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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

#191

Post by lazide »

DennisP wrote: post #187
lazide wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if it doesn’t make any economic sense to do it here, where it is super convenient, shipping it to Mars (with nothing of known value there to return or any known economic model that could make it worthwhile) to do it there is going to be worth it? Not saying all human endeavor needs to have a healthy profit margin. SpaceX is a business however and besides doing it for the lulz, or getting a government contract, it…

If you want to go to Mars, it's way cheaper to get your return fuel from Mars instead of carrying it all the way to Mars from Earth. If you want to get your return fuel from Mars, then you have to make it, there aren't any convenient natural gas deposits that we know of. This isn't an original SpaceX idea. Robert Zubrin pointed it out back in 1990 with his Mars Direct plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct

For sure - my point is, that presumes there is enough volume or an economic need to make that sort of infrastructure investment worthwhile (not even dollars, but energetically). Getting the direct equipment let alone supporting equipment there is going to be very, very expensive in energy. For one trip back, or even 5, it’s unlikely to pay off unless there is some cool super miniaturization tech and we’re not in a hurry - and that assumes everything keeps working over multiple missions.

And if we have all that, getting a mobile lab there and sending back bits instead of physical chunks of things is even easier.

You’d also need to get chemical feedstocks and process them (namely to extract the hydrogen, which is not readily available in the Martian atmosphere but is in the soil in various amounts in minerals and small amounts of dispersed water and methane ice) which would be non-trivial and a huge hassle to get even on Earth where you can go outside and smack the machinery with a shovel or stick your arm in somewhere to unclog something.

The existing Mars rovers struggle sometimes with dust on solar panels, let alone a broken bolt in a crusher due to harder than expected rocks or the like.

Having done some basic mining and a lot of earth moving over the years, it’s an incredible pain in the ass.

It’s also rare you don’t periodically need a human getting hands on, and using every bit of dexterity and strength they have to fix something. Robotic tech is nowhere near good enough to do this remotely.

So at a small, very very very slow scale? Maybe?

There are a lot of cool thought problems from all this, and some cool potential solutions. My fav is Project Orion [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propu...]

And we’ll just have to see what happens.

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

#192

Post by dragontamer »

rspeed wrote: post #179
dragontamer wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem confused. This topic is about the pretreatment plant, not the power-plant. You don't build a pretreatment plant if you're only using a fraction of its capacity. You'd instead just ship in pre-treated methane by pipeline or by truck. But that's not what SpaceX is asking for. SpaceX is asking for their own, private, pretreatment plant. For... some reason. (The underlying theory is: SpaceX seems to be trying to…

The pretreatment plant is for extracting pure methane from natural gas. That is in the document.

And the document writes "45.8" as their yearly VOC emissions rate from that pretreatment plant, page 44.

Do you see any reason to disagree with this 45.8 number?

------

If you do have beef with other blogposts / other things (It seems like you want to talk about the power plant), you're welcome to do so. But my earlier points in this thread are rather specific to this #16 blogpost.

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

#193

Post by MPSimmons »

lazide wrote: post #84
Denvercoder9 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX wants to make a roundtrip to Mars, though. There's no fossil fuels on Mars.

And if it doesn’t make any economic sense to do it here, where it is super convenient, shipping it to Mars (with nothing of known value there to return or any known economic model that could make it worthwhile) to do it there is going to be worth it? Not saying all human endeavor needs to have a healthy profit margin. SpaceX is a business however and besides doing it for the lulz, or getting a government contract, it…

> SpaceX is a business however

SpaceX has been described as a company with a Mars cult inside of it.

I think it's more fair to say that it's a Mars cult that has organized a company.

If you think that SpaceX won't do hydrocarbon generation on Mars, then you don't understand why SpaceX exists.

