Re:Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the fir...
by tedmcory77 on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @07:44AM
(#43760995)
I wonder if this explains why Prometheus Fuels decided to do methane…
Re:Fossil fuels fall below 50% of US electricity for the fir...
by colonial on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @12:18PM
(#43763813)
Probably. Methane is easier to synthesize than fuel alcohols, and has better synergy with existing infrastructure (dead simple, highly responsive gas plants don't care where their fuel comes from, after all - they'll just take the cheapest option.)
Besides the examples you listed, there's also synthetic fuels. I don't know if they'll pan out, but the concept is intriguing.
Essentially, the argument goes that there's a critical solar price point at which synthesizing methane from atmospheric gas capture becomes cheaper than drilling. Said methane can be burned for power in existing plants (forming a closed cycle) or refined into heavier liquid hydrocarbons for vehicles and polymers.
The advantage here is that you don't need batteries or inverters - just dirt cheap panels - and the synthesis plants can be engineered to be productive despite only operating during the day.
I know one company is working on this with industrial scale in mind (Terraform Industries), and I believe SpaceX is also pursuing it on-site for Starship (which consumes ~1000 T of methane per launch, all of which currently has to be trucked in at great expense.)