re-read the ad. They claim that burning their processing waste and waste wood to generate electricity saves 1 million barrels of oil each year. Did they (or would they) really burn oil for electricity otherwise? They must be the only place that does any more.
I think Domino missed an opportunity here that is even more idiotic than what they marketed. They should be selling sugar as a product that sequesters carbon. They collect carbon into a crystalline form and sell it in bags. People ingest the carbon, some of which is converted to fatty deposits, and some of which is converted to solid waste. That solid waste eventually is converted into soil.
Domino should be charging Al Gore’s carbon credit companies to sequester carbon. They can also be selling carbon credits to ‘big polluters’ under the new cap and tax scam.
Any company that sells wood products is in the same position. They are sequestering huge amounts of carbon in the wood that forms their products.
Should homeowners get carbon credits based on the construction materials in their homes?
Now if there was only a way to create legislation that would allow Evian to charge for water credits due to their sequestration of anthropogenic water vapor pollution…
What a stupid game this is.
It’s no worse than the term “organic” with reference to it’s “health-value.” To a chemist, “organic” simply means the molecule contains a carbon atom.
Read the ad copy and you get the feeling of Enron accounting methods at work. That may be the answer to defeating the cap&trade scheme: deduct from your carbon tax all of the “carbon-free” products you use. If you’re diligent enough with record keeping the EPA might owe you money. Just remember not to account for exhaling, of course.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) :
We’re just having fun with you – at least you’re a real live entity instead of Dominosugar.com.
“Fundamentally changing the atmosphere and oceans.” We’re adding CO2, but that’s been in the atmosphere at higher concentrations in the past. Aerosols? Volcanoes do that better. Chlorofluorocarbons? That might be fundamental change, but people are discovering that what we thought was happening is wrong, so it’s uncertain just what the effect is for that chemically, and as GHGs, well, it looks like we have a lot to figure out about them too.
If Akasofu’s thesis that temperature change is due to PDO and recovery from the LIA holds up, then well, sorry we’re picking on you, but you make it too easy! Thanks for posting.
Erik
..fundamentally different than burning coal, whose carbon was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago
And how does the length of time make it different? Coal is very old and compressed timber, which obtained its carbon from the atmosphere, like other plants. Carbon neutral, in other words.
Not surprising, really, since they’ve long since stopped making the stuff…
Eric, you should know better. Site your sources please. Please do not use modeled sources but actual measures of ph on a regional basis. You also need to site your source for CO2 concentrations. In case you don’t know, most such data is based on modeled information of outgassing and uptake, not actual measured data, on a global basis.
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) :
I urge you people not to go down the road of trying to argue that man is not fundamentally changing the atmosphere and oceans. It is 100% guaranteed that you will lose that argument.
How much do you have to pay to Carbonfund.org to use this 100% Guaranteed label?
I heard this ad yesterday and immediately fired off and email to Domino and let them know I would be purposely NOT buying their sugar because of this asinine commercial and their perpetration of this “carbon is evil” scam. I suggest everyone else do the same.
[Reply: Providing Domino’s email address would be helpful. ~ dbstealey, moderator]
This reminds me of The Pancake House in Kirksville, Missouri.
They cooked in “100% fat-free oil.”
AGW is, in general, a marketing scheme.
Here, in south Louisiana, the nastiest vehicle one can be behind is the average sugar cane truck at harvest time. Not cement trucks, not septic pumpers, not dump trucks, but sugar cane trucks. Barely running, soot-belching, noxious hydrocarbons, continuously losing small pieces of their load, and usually on a 2-line state highway with few passing zones.
You guys do know why press-1-for-English continues to exist when calling even local businesses and why asking for an English copy of the welfare forms causes a problem at that office…because we allowed it. I am going to vote with my wallet and my wallet has a long memory.
Blockbuster asked for a membership fee in 1993. They wanted me to pay them so they could make money off of me. To this day, they have seen not one penny from my wallet (16 years and counting).
Domino will get the same treatment, as does everything GE on a retail level.
Erik Ramberg,
We are not at all fundamentally changing the oceans or the atmosphere due to CO2.
CO2 is not a new chemical, it is not being added in toxic amounts, nor is it being added in amounts that will fundamentally change any aspect of the planet. The oceans will not support less life due to the CO2 we are adding. The ice will not melt away due to the CO2 we are adding.
The atmosphere will not harm us due to the CO2 we are adding.
The climate will not change in apocalyptic ways due to the CO2 we are adding.
Deal with it.
Nasif Nahle (21:26:03) :
Hahaha… Yeah! And sucrose is synthesized by photosynthetic organisms from CO2:
http://biocab.org/Outline_of_Photosynthesis.jpg
I wanted to reproduce your post..There are no words to just imagine the extreme naivete of these “gringos”.
