Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
h a l f b a k e r y
The Out-of-Focus Group.

idea: add, search, annotate, link, view, overview, recent, by name, random

meta: news, help, about, links, report a problem

account: browse anonymously, or get an account and write.

user:
pass:
register,


                                                                           

Please log in.
Before you can vote, you need to register. Please log in or create an account.

Sequester carbon with dark chocolate

Tastes nicer than biodiesel
  (+12, -1)(+12, -1)
(+12, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

Take the carbon dioxide exhaust from a fossil fuel or possibly biomasse fired power station and shove it through a greenhouse in which cacao, sugar beet and soya plants are being grown, while also using it to heat the greenhouse to tropical temperatures. Harvest the crops, make them into chocolates, then make the boxes out of the cellulose waste from the crops, thereby producing guilt-free boxes of chocolates which can compete with fair trade on a different and perhaps imponderable basis.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010

here's a question... http://www.ushistor...ng/kids/hershey.htm
[xandram, Jan 08 2010]

Typical Canadian http://gremlindog.c.../10/kodiak-bear.jpg
giving an American a friendly kiss [xenzag, Jan 08 2010]

(?) Lecithin from corn, cottonseed, rapeseed, rice, sunflower, etc. http://www.austrade...lower-lecithin.html
$90/gallon [ldischler, Jan 10 2010]

[link]






       Just want to point out that this will convert carbon dioxide into adipose tissue, making it irresponsible to lose weight.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       Can we have small versions for cars, please?   

       An English tomato grower combusts mounds of fruit deemed unfit for sale, using the heat to keep the tomatoes warm and the CO2 to help them reach a better yield. However I like the combination of chocolate plants ...
Aristotle, Jan 07 2010
  

       Maybe, it'd be interesting to work out how much carbon could be taken from exhaust fumes. It'd have to be a diesel or biodiesel car in the first place, i think.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       //irresponsible to lose weight//   

       And cremation would be equally irresponsible. Deep ocean burial of chocoholics would be the green alternative.
ldischler, Jan 07 2010
  

       Mass deep sea burial could replace the ecological niche currently occupied by the corpses of whales.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       Consider this: A clean burning unvented natural gas heater is usually adequate to keep co2 levels in the "grow zone" for tropical plants in a temperate climate (read: greenhouse pot production). In effect the CO2 needs of a tropical plant can be satisfied by the amount of carbon fuel required to keep it warm in a temperate climate.
WcW, Jan 07 2010
  

       I can see how the cacao and possibly the sugar go into the chocolate, but where does the soya come into it?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 07 2010
  

       Lecithin, [MB], which is normally from either soya or hen's eggs. Hens are on the wrong level, so i went for soya. Not having made chocolate, i don't know how important lecithin is for good chocolate. It might mainly be in there to make the rest go further for all i know.   

       [WcW], interesting.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       Lecithin is not a normal ingredient of chocolate; I think it's used as an emulsifier in cheap cooking chocolate, which is made with lots of fat instead of cocoa butter.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 07 2010
  

       Ahem, it is also used in English chocolate.
Aristotle, Jan 07 2010
  

       Some people apparently prefer chocolate with lecithin in it, or they don't consider it to be quite as nice. These people are usually not British. Britons, on the other hand, prefer foreign chocolate and consider it to be better without lecithin. It's a sort of "grass is always greener" situation. Given this situation, i think the issue would probably be what converts carbon dioxide more efficiently rather than whether it was cruddy or not. As someone who never eats chocolate and is therefore unbiased, i would call it a matter of personal taste.
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       Aris, having checked, yes, it is used in cheaper English chocolate. On the other hand, we're talking about dark chocolate here which, if it's worth the name, contains no lecithin or other crap.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 07 2010
  

       Nevertheless...
nineteenthly, Jan 07 2010
  

       Chocolate is a more popular part of the diet than charcoal. Maybe we could compromise on cinnamon. You could convert the fat into biodiesel if you like.
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       Call of lecithin while knocking on door of major, high quality chocolate maker: "Let-us-in, let-us-in"   

       As for carbon... can we anticipate an easy marriage of Cadbury and Carbon? Or even here-say and Hershey (whose vile chocolate is only fit for plugging holes in a leaking car exhaust pipe by the way) Maybe that's a good method of absorption... Catalytic converters that use Hershey bars to soak up all that muck and end up tasting just the same!   

