Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
I am not sure what is so revolutionary about this except painting the situation in bright colours. This tech already exists, but it is not widely used, because we don't have enough clean energy and we still have relatively cheap fossil hydrocarbons.
I get the carbon neutrality hype, but it all includes a lot of machinery and upfront costs. What happens when you need to create enough e-fuel for everybody on the whole planet? Give me numbers!
There is nothing inherently special about this process as carbon just circulates in nature. And this basically only becomes available after we manage to solve green growth and green transformation, which is still a huge question mark, especially regarding materials, not energy. And even after that, a lot of energy is lost in the process, so you actually need abundance of clean energy to sacrifice it when clearing hydrogen, then methane of whatever. Always better to just use electricity, which then does not capture any carbon.
This is a bit like saying in early March 2020 that the entire world will be in a pandemic in a few weeks. It doesn't feel like much has changed, and indeed nothing in daily life has. But things are evolving exponentially, and soon we'll be in a completely different world. Good to see it coming and preempt it.
The only difference is that this will run in a matter of years, not days or weeks.
The entire point is that all this tech doesn't quite exist already, because it needs to continue being optimized *for cost*. But as it does, it soon becomes *more economically advantageous than alternatives*, and that's when the world truly changes exponentially, because the majority of investments turn around and pour into this.
Electricity is great for many things, but as we saw, not for everything
Yeah, I know electricity cannot really be used for everything. And also many materials depend on fossil hydrocarbons, so in this way you can basically make plastics and fuel from gas and what not, which is somehow cool.
I read the post one more time, more properly, and you do warn about potential issues and bottlenecks. And this is something I am not very sure about. So far we have been hyped a lot, we are pouring money here and there, every day there is a different way how to save the planet. I am not sure who is actually doing the real math. Recently it was on news that EU is allocating less than 1/10 for the transmission than what is actually needed. So far the real changes in renewables are on the scale of percents, more like covering what we need extra every year. So I guess the question for me is not about the tech you present, but whether the exponential goodness is really that obviously going to happen so easily. Not sure about the alternatives except downscaling, but the transition is not exactly a win if we manage it and destroy so many habitats in the process. Is there even any definitive resource answering this question, or are we all just trying to put the pieces together?
But perhaps I am approaching this too broadly. When you have too much energy momentarily and there is no demand, it is obviously better to store it in hydrogen or methane, so it does not really hold you need to first replace all electricity sources with renewables for this to make sense...
Tomas, I think you may be approaching the analysis of the feasibility of this idea incorrectly. Even if I accept all concepts, numbers, and tech at face value, in order for market forces to make this idea a reality, the utility of the energy input must exceed most other uses. I can imagine at the point where this might be cost neutral, there will be many other options to use that excess energy that will make this one look wasteful.
There are already times and places where solar electricity costs are *negative* because of this.
If we were talking about a highly reactive energy source like hydroelectric I might agree. But right now electricity supply and demand can just not meet.
This is the obvious argument. The less obvious argument is that, as electricity costs fall, energy companies will start producing more and more methane, which will then drop in cost too. This will increase consumption. At some point, an equilibrium is reached between electricity costs, methane costs, and consumption. Hopefully, the equilibrium will be so that we'll be using all the methane we want without worrying about it at all. In effect, we will see methane consumption the way we see water or air consumption in developed economies today: something we don't even think about!
Not entirely sure on your sources but I believe the price/W in solar panels is usually stated in maximum output while the average power is 2-5x less. That would mean 2-5MW worth of panels to power the 1MW requirement on the plant.
Second thought is that, if methane is mostly used for energy and solar power becomes extremely cheap, methane prices should drop as well, right?
Seems to me the economics on this should be understanding the efficiency of this process as a way to store/transport and deploy energy vs source of energy as it is today. Does that make sense?
These are baked in. Eg, Terraform's calculations use 1MW and account for 6h of solar working.
Indeed, methane costs should drop according to this.
And yes indeed, the efficiency of this is important—but less and less as solar becomes cheaper and cheaper. Other costs become more important then, right?
