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Hydrolox could certainly use all electric production but all of the others require hydrocarbons as their feedstock. Take hydrazine, it's synthesized by oxidizin
by pharke 5y ago
Hydrolox could certainly use all electric production but all of the others require hydrocarbons as their feedstock. Take hydrazine, it's synthesized by oxidizing ammonia and the main feedstock for ammonia production is natural gas and it's synthesis produces CO2 as a byproduct. So we're right back where we started. Why don't we just use hydrogen and oxygen? It's true that storage is a problem since hydrogen must be kept at cryogenic temperatures to remain liquid but a bigger problem is hydrogen's low density. Low density means more volume and that leads to inefficiencies in the size of the rocket. Methane is generally the better option and coincidentally could use captured CO2 as a feedstock.