       Great idea +
xenzag, Jan 08 2010
  

       If it's true that Hershey bars don't decompose (is it? Or is it something else?), it would work even if they didn't get eaten. Nothing is going to happen to that bar unless it gets eaten by a vertebrate, probably a human.
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       Only Americans eat Hershey bars, and since they are the biggest culprits in destroying the climate, then it is very fitting that they should be a major part of the solution. They won't even notice the difference.   

       The Chinese are next. Is there any way to get this stuff into noodles?
xenzag, Jan 08 2010
  

       Well yes, but with the Far East you'd have the advantage of the fact that they eat both algae and fungi a lot. The former are more efficient than land plants and the latter are not very fussy about what they grow on.
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       Why these attacks on lecithin? As it makes up a good fraction of the brain, it's got to be healthier than chocolate.
ldischler, Jan 08 2010
  

       Brains are eaten on a regular basis but are often seen as less appetising than chocolate.   

       Concerning its ability to sequester carbon though, cocoa butter is partly stearic acid, with oleic acid, and a bit of linolenic, linoleic and palmitoleic acids, with about eighteen carbons on the whole (vaguely). Lecithin has more carbons per molecule of phosphatidocholine. Don't know how dense they are though. Cocoa butter feels lighter to me. Lecithin is horrible sticky stuff, i mean, nightmarishly, insanely sticky, nasty stuff which is not the kind of thing you want to attempt to wash down the sink, as i once discovered to my considerable woe.
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       //only Americans eat Hersey bars//??
I didn't know that...I read that Canadian's eat it, too.
oh a bun for the idea +
xandram, Jan 08 2010
  

       I read that Canadians find it hard to resist eating the odd American, so that would confirm that they do in fact ingest Hersheys.....I've never met one, but aren't they large and hairy and equipped with huge claws and strong teeth. Will post pic of a typical Canadian.
xenzag, Jan 08 2010
  

       Yes, that's right. To avoid any ambiguity, the Canadian is the one on the right of the picture.   

       // Deep ocean burial of chocoholics //   

       How ? All that adipose tissue will mean they just bob back to the surface, a flock of slowly-decomposing fatties in brightly coloured plaid shorts, drifting with the wind and the ocean currents while seabirds peck at them like blue-tits on a coconut .....
8th of 7, Jan 08 2010
  

       That kind of Canadian would presumably eat anything in a pic-a-nic basket.   

       Come to think of it, if you made Hershey bars out of fossil fuel effluent, you could then take them over to the nearest niwcliar riactor and irradiate them to make sure the carbon doesn't get back into the biosphere.
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       //if you made Hershey bars out of fossil fuel effluent// what do you mean, "if" ?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 08 2010
  

       You would have to weight the cadavers, [ of ]
nineteenthly, Jan 08 2010
  

       A friend of mine, who cares about soya in UK chocolate because he is allergic to it, says the change was sudden and near universal. My favourite "co-operative Fairtrade dark chocolate" contains it, for example and this is no cheapo brand.   

       However this is just me. I prefer Fairtrade to snobbery - other people make their own minds up, even though they are wrong ...
Aristotle, Jan 10 2010
  

       No, that is indeed quite expensive stuff. Soya can't be the only vegetable source of lecithin though. Is it maybe to do with contamination in the factory too?   

       Makes me wonder, actually, if there are attempts to use non-soya veggie lecithin.
nineteenthly, Jan 10 2010
  

       //A friend of mine, who cares about soya in UK chocolate because he is allergic to it//   

       Soy protein would be a problem, but soy lecithin is generally derived from soybean oil, which isn't supposed to be an allergen, at least according to the European Food Safety Authority.
ldischler, Jan 10 2010
  

       That's not what happens. There are people whose anaphylactic shock reaction to an allergen can be triggered off by minute quantities of the allergen, and there can also be reactions to compounds encountered with the allergen. This is not just abstract information. I have a total bloody nightmare trying to keep the practice hypoallergenic.
nineteenthly, Jan 10 2010
  

       It's also made from sunflower oil and other oils, and is commercially available. See link.
ldischler, Jan 10 2010
  

       Thanks, [ldischler], that's very useful and in fact i was looking for that earlier.
nineteenthly, Jan 10 2010
  

       gluten free ?
popbottle, Sep 09 2016
  

       I thought this would be "add carbon black to dark chocolate" but no matter, I bunned it 6 years ago, as is.
FlyingToaster, Sep 09 2016
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

back: main index

business  computer  culture  fashion  food  halfbakery  home  other  product  public  science  sport  vehicle