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How much of the worlds fuel would be used doing hundreds or thousands Of launches a year
by ryan93 7y ago
How much of the worlds fuel would be used doing hundreds or thousands Of launches a year
- zaroth 7y agoApproximately none of it.
- ceejayoz 7y agoMinimal - a fraction of what we already use on airliners. It's fueled with methane and oxygen. Capture some cow farts and landfill offgassing and you're probably even helping the environment.
- stetrain 7y agoNice thing is that you can use energy to create methane and oxygen from water and CO2. It's the same process they intend to use on Mars for refuelling. Obviously this is slower and more expensive on Earth than using natural methane, but if volume increases to the point that the fuel burn is an issue you could set this up with a renewable energy source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
- skykooler 7y agoElon said at the IAC two years ago that they plan on doing this on Earth as well - which may seem needlessly complicated, but actually it's a way to test and verify the same components they will need to create fuel on Mars.
- wolfram74 7y agoaccording to this [1] the US consumes ~8E6 million cubic feet of methane a year which is ~ 2.3E11 cubic meters which is ~ 1.5E11 kg of methane 1% of that would be 1.5E9 kg total fuel load of starship+super heavy nominally 4.5E6 kg just the methane is about 30% of that, so 1.4E6 kg so 1% of the total methane consumption of just the US is about a thousand flights a year. As other people have said, minimal. [1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3035us2a.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3035us2a.htm