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As a "carbon industry" observer, this is pretty exciting news. I've had my eye on Terraform Industries for a while and love what they're doing; they're one of t

As a "carbon industry" observer, this is pretty exciting news. I've had my eye on Terraform Industries for a while and love what they're doing; they're one of the few groups that actually seem to understand the implications of what it will take to shift to a carbon-neutral economy, and their core insight about the economics of atmospheric fuel synthesis is one of those "obvious when you hear it" ideas: solar electricity is trending ever-cheaper, so rather than trying to maximize efficiency in an expensive piece of kit you can make cheap 'inefficient' equipment and get lower overall costs, which in turn unlocks scale. Their recent post on "Terraformer Environmental Calculus" is a great read, if you are interested in this space: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2024/02/06/terraformer-environmental-calculus/ https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2024/02/06/terrafo... Congratulations to the team!

groby_b 3y ago
It's an excellent way forward because it's not only carbon-neutral, it can also "fall back" to pure CO2 capture should we ever get a decent enough grid & storage mechanisms to afford that. Really exciting work!
joe_the_user 3y ago
It looks good. I wish their headline was "natural gas from solar power" 'cause many things labeled "carbon neutral" wind-up being conventional petrochemicals plus some worthless "offsets" baloney.
- tgtweak 3y ago
  In theory you can use any power source - hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, wind - but the benefit to solar is that you can fully utilize it when the sun is shining and store the output (compressed natural gas) for storage, transportation and use off-hours. You could also technically use this as a grid-battery, taking in excess grid energy when it is cheap and converting it into natural gas that can be run back through a gas peaking plant that spins up to meet peak demand. You could also look into SOFC fuel cell plants [1] to convert the stored natural gas into electricity at 60% and heat at 30% (the heat is high temperature which is good for cogeneration or as a direct heat source). There would need to be some very large spreads in margin on those to make up for the fact you're likely double-dipping on inefficiencies when going from electricity in -> natgas production -> storage -> generation -> electricity out. On that same note though - in some free and open energy markets it is not unheard of to buy at <$10/MWh during excess production periods and sell at >$200/MWh at peak on-demand - plenty of margin for arbitrage there - as the tesla megapack facilities have demonstrated in Australia. In comparison a 4MWh megapack facility (2MW in/2MW out) is priced at $1.9M before installation [2] [1]https://assets.bosch.com/media/en/global/stories/sofc/solid-oxide-fuel-cell.pdf https://assets.bosch.com/media/en/global/stories/sofc/solid-... [2]https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1643488856946122754/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1643488856946122754... (updated for M/Mega - thanks)
  - _Microft 3y ago
    > On that same note though - in some free and open energy markets it is not unheard of to buy at <$10/mWh during excess production periods and sell at >$200/mWh at peak on-demand - plenty of margin for arbitrage there - as the tesla megapack facilities have demonstrated in Australia. In comparison a 4mWh megapack facility (2MW in/2MW out) is priced at $1.9M before installation [2] m means milli, M is mega.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > You could also technically use this as a grid-battery, taking in excess grid energy when it is cheap and converting it into natural gas that can be run back through a gas peaking plant that spins up to meet peak demand. The loss in such a cycle is abysmal, alone from thermal loss (not to mention the loss during compression and decompression) - even straight fuel cells are at 60% round-trip, compared to batteries with >>90% efficiency.
    - pydry 3y ago
      Batteries are good at smoothing out daily or even weekly variations but do not make any sense whatsoever for seasonal power storage. It's ridiculously cost ineffective to charge a battery in July only to discharge it in December. 60% roundtrip is cost effective if you're synthesizing when the sun is blazing and the wind is blowing hard and burning it when wind, solar and batteries have all tapped out. Thats especially so if the equipment has low capex which it seems like this does. Unlike batteries that makes it cost effective to overbuild and idle it most of the year.
