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Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

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Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#151

Post by plorg »

plorg wrote: post #137
stefan_ wrote: post #3

The context here seems to be that SpaceX is in fact building an old boring fracked well gas plant in federally protected land, but because they cursorily mention rockets and call it a "methane processing thingamajig" instead of what it plain is, the FAA who has no experience doing environmental review but is involved because rockets is all too happy to just nod it through.

They are also skirting a full environmental review by getting it initially approved as a fuel processing plant only and then getting incremental additions approved under a process with less oversight. So while the plan was always to have a pipeline and in addition to the NG plant, it was initially permitted only for the NG part (under the deceptive description as "rocket fuel") and to process relatively clean NG, and…

Replying to myself because I misremembered some of the particulars: The Environmental Impact Assesment was initially done for the rocket launch facility in 2014. All improvements and changes have been conducted as small or incremental changes, which require an amendment to the assessment, rather than a new assessment, a process with much less oversight. The fuel facility is being approved through the amendment process even though it represents a substantial change, and it has thus far excluded study of additional parts of the facility that will be required for it to function as presented.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#152

Post by lazide »

gpm wrote: post #117
lazide wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that would require something like a 5x cost increase in carbon, though I can’t find hard numbers anywhere easily. Do you have any pointers?

> Pretty sure that would require something like a 5x cost increase in carbon 5x over what? The US doesn't have a carbon tax does it?

5x over the current baseline cost of fuel. The only studies I could find of doing this were using large scale bulk solar and not counting financing costs into the equation.

They found that if avoiding fossil fuel use (natural gas is the cheapest easily available Hydrogen source right now), and cracking water to get it, end to end energy efficiency is between 44-56% (as in electrical efficiency to theoretical available chemical energy in the fuel). Burning said fuel for energy (turbines being one of the most efficient ways) then varies from 40-63% efficiency, rockets can hit up to 70% efficiency (varies immensely by many factors).

So, getting what they need from a fossil fuel is up to 70% efficient. Getting what they need from a Sebatier process? 28-41% efficient (combined). Add in extra capital costs and maintenance of acquiring and running the equipment, about 5x more expensive fossil fuel evens out.

It’s potentially worse than that of course when you factor in potential increases in electrical rates if fossil fuels did get 5x, but there is nothing saying that would for sure happen. They presumably could run it during oversupply from a large solar plant, but that is already factored into those studies. If you’re doing it at scale, that ‘free energy’ won’t be free for long.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#153

Post by wolverine876 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #143
wolverine876 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am surprised (as I am usually) at the emotional content of these sorts of things. You're surprised by emotional content of politicized issues, such as the environment and anything Elon Musk?

Yes I am. Contextually Texas has a huge methane problem[1] and there is every indication that SpaceX will run their facility in a responsible way. What people "get" for SpaceX running that activity is a space capability that is superior to every other nation on the planet. I do understand being emotional about the environment and a desire to preserve it in the presence of people and the activities that we have to do…

I think we're stretching the meaning of 'surprised' past the breaking point, but I get your point. Tangentially:

> What people "get" for SpaceX running that activity is a space capability that is superior to every other nation on the planet.

The US already has had that for 50 years, and SpaceX is nowhere near the pinnacle of space capability. NASA has a helicopter flying around Mars, will soon have a new telescope out at (L2?), is operating in interstellar space, put humans on the moon 50 years ago, etc. etc.

SpaceX is good at launches to orbit, but being a private business they can sell that to any country. The US public doesn't own that capability like they do for NASA, any more than they own the new Ford truck line.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#154

Post by brabel »

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #72
brabel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone had any doubt about whether Elon really had the environment in mind when he founded Tesla, I think now you've got your answer. In fact, most people driving electric cars likely wouldn't think twice about building a fracked well if they knew they could make millions from that... if they really cared about the environment, they wouldn't even drive around.

Wait, your argument is that everyone would build a fracking gas plant if they could? What an odd thing to say.

The argument is that most people would do bad things (build a fracked well in the case of Elon, something smaller for the rest of us, like buying cheaper electronics from places where environmentalism doesn't even exist) to make money or save a penny, even when they do some "good" things when it's convenient to do so (driving electric cars in 2021). I keep forgetting people here on HN seem to need things to be written in a very obvious, literal manner otherwise they do what you're trying to do and interpret things too literally, without any kind of abilitiy to interpret when something is a metaphore, analogy or hyperbole. Sorry.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#155

Post by tenpies »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #80
antattack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX will pay hefty taxes if carbon tax is implemented, yet Musk is still strong proponent of carbon tax.