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

#194

Post by ChuckMcM »

dragontamer wrote: post #189
ChuckMcM wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> and there is every indication that SpaceX will run their facility in a responsible way. Wouldn't a "responsible way" include applying for a NEPA permit correctly? A big problem with this PEA is this pipeline + fracking hypothesis. The pipeline, and the wells, are completely missing from the document. The document has clearly made assumptions: they assume that a pipeline has built, and they seem to assume raw natura…

I don't know what the "correct" way to apply for a NEPA permit is, and I don't have access to or know how many agencies SpaceX is communicating with. I don't know if they talked to NEPA who said, "get this permit first then we'll issue ours" or if there is a completely separate permit process rolling along with less visibility.

What I do know is that SpaceX wants to launch rockets from Starbase and they want to have the infrastructure to do that. I know they have a lot of experience operating out of Cape Canaveral and are familiar with the infrastructure NASA put there to support NASA's launching activities. And I know that even though it annoys them that agencies like the FAA aren't really equipped yet with processes to deal with companies like SpaceX, they do follow the existing rules.

As a result, it would surprise me if they hadn't aligned all of the respective agencies on what they were doing and jumping through the hoops that were put there by those agencies to get to the other side.

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

#195

Post by dragontamer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #194
dragontamer wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and there is every indication that SpaceX will run their facility in a responsible way. Wouldn't a "responsible way" include applying for a NEPA permit correctly? A big problem with this PEA is this pipeline + fracking hypothesis. The pipeline, and the wells, are completely missing from the document. The document has clearly made assumptions: they assume that a pipeline has built, and they seem to assume raw natura…

I don't know what the "correct" way to apply for a NEPA permit is, and I don't have access to or know how many agencies SpaceX is communicating with. I don't know if they talked to NEPA who said, "get this permit first then we'll issue ours" or if there is a completely separate permit process rolling along with less visibility. What I do know is that SpaceX wants to launch rockets from Starbase and they want to have…

NEPA is the environmental law stating that everyone needs to disclose environmental effects ahead-of-time, before you build stuff. There's no NEPA agency, its simply the law.

FAA, being a government agency, is required to follow NEPA.

-------

The accusation, from ESG_Hound on this matter, is that FAA is rubber stamping the approval process and that SpaceX is on the path to making environmental changes without disclosure. There were many blog-posts about the deficiencies in this NEPA / disclosure document.

The one this topic is dealing with, is that the emission numbers simply don't make sense: SpaceX seems to have described Starbase as some kind of fracking operation. The estimated emissions are way too high.

--------

The problem is, if we let this approval go through, then SpaceX would be allowed to do fracking-related operations on Starbase (or at least, they seem to be doing substantial upstream / midstream operations. Maybe not fracking specifically, but... there's a lot of missing details in their disclosure).

There's two ways to think about this:

1. SpaceX's NEPA request is "correct" -- Which means they're really trying to do upstream/midstream natural gas operations (a well known dirty industry) in a federal reserve property.

2. SpaceX's NEPA request is "incorrect" -- Which means they filed their paperwork horribly incorrectly.

I think we're all hoping for #2. Because if #1 is true, then SpaceX is basically trying to become a fossil fuel company all of a sudden. In which case, we need to send the document back to SpaceX and ask them: hey, is this really what you're trying to do here? I thought you were just trying to launch rockets at Boca Chica? What's all this crap about VOC emissions and NOx emissions per year doing in this nominally "rocket ship base" ???

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

#196

Post by ChuckMcM »

dragontamer wrote: post #195
ChuckMcM wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what the "correct" way to apply for a NEPA permit is, and I don't have access to or know how many agencies SpaceX is communicating with. I don't know if they talked to NEPA who said, "get this permit first then we'll issue ours" or if there is a completely separate permit process rolling along with less visibility. What I do know is that SpaceX wants to launch rockets from Starbase and they want to have…

NEPA is the environmental law stating that everyone needs to disclose environmental effects ahead-of-time, before you build stuff. There's no NEPA agency, its simply the law. FAA, being a government agency, is required to follow NEPA. ------- The accusation, from ESG_Hound on this matter, is that FAA is rubber stamping the approval process and that SpaceX is on the path to making environmental changes without disclos…

So ESG_Hound here has an issue with the FAA that they should not approve this application because it is missing data?