      - cbsmith 3y ago
        Is that more effective than the traditional, "store the energy as kinetic potential energy by pushing water uphill, so you can let it go down the hill later" approach.
        pydry 3y ago
        For storing energy cheaply for months at a time and transporting it across large distances, yes. Pumped storage has ~90% roundtrip efficiency, good at storing energy for days or weeks but maxes out easily. The energy density of water pushed uphill is very low. I think we should be pushing a lot more water uphill, but I see it as an alternative to or competitor to grid-scale batteries and a complement to syngas. Syngas production will probably be most useful if built next door to a wind or solar farm and used to siphon off energy which is currently curtailed when the grid is maxed out. It can then be easily stored in enormous quantities and easily transported by ship to anywhere in the world that needs it.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  That's basically what this is, minus the "worthless" part. That's the part you'd have to read past the headline to be sure of anyway.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
jseliger 3y ago
Other discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39896560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39896560
toddmorey 3y ago
I really wonder about unintended consequences. It's exciting to be able to store solar as methane because we can "plug" this new synthetic methane easily into existing infrastructure. (But we have to get better at leak management!) However, you almost always go through huge underground methane pockets when drilling for oil. So oil drilling stations vent / flare methane when they can't "off site" it, like when natural gas pipelines are at capacity. In those moments, the price of methane actually drops below zero--I've seen it at -$1.20 per MMBtu as recently as this year! Essentially you are paying someone to get rid of the stuff for you. So... if we flood the market with new, cost-effective synthetic methane... will companies just flare more of it as we drill for oil?
- throwaway4220 3y ago
  Well it’s still carbon neutral though right
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    Carbon molecules yes. But methane was a significantly higher (80x) greenhouse gas potential than CO2. So it's definitely not neutral in that regard.
    - NortySpock 3y ago
      Right, but the point is, once this costs nearly-the-same as methane extracted from the ground, it's not worth it to pull methane out of the ground! We'd stop having an incentive to add more CO2 to the atmosphere! We'd be able to get to net-zero carbon / methane emissions without having to substantially change our living conditions. Cities or states would "just" bottle up some liquid methane for the winter months (or summer months) and seasonal energy usage changes become much easier to manage. (I'm aware that would involve creating more infrastructure.) Sounds great to me.
      - _aavaa_ 3y ago
        > once this costs nearly-the-same as methane Problem #1 is finding people to pay for it until then. Problem #2 is that this will make fore expensive energy at the end, efficiency being one problem and capital cost of those idle gas turbines being another. We'll have to wait and see if these ever plan any role beyond a demonstration project or two, but I'm skeptical it'll compete on price.
jvanderbot 3y ago
This all strikes me as a nice opening to an apocalypse movie. Pulling CO2 and upgrading to methane - wouldn't that amplify GHG effects?
- strken 3y ago
  Methane has a short half-life in the atmosphere, so its cumulative effect after a few decades is close to CO2 unless you're constantly outputting more, and that's assuming you're not burning it. In the case where you're making methane from atmospheric CO2 and then burning it, it's just returning the same CO2 back, which per the article is carbon neutral.
  - CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
    More like a few centuries, methane's global warming potential after 500 years (GWP-500) is still 7.95. The issue with burning is that methane can leak during transport.
    - strken 3y ago
      I stand corrected: did the maths wrong. Centuries it is.
- kortex 3y ago
  There's a big difference in scale between "burning hydrocarbons to heat and power much of the world" (which includes leakage from fossil fuel drilling) and "we make some methane to be almost completely consumed and there are some leaks".
throwaway_5753 3y ago
What is going on with the section numbering in that blog and infographic? Super interested in the content I can't focus when we start with section 7 then jump to 9 then 13 then back to 8.