Relative to revenue, carbon tax won't be that significant for SpaceX. There aren't any exact numbers yet, but Starship will burn about 5000 metric tons of propellant in a single launch. Assuming a stoichiometric ratio of CH4 to O2, that'll emit about 2600 metric tons of CO2 (the rest is water). According to the ICAO emissions calculator, a roundtrip by plane between LA and London emits about 0.9 metric tons of CO2 pe…

> Relative to revenue, carbon tax won't be that significant for SpaceX.

Are there any public statements on SpaceX's financials? The rumor from their last round is that it's a classic Elon money-burning enterprise - and profitability is always one quarter away. Revenue is of course pointless, since it's quite easy to have revenue when you're not profitable.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#156

Post by lazide »

elif wrote: post #149
lazide wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that would require something like a 5x cost increase in carbon, though I can’t find hard numbers anywhere easily. Do you have any pointers?

If musk followed strict economics as implied by your premise, he would be launching disposable rockets with Boeing. who knows what expense space X would be willing to shoulder to be sustainable... We are fortunate that it is still privately owned, and isn't legally obligated to pursue the financial interests of shareholders like all the other players in aerospace.

Pretty sure what Musk has been doing is a reasonably common business case - generating demand with some impressive salesmanship to increase volume and disrupt a schlerotic market ripe for disruption by driving down unit costs - and eventually competitors out of business. With decreases in unit costs, it unlocks more uses, which is a positive cycle.

It’s not an unusual playbook at all, but it is unusual that it is done in the satellite launch space. Kudos to him for that.

All the other players are military industrial complex, and the reason they act the way they do is more about market capture than anything else - shareholders are of course a concern, but not a huge one.

It also doesn’t change thermodynamics or any of the energy gathering, chemical precursor gathering, infrastructure, or raw input gathering problems.

Mars gets very little insolation. Mars has no infrastructure. Mars has no breathable air. Mars has no known life or biological sources we could survive on. Mars is very cold. Mars has no raw materials (or useful environments we know of to process anything) that would justify the energy required to export it.

It’s literally more hospitable and more useful to be on the North Pole, and I don’t see anyone in a rush to build housing developments there.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#157

Post by brabel »

schiffern wrote: post #17
brabel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone had any doubt about whether Elon really had the environment in mind when he founded Tesla, I think now you've got your answer. In fact, most people driving electric cars likely wouldn't think twice about building a fracked well if they knew they could make millions from that... if they really cared about the environment, they wouldn't even drive around.

>If anyone had any doubt about whether Elon really had the environment in mind when he founded Tesla, I think now you've got your answer. This sort of "tribal purity" logic is silly: "if you've ever done anything negative, it means you never intended to do anything positive." This is nothing but the environmentalism equivalent of the old "you're either with us or against us, we're at war!" fallacy. Rockets have alway…

> This sort of "tribal purity" logic is silly...

If Greta Thunberg flew on a commercial airplane somewhere far away, she'd be accused of being a hyprocate, so she uses a sailboat to cross a freaking ocean when she wants to.

This may be tribalism purity from the part of conservatives, but that's always going to be the reaction from the "opposite" side in this kind of situations because that's the obvious human response. This is not silly logic, this is how humans behave and if you refuse to believe your eyes when you see this again and again, you're the one being silly.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#158

Post by SiempreViernes »

inglor_cz wrote: post #98
lazide wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process IS already mastered, depending on the bar you set? This isn’t something unknown or theoretical.

Yes, but you still need to design, assemble and test the particular equipment you want to use, unless you can do with off-the-shelf components. And contemporary off-the-shelf components that perform the Sabatier process aren't probably meant to operate outside the Earth.

But this is merely testing, not any sort of large scale use of this equipment because, as you point out, they are not made to work on Earth.

Re: Engineer demos how SpaceX is building fracked well gas plant

#160

Post by ericcumbee »

cma wrote: post #145
coenhyde wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some more context. If I understand correctly this gas plant is need to power a desalination plant which is need to produce massive amounts of water which will be used to implement a sound suppression deluge system that is required by the FAA. Salt water will corrode everything and there isn't existing water and gas infrastructure in place to lean on. ie they have to build the stack from scratch.

If it is for desalination why aren't they using solar, which wouldn't even need storage in that application.

Because you also get Methane as a by-product of natural gas production and that is the fuel for starship.
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