SpaceX Alums Find Traction On Earth With Their Mars-Inspired CO2-To-Fuel Tech (techcrunch.com)
- Reference: 0175453241
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/11/12/0150243/spacex-alums-find-traction-on-earth-with-their-mars-inspired-co2-to-fuel-tech
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/11/spacex-alums-find-traction-on-earth-with-their-mars-inspired-co2-to-fuel-tech/
> A trend has emerged among a small group of climate tech founders who start with their eyes fixed on space and soon realize their technology would do a lot more good here on Earth. Halen Mattison and Luke Neise fit the bill. Mattison spent time at SpaceX, while Neise worked at Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory and Varda Space Industries. The pair originally wanted to sell reactors to SpaceX that could turn carbon dioxide into methane for use on Mars. Today, they're [1]building them to replace natural gas that's pumped from underground . Their company, General Galactic, which emerged from stealth in April, has built a pilot system that can produce 2,000 liters of methane per day. Neise, General Galactic's CTO, told TechCrunch that he expects that figure to rise as the company replaces off-the-shelf components with versions designed in-house.
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> "We think that's a big missing piece in the energy mix right now," said Mattison, the startup's CEO. "Being able to own our supply chains, to be able to fully control all of the parameters, to challenge the requirements between components, all of that unlocks some real elegance in the engineering solution." At commercial scale, the company's reactors will be assembled using mass production techniques. It's a contrast to how most petrochemical and energy facilities are built today. General Galactic is focused on producing methane. However, Mattison said the company isn't necessarily looking to displace the fuel from heating and energy. "Those are generally going toward electrification," he said. Instead, it intends to sell its methane to companies that use it as an ingredient or to power a process, like in chemical or plastic manufacturing. The company isn't ruling out transportation entirely either. Mattison hinted that General Galactic is working on other hydrocarbons that could be used for transportation, like jet fuel. "Stay tuned," he said.
General Galactic plans to deploy its first modules next year. The startup "hopes its modules will be able to plug into existing infrastructure, speeding its adoption relative to other fuels like hydrogen," notes TechCrunch.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/11/spacex-alums-find-traction-on-earth-with-their-mars-inspired-co2-to-fuel-tech/
Commercial sabatier(-like) reactors? (Score:2)
I'm assuming what they've done is pitch a terrestrial application for sabatier reactors (or the functional equivalent) in order to get the benefit of volume production and a diversified customer base (no more waiting for the next Congressional budget fight to find out if your project has been cut or has continued funding).
That one of their customers might be SpaceX at some point (for terrestrial/mars usage of Starship/Heavy Booster) is incidental.
This might make an interesting alternative to building power
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> If you then co-locate a natural gas storage/liquefaction plant, plus a conventional gas-fired electrical plant (the CO2 output of which becomes an input for the methane reactor...)
Unfortunately, the USPTO refuses to issue patents for perpetual motion machines.
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"Unfortunately, the USPTO refuses to issue patents for perpetual motion machines."
Maybe that will change under the new administration. I'd guess some of those close to Trump don't believe in the laws of thermodynamics.
2,000L of Methane is 1.4kg (Score:2)
I'm seriously hoping someone got the decimal wrong by at least 4 places because otherwise this is not going anywhere.
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It won't go anywhere anyway because it's a completely stupid concept.
Use energy to make methane and then use the methane to make ... energy ... with a 30% round-trip efficiency.
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Leaving out a key factor which is consuming our plentiful excess of CO2 which is an important point of it.
When you have no fuel costs...efficiencies matter far less than they do normally; something people just aren't that familiar with since every energy system since the stone age has required on going fuel inputs. Here, it's just a bigger infrastructure one time build out to cover expected the losses.
Now, whether it *actually* results in even marginally net zero climate impacts is definitely not a given.
When talking about pollution solutions and space.. (Score:2)
Things can get quite zeonic, quite fast.
Alums? (Score:2)
"An alum is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double sulfate salt of aluminium with the general formula XAl 12 H O, such that X is a monovalent cation such as potassium or ammonium."
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They also mistakenly used plural.