If so, the FAA has a pretty functional portal for public comments on applications. I'm sure they have made their concerns known to the FAA?

Given how "by the book" the FAA has been on their test flights and their stated concern of risk to public safety I am not sure I would be persuaded by an argument that the FAA was "rubber stamping" anything here. Is that your impression?

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

#197

Post by dragontamer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #196
dragontamer wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NEPA is the environmental law stating that everyone needs to disclose environmental effects ahead-of-time, before you build stuff. There's no NEPA agency, its simply the law. FAA, being a government agency, is required to follow NEPA. ------- The accusation, from ESG_Hound on this matter, is that FAA is rubber stamping the approval process and that SpaceX is on the path to making environmental changes without disclos…

So ESG_Hound here has an issue with the FAA that they should not approve this application because it is missing data? If so, the FAA has a pretty functional portal for public comments on applications. I'm sure they have made their concerns known to the FAA? Given how "by the book" the FAA has been on their test flights and their stated concern of risk to public safety I am not sure I would be persuaded by an argument…

> So ESG_Hound here has an issue with the FAA that they should not approve this application because it is missing data?

I don't speak on behalf of him. But... it seems that yes, the FAA is complicit in this thus far.

> If so, the FAA has a pretty functional portal for public comments on applications. I'm sure they have made their concerns known to the FAA?

The FAA public stakeholder hearing is tomorrow at 5pm. Yes. The idea is to drum up support before the public hearing.

https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_star...

> The FAA will hold two virtual public hearings to solicit comments from the public concerning the scope and content of the Draft PEA. The hearings have been moved to October 18 and October 20, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. Central Time. The FAA invites all interested parties to attend the meeting. Register to attend here.

By publishing the qualms of the PEA document SpaceX submitted, people will have the precise, technical arguments needed to ensure that the meeting tomorrow can go more smoothly.

----------

ESG_Hound seems focused on the natural gas issue. There's a few other groups who have studied the rocket-launch assessment side and have also come up with concerns.

-------

The process was _SUPPOSED_ to be SpaceX preparing a comprehensive PEA for the public to discuss. However, all sorts of details with regards to natural gas seem to be missing, which means that SpaceX has either purposefully, or inadvertently, sabotaged the conversation and the environmental assessment process.

All we'll be able to do tomorrow is point out how inadequate some of these calculations are on the PEA.

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

#198

Post by _3u10 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #119
_3u10 wrote: post #39

Isn’t capturing and then flaring methane the environmentally responsible thing to do?

It's more responsible not to use natural gas, including by reducing energy usage. It's also more responsible to respect the rules made democratically by your fellow citizens then to try to cheat them.

Which rules are they breaking? As far as I could tell the article said they were following all the rules for the kind of project they had…

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

#199

Post by whatever1 »

agar wrote: post #190
whatever1 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even ExxonMobil by itself does not contribute more than 0.00001% to the total global emissions, and they keep our infrastructure running. So I guess nobody has to do anything about climate change since they individually represent a tiny fraction of the problem. Then why do the peasants pay renewable energy tax?

Why are you throwing out numbers like that while complaining about other people's unsourced information? You are also using a strawman argument. I said people should focus on areas of great impact, not "nobody has to do anything." I'm beginning to think you are not interested a credible discussion. This link refutes your assertion of ExxonMobil (they are responsible for 1.68% of global emissions), as well as answerin…

A source (opensecrets) that is claiming as a source itself(opensecrets analysis). You win.

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

#200

Post by consumer451 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #40
consumer451 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking about this phrase in regards to Musk about ten minutes ago. “The ends” are the most laudable things I can imagine: electrifying the world and colonizing other celestial bodies. While I love the goals, I am afraid of what a mission-driven person might rationalize and do to achieve them.

The ends justify giving people like Musk wide latitude but keeping them in check when the negative externalities tip the scale away from the benefits.

I certainly give Musk wide latitude even when he makes it difficult.

I was thinking more along the lines of how one in his position could drift in their perspective and values as they get distorted by the blinders of hyper mission focus.

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