Now, let the few among them who still can think, during an epoch which , for them, is the end of time, repeat, those wise words:
GREEN…GO!
Erik Ramberg (05:33:41) Eric, to reiterate, the IPCC claims human contribution to the annual CO2 budget is in the 3% range. So, even if all human contribution is ceased, it will have basically no impact on CO2 levels in the atmosphere. This seems to be cognative dissonance at its best. See IPCC data here:
http://i39.tinypic.com/a29mvr.jpg
So I guess this means the old Texas gusher was Carbon Free TM oil. And doesn’t this mean that Jed Clampett ought to be able to collect on those old carbon credits:
“Then one day he was shootin’ at some food
Up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude
Oil that is… Black Gold… Texas Tea…”
Fuelmaker:
“Domino is doing a good thing by burning the cane stalks (called bagasse) to run their process.”
That is hardly rocket science. I remember Mark Twain commenting (in “Life on the Mississippi”) that when he returned to the Mississippi in the 1880’s the sugar mills were using the bagasse for fuel rather than burning it in the fields as was usual when he was young in the 1850’s. Domino is taking credit for reinventing the wheel.
I have to say, this has been one of the funniest threads in a while… I’m especially entertained by the earnest defense of Domino’s insanely ludicrous claim. Parsing terms like this is a typical sign of activism from one particular side of the “aisle”.
SO I’ll try it one more time just for the record:
Yes, we know the sugar itself can’t possibly be “carbon free”, in which case it wouldn’t be sugar. No, we don’t believe the rest of the process involved in producing the sugar can possibly be “carbon free” either. Yes, we know that “carbon free” is “just a phrase”. No, we don’t think reducing CO2 is any sort of priority.
To quote Vice Admiral William “Spike” Blandy on July 25, 1946 (in regards to nuclear testing at Bikini):
Brilliant quote, actually… it makes a mockery of the ridiculous assertions made by opponents of nuclear testing. So let me carry it on:
I think this attack on Domino is entirely unfounded.
Domino is making use of CarbonFund.Org’s certification to show their product is Carbon Neutral.
It was CarbonFund that came up with the term CarbonFree and they did it to label any product/company as Carbon Neutral and in no way does it imply there isn’t any Carbon in the product, or even that CO2 wasn’t produced to make it, just that the NET output to the environment was neutral.
Domino clearly explains the meaning of CarbonFree.
Why anyone is dumping on Domino for driving the process of creating sugar via use of BioMass is beyond me.
The need to exploit other energy sources besides fossil fuels, where we can and where it makes sense to do so, is not a bad thing.
As Domino says, they save the equivelent of 1 million barrels of oil per year, and for that I say WAY TO GO, DOMINO.
Arthur
It is the same with “ORGANIC FOOD”. Do you know that natural potassium nitrate (KNO3)it is considered ORGANIC , so good for fertilizing “organic plantations” and synthetic potassium nitrate (KNO3) is considered a “CHEMICAL” and so unfitted to fertilize such fields!!!!!!????
Undoubtely Al Gore’s Church has brought to this planet the most stupid cult ever seen.
This seems to have been originated, as someone pointed out here in WUWT, back in the 1960’s, during the Hippies, Beatnicks, Undergrounds, New Age, etc. “culture”, most conveniently “fertilized” with a lot of smoked “grass”, also a lot of the Lyserg di-ethyl-amide acid, and more.
The expected consequences were, of course, in the short term, a lot of “burned to the core” brains, in the long term, to what we se now.
In Latin america, that culture originated all the leftist “revoluciones” and the “revolucionarios” who still survive in NGOs, universities, and some governments.
Clearly the work of “CarbonFree” lifeforms.
Aw shucks. They’ve been selling carbon-free sugar for years. It’s called bottled water. But seriously folks, everybody I talk to about this fails to see the irony. Americans have become numb, they don’t care that advertisers resort to such supreme idiocy. And for me, that is exactly what this is! The pushers of Domino Sugar think I’m an idiot, that I have no original thoughts, that I’m nothing but a mindless zombie, that I’m incapable of rational thinking. And this is only one single example. There are thousands more. I’m sick of it.
I turned my cable off years ago, and haven’t listened to the radio in years. I couldn’t take the insults hurled at me from the mainstream. Since then I have read… heck… I have no idea how many books! I’ve always been an avid reader, but now I’m reading real books – not horror fiction. I’m reading white papers? Me? Yes, I’m interested in the real world again. I’ve found great blogs like WUWT.
Here’s to reviving a numbed brain!