https://www.prometheusfuels.com/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/former-playwright-ai...

Fusion + Syn Fuel is definitely in the playbook to reverse climate change.

If we can get synthetic methane from atmospheric CO2 to work in an economic fashion, I imagine we could also use it to directly reduce atmospheric carbon (maybe by permanently fixing it into a solid). Problem solved!

For dense urban areas, there may not be enough open ground available to bury the heat pump coils. Also, in colder climates, many houses and buildings use hot water or steam radiators, and heat pumps can't efficiently heat water hot enough for this type of system. Retrofitting ducts to replace radiators and switching to forced air heating can be prohibitively complex and expensive.

Methane leaks are certainly a valid concern, but if we mandate better monitoring systems and do a better job of repairing leaks when they occur, it seems plausible we could get leaks down to acceptable levels. Methane is indeed a potent greenhouse gas, but it doesn't last nearly as long as CO2 before it breaks down, so if leaks are kept to a minimum I don't know whether they would ultimately be a huge deal in the long term.

Obviously, methane breaks down to CO2 but there is no need to state this when referencing methane emissions. The Global Warming Potential can be used to relate the magnitude of damage over a given time horizon, for methane over 100 years it has 34 times more global warming potential. Obviously you can take exception to some of the methodologies used to calculate these but in general it's better than leaving the impression that CH4 emissions aren't important.

And if you use a methan fuel cell - you can use its surplus heat for heating while generating electricity.

I don't think they are market ready, though. But there are lots of options out there and the best solution is likely to combine what works now.

Btw. I think there was a breakthrough with natrium based batteries. (No lithium needed). They were just not as energy dense as lithium based ones, but that matters not so much for stationary use. So with no ressource limitation, you could produce them in very big quantities..

I think this is correct right now, but the biggest cost by far for generating green methane at scale would be the energy costs for electrolysis to get the hydrogen from water. If renewables continue to fall in cost, we may rapidly reach a point where we have a huge surplus of green energy for parts of the year. There are already places in the US where energy prices regularly go negative due to excess wind energy, for example.

Folks have talked a lot in the past about using excess energy from renewables to generate hydrogen gas, but hydrogen alone is a lot harder to manage, is much less energy-dense by volume, is impractical to liquefy for storage and transport, and isn't compatible with existing infrastructure. Methane solves all of these issues, and doesn't take much additional energy to create beyond what you must spend for hydrogen alone.

1 https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/batteries-storag...

It's not even just seasonal capacity shifting, any situation that weight matters in will favor LNG over electric batteries for the foreseeable future even if batteries get 10x better.

Energy fluctuations are what cost Texas so much the last month, and that could be greatly mitigated with battery storage solutions.

But imagine you were writing a plan for northern europe to become carbon-neutral for electricity, heating and transport.

If you need the most power in the coldest, darkest months, and you manage to meet that demand with renewables that aren't solar, why have solar in the portfolio at all?