groby_b 3y ago

It's an excellent way forward because it's not only carbon-neutral, it can also "fall back" to pure CO2 capture should we ever get a decent enough grid & storage mechanisms to afford that. Really exciting work!

joe_the_user 3y ago

It looks good. I wish their headline was "natural gas from solar power" 'cause many things labeled "carbon neutral" wind-up being conventional petrochemicals plus some worthless "offsets" baloney.

tgtweak 3y ago
In theory you can use any power source - hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, wind - but the benefit to solar is that you can fully utilize it when the sun is shining and store the output (compressed natural gas) for storage, transportation and use off-hours. You could also technically use this as a grid-battery, taking in excess grid energy when it is cheap and converting it into natural gas that can be run back through a gas peaking plant that spins up to meet peak demand. You could also look into SOFC fuel cell plants [1] to convert the stored natural gas into electricity at 60% and heat at 30% (the heat is high temperature which is good for cogeneration or as a direct heat source). There would need to be some very large spreads in margin on those to make up for the fact you're likely double-dipping on inefficiencies when going from electricity in -> natgas production -> storage -> generation -> electricity out. On that same note though - in some free and open energy markets it is not unheard of to buy at <$10/MWh during excess production periods and sell at >$200/MWh at peak on-demand - plenty of margin for arbitrage there - as the tesla megapack facilities have demonstrated in Australia. In comparison a 4MWh megapack facility (2MW in/2MW out) is priced at $1.9M before installation [2] [1]https://assets.bosch.com/media/en/global/stories/sofc/solid-oxide-fuel-cell.pdf https://assets.bosch.com/media/en/global/stories/sofc/solid-... [2]https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1643488856946122754/photo/1 https://twitter.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1643488856946122754... (updated for M/Mega - thanks)
- _Microft 3y ago
  > On that same note though - in some free and open energy markets it is not unheard of to buy at <$10/mWh during excess production periods and sell at >$200/mWh at peak on-demand - plenty of margin for arbitrage there - as the tesla megapack facilities have demonstrated in Australia. In comparison a 4mWh megapack facility (2MW in/2MW out) is priced at $1.9M before installation [2] m means milli, M is mega.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > You could also technically use this as a grid-battery, taking in excess grid energy when it is cheap and converting it into natural gas that can be run back through a gas peaking plant that spins up to meet peak demand. The loss in such a cycle is abysmal, alone from thermal loss (not to mention the loss during compression and decompression) - even straight fuel cells are at 60% round-trip, compared to batteries with >>90% efficiency.
  - pydry 3y ago
    Batteries are good at smoothing out daily or even weekly variations but do not make any sense whatsoever for seasonal power storage. It's ridiculously cost ineffective to charge a battery in July only to discharge it in December. 60% roundtrip is cost effective if you're synthesizing when the sun is blazing and the wind is blowing hard and burning it when wind, solar and batteries have all tapped out. Thats especially so if the equipment has low capex which it seems like this does. Unlike batteries that makes it cost effective to overbuild and idle it most of the year.
    - cbsmith 3y ago
      Is that more effective than the traditional, "store the energy as kinetic potential energy by pushing water uphill, so you can let it go down the hill later" approach.
      - pydry 3y ago
        For storing energy cheaply for months at a time and transporting it across large distances, yes. Pumped storage has ~90% roundtrip efficiency, good at storing energy for days or weeks but maxes out easily. The energy density of water pushed uphill is very low. I think we should be pushing a lot more water uphill, but I see it as an alternative to or competitor to grid-scale batteries and a complement to syngas. Syngas production will probably be most useful if built next door to a wind or solar farm and used to siphon off energy which is currently curtailed when the grid is maxed out. It can then be easily stored in enormous quantities and easily transported by ship to anywhere in the world that needs it.
cbsmith 3y ago
That's basically what this is, minus the "worthless" part. That's the part you'd have to read past the headline to be sure of anyway.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

jseliger 3y ago

Other discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39896560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39896560

toddmorey 3y ago

I really wonder about unintended consequences. It's exciting to be able to store solar as methane because we can "plug" this new synthetic methane easily into existing infrastructure. (But we have to get better at leak management!) However, you almost always go through huge underground methane pockets when drilling for oil. So oil drilling stations vent / flare methane when they can't "off site" it, like when natural gas pipelines are at capacity. In those moments, the price of methane actually drops below zero--I've seen it at -$1.20 per MMBtu as recently as this year! Essentially you are paying someone to get rid of the stuff for you. So... if we flood the market with new, cost-effective synthetic methane... will companies just flare more of it as we drill for oil?

throwaway4220 3y ago
Well it’s still carbon neutral though right
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  Carbon molecules yes. But methane was a significantly higher (80x) greenhouse gas potential than CO2. So it's definitely not neutral in that regard.
  - NortySpock 3y ago
    Right, but the point is, once this costs nearly-the-same as methane extracted from the ground, it's not worth it to pull methane out of the ground! We'd stop having an incentive to add more CO2 to the atmosphere! We'd be able to get to net-zero carbon / methane emissions without having to substantially change our living conditions. Cities or states would "just" bottle up some liquid methane for the winter months (or summer months) and seasonal energy usage changes become much easier to manage. (I'm aware that would involve creating more infrastructure.) Sounds great to me.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      > once this costs nearly-the-same as methane Problem #1 is finding people to pay for it until then. Problem #2 is that this will make fore expensive energy at the end, efficiency being one problem and capital cost of those idle gas turbines being another. We'll have to wait and see if these ever plan any role beyond a demonstration project or two, but I'm skeptical it'll compete on price.

jvanderbot 3y ago

This all strikes me as a nice opening to an apocalypse movie. Pulling CO2 and upgrading to methane - wouldn't that amplify GHG effects?

strken 3y ago
Methane has a short half-life in the atmosphere, so its cumulative effect after a few decades is close to CO2 unless you're constantly outputting more, and that's assuming you're not burning it. In the case where you're making methane from atmospheric CO2 and then burning it, it's just returning the same CO2 back, which per the article is carbon neutral.
- CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
  More like a few centuries, methane's global warming potential after 500 years (GWP-500) is still 7.95. The issue with burning is that methane can leak during transport.
  - strken 3y ago
    I stand corrected: did the maths wrong. Centuries it is.
kortex 3y ago
There's a big difference in scale between "burning hydrocarbons to heat and power much of the world" (which includes leakage from fossil fuel drilling) and "we make some methane to be almost completely consumed and there are some leaks".

throwaway_5753 3y ago

What is going on with the section numbering in that blog and infographic? Super interested in the content I can't focus when we start with section 7 then jump to 9 then 13 then back to 8.