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Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

terraformindustries.wordpress.com

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Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#61

Post by shawndrost »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #38

What are some applications where its worth taking the highest grade energy (electricity) and turning it into a lower grade (eg liquid fuels), rather than electrifying the application? Electricity to motion is significantly more efficient per input energy than burning fuel->heat-> gaseous expansion->drive a piston->convert to rotation chain. What am I missing about this?

Electricity (during sunlight hours) is not the highest grade of energy. California threw away ~32TWh of electricity last year, with renewables at only 19% penetration. You can't give power away at noon in April; this fact is a significant barrier to building new solar. (See "Learning is not enough" and other academic research on that topic.)

We also use fossil fuels as feedstocks for fertilizers and plastics, so there are very important power-to-X applications which don't involve inefficient combustion.

Something like Terraform would probably have to exist in order to transition away from fossil fuels.

(Source: I'm CEO at a startup with a very different take on the same problem.)

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#62

Post by Latty »

willio58 wrote: post #58

While this is impressive to some degree I just today watched Climate Town’s “Natural Gas is Scamming America” ( https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw ) and the entire natural gas industry is tainted beyond belief for me now. It’s not like they were a positive thing in my view before, but on the whole natural gas seems to be just as if not more detrimental than coal for climate change mainly due to how much is leaked out but a…

Indeed, and they claim it is "easily transportable": it seems to be the two are mutually exclusive, if you are going to shove it into the existing systems that leak methane habitually, it's horrific for climate change.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#63

Post by pfdietz »

jfengel wrote: post #40
alexb_ wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They claim a breakthrough in converting hydrogen to natural gas, but natural gas is by far the cheapest source of H2. Are you serious? Water is right there!

Water is right there, but the hydrogen is really closely bound to the oxygen, and extremely hard to get out. It's considerably easier to get H2 out of methane. Unfortunately, that process also yields CO2, so it's not helping the greenhouse gas situation. Hydrogen proponents suggest a route where we start with "blue hydrogen" from natural gas. Then, when we've got a good H2 infrastructure going and a lot of excess ele…

There is this really dumb internet meme, that hydrogen is just there as a plot by the fossil fuel industry to keep selling fossil fuels.

What this ignores is that hydrogen must still be made even in a post-fossil fuel economy. It's not optional. Production of ammonia requires hydrogen, and without ammonia-derived nitrogen fertilizer billions of people will starve. About half the nitrogen atoms in your body came from synthetic ammonia.

The meme is really weird. In all other applications, we assume that fossil fuels will be displaced, by law and force if necessary. But somehow SMR will always be used to make hydrogen; the technology will somehow be immune to the forces that will be deployed against all other fossil fuel uses. It's really crazy when examined closely.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#64

Post by r3trohack3r »

skeledrew wrote: post #55

I see this, and I like how it sounds on the surface. But I can't help but raise an eyebrow when I see "carbon neutral". Got me wondering how they'll be delivering the gas, if they won't be using trucks or building other infra that uses fossil fuel-consuming equipment. If they actually have resolved this end-to-end, super great! But otherwise, I feel like they're still ignoring crucial externalities.

> Got me wondering how they'll be delivering the gas, if they won't be using trucks or building other infra that uses fossil fuel-consuming equipment.

Sounds like you’ve answered your own question.

Time for you to get to work on an end-to-end natural gas powered supply chain that can run on the natural gas they’re pulling out of thin air.

Lots of fun problems for you to solve. A lifetime of fulfilling work ahead.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#65

Post by [deleted] »

willio58 wrote: post #58

While this is impressive to some degree I just today watched Climate Town’s “Natural Gas is Scamming America” ( https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw ) and the entire natural gas industry is tainted beyond belief for me now. It’s not like they were a positive thing in my view before, but on the whole natural gas seems to be just as if not more detrimental than coal for climate change mainly due to how much is leaked out but a…

[deleted]

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#66

Post by yodelshady »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #38

What are some applications where its worth taking the highest grade energy (electricity) and turning it into a lower grade (eg liquid fuels), rather than electrifying the application? Electricity to motion is significantly more efficient per input energy than burning fuel->heat-> gaseous expansion->drive a piston->convert to rotation chain. What am I missing about this?

There are ships that move over one billion kWh of LNG around at a time.

At $100 to store a kWh of electrical energy, along with approximately ten times the cost to account for structures that can support and move the extra weight (that's AFTER allowing for less energy demanded in total)... shall I leave this as exercise to the reader?

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#67

Post by SamBam »

skeledrew wrote: post #55

I see this, and I like how it sounds on the surface. But I can't help but raise an eyebrow when I see "carbon neutral". Got me wondering how they'll be delivering the gas, if they won't be using trucks or building other infra that uses fossil fuel-consuming equipment. If they actually have resolved this end-to-end, super great! But otherwise, I feel like they're still ignoring crucial externalities.

Couldn't these systems be built much closer to municipalities' distribution centers (compared to existing NG wells), and so require even less transportation than what currently exists?

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#68

Post by riku_iki »

pfdietz wrote: post #57
riku_iki wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so the cost of CO2 capture has to be well below $110/ton they say $250/t in the article, but could you expand how you came to "A ton of natural gas requires 2.75 tons of CO2"? Where 1.75t of CO2 is disappearing in result?

Molecular weight of methane (CH4): 16 Molecular weight of CO2: 44 One molecule of CO2 is needed to get the carbon atom to make one molecule of methane. 44/16 = 2.75 The 1.75t of CO2 that went missing is the oxygen, which obviously isn't in the methane.

Thank you, I am an idiot in chemistry )

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#69

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

rbliss wrote: post #20
pfdietz wrote: post #14

One can make natural gas from CO2 captured from air and with hydrogen electrolysed form water. But then one has to ask: why not just use hydrogen directly and skip the inefficiency and cost of direct air capture of CO2 and of making methane? If one is dead set on making a carbon-containing synfuel, why methane and not something more storable, like methanol or higher hydrocarbons? Or, why not use the hydrogen to deoxy…

Another point others haven't made, which Terraform Industries points out: that using solar to make Natural Gas is going to be the cheapest form of natural gas production. You can effectively short circuit the existing fossil fuel industry and pull the hydrocarbons from the air instead of the ground to stay carbon neutral. No need to re-invent industry.

But if the main problem with industry is that it leaks then maybe you do still have to reinvent it.

Re: Terraform makes carbon neutral natural gas

#70

Post by avmich »

car wrote: post #43

How does this compare to using microbes to produce hydrocarbons from CO2 and other waste gases? (NB, not from atmospheric CO2) Here a recent article on the topic, specifically for making jet fuel, for an industry that would be impossible to electrify. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-024-02136-z

It's interesting that aviation is said to be industry impossible to electrify, and at the same time we have electric airplanes for some time and keep developing the technology.
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