Dry ice. I never thought about it.
 

There is a dry ice shortage problem that is getting critical.

You probably don't need dry ice at home but it's all connected.

This is from a food warehouse correspondence :
. Meat and frozen foods require dry ice for shipment. Vaccines and other medicines require dry ice for shipment Dry ice needs are a critical factor. Dry ice production has slowed because the supply of carbon dioxide, from which dry ice is made, is down. Carbon dioxide is captured during the production of ethanol. To create new CO2 is a big expense that can take a year or two to build, so there’s not a short term solution that is an easy one.

No, I never thought about it. Without ethanol I think lots of things will be affected. I guess the government in their ultimate wisdom hasn't thought about how critical the need will be.

The thought never crossed my mind. Some serious thought has to be put to this one.

Would you please direct me to a link about a critical dry ice shortage? I have an acquaintance who is a corn farmer. He tells me the ethanol shortage is due to lower fuel demand because of Covid. Corn prices are also affecting production. He is unaware of the dry ice shortage and we could not find any articles to that effect. Thanks

Here's an article from June about the dry ice shortage. https://www.sciencetimes.com/article...n-shipping.htm

Google is your friend. . ..

It was mentioned on a radio news show this morning too. The show hosts were discussing it.

Interesting, onebyone. Thanks for bringing up the topic; my farmer friend is quite interested. It always a good day when we learn about something.

The possible shortage was first discussed in the summer of 2020 - over a year ago. It was supposed to be an issue bc of the potential need for shipping vaccines that needed colder temps than couriers could maintain. Demand also peaks when there is a natural disaster, such as parts of the country that are currently without power bc of Hurricane Ida. Carbon dioxide could be in short supply bc of the unbelievable number of craft breweries using it now (just kidding - I couldn't find any references for shortage of dry ice, carbon dioxide or ethanol.)

The deli that my husband has ship his favorite polish meats to him can't send the order. No dry ice is available to them. He was told this yesterday when he phoned in his order. I guess it isn't main stream media worthy news.

Maybe it's regional.

That's likely. A whole lot of stuff seems not to be main stream media worthy.

I have a relative that manages a food distribution warehouse. He said dry ice was scarce but his concern is what food suppliers are telling him, major price hikes are coming for food distributors . Bigger then ever before.

I've been hearing that. Then when inflation hits, it's gonna get scary.

He said his workers were buying a lot of dry milk powder and add water mixes. Anything that can be kept shelf stable for long term and they like eating of course.

I don't know about it not being covered by MSM - a google search found nothing current. Usually, if there's been a story about something, it's easily found. After 4 pages of articles, I found none that were from 2021 - although there were several from 2020 that were anything but MSM. I even tried a search with "radio hosts discuss dry ice shortage" and found nothing.

I think there is plenty of carbon dioxide available as it is put out by a lot of processes including power plants. I think what is not available is the equipment needed to process it into dry ice. I don't know if there are contaminants from from some of the processes that produce carbon dioxide to make it unsuitable to be made into dry ice for food. Even my home gas furnace puts out a fair amount of carbon dioxide.

Not much is ever covered by MSM in my opinion. I guess call a place that distributes a lot of dry ice and ask how is the supply.

Ha...I bought dry milk when the pandemic started....I sure could share it with folks....I only used a little bit of one container. Actually, I used to use it in baking...but I don't do much of that anymore. I do like to keep a bit of canned goods on hand but not too much as that gets out dated too.....