Great to see another workable (soon, if really needed) solution to rising CO2/temperature. Trusting in capitalist greed, I doubt this approach will be a big thing this decade. But times are changing - and in one direction. I wonder: a) concentrating CO2 from air seems hard - maybe the first batch of "terraformers" will be installed next to fossil fuel plants? (many of those try to keep their CO2 out of the atmosphere). b) while a) sounds silly, another first use of the process might be to even out the irregular supply of solar power (none at night, too little in winter). c) Burning down energy-rich and expensive H2 to boring CH4 sounds mad, too. But then H2 might not be such a wonderful carrier for energy. While the infrastructure for CH4 use exists and works. And it might be the least wasteful way to get CO2-levels down, (switching to H2 when CO2 levels went back to the levels of .... (I'd say: 2020.)) Though I'd prefer to turn maritime deserts into oases.
It looks like this is already viable in some parts of the US. And then, it's just a matter of time before it's viable in other places! So this decade we will start seeing it, and my guess is the scale revolution will happen in the 2030s.
Terraform has a few thoughts on where their terraformers will connect to the grid: Anywhere where you can get sunlight and are close to a gasoduct / gas facility. One option is close to gas burning plants, but it doesn't need to be there.
Indeed, the long-term storage of energy is a key use case for this.
I'll talk about H2 in the premium article this week! But you're already pointing in the right direction.
This would be a great use, especially in remote locations. In Hawaii most electricity is generated by dirty expensive oil which needs to be shipped in over 1000s of kilometers (and because of the Jones act, usually imported instead of American, adding more costs), with some wind and solar during daylight hours. Instead of using batteries for storage, this could produce methane all day, store it in cheap tanks and then generate electricity from the power plant whenever solar is unavailable. In Maui for example the oil-fired electric plant is adjacent to lots of underutilized sugar can fields so water and land for solar panels is right there.
The only thing about Hawaii is that land might be scarce too. If it isn’t, it’s a good solution indeed. If it is, nuclear might be better.
The round trip from electricity to methane to burning to generating electricity loses ~85% of energy if I’m not wrong. So it’s not ideal, but might be used for long-term storage maybe. For overnight or short-term needs, straight electricity through batteries might be best.
Aug 11, 2023·edited Aug 11, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
Good article and the summary is correct: Bet on eMethane (and eMethanol and eAmmonia) not on H2. But these eFuels will be made from green H2 so the article is quite confusing and incomplete for non experts, especially when coupled with your "hydrogen is not the solution article". Hydrogen is not the end-user solution, you will not see it in your car or your building as h2 I believe, but it is the intermediate product needed to produce the solution (eFuel, eMethanol, eAmmonia, eMethane). In that way hydrogen can address 1/3 of the global energy problem (steel and other industries, fertilizer production, off-grid and heat & power, and heavy-duty mobility) In all these industries neither batteries or direct electricity is a viable solution. The other 2/3rds of the net-zero challenge will be addressed by direct green electricity and batteries. The h2 carrier will be different (steel=probably direct h2, fertilizers=ammonia from green h2, hd mobility (aviation, shipping, trucks)=efuels (emethanol or other from green h2), heat&power (mostly heat pumps no h2, but also eMethane from green h2). So H2 is in many cases an intermediate product (for the reasons you mention in that article, but the H2 carrier is simply eMethanol or Green Ammonia or Green Methane (as in this example). Furthermore, there are fuel cells and ways (including combustion for that matter) to use eMethanol and eFuels directly at non-water based fuel cells (ht-pem fuel cells or sofc fuel cells). These generate heat and electricity, can use eFuels and don't have any of the water issues. Furthermore, eMethanol means we can use current gas stations, trucks, oil tankers with minimal infrastructure change (trying to change them to do H2 compressed would be crazy). And once you fill a ship with eMethanol it is 100% green (net-zero) not grid-level 40%? green as an EV is today. Methanol packs about half the juice that diesel does, but the fuel cell can be close to twice as efficient, therefore it should be close in terms of tank. Same, for Methane. As for numbers and feasibility, replacing all the oil tomorrow with eFuels (exclude passenger cars) would require about 10% of the Saudi Arabia desert (ballpark calculation) covered with solar, (about $5trillion of solar now), and a lot of CO2 exists to cover the co2 input. Gradually all this can happen, it is cheaper than what covid cost and will solve a much bigger problem, the one of our existence. Also for rough calculations: 1ton H2+7 tons CO2 = 5 tons eMethanol
Now what may sound like a crazy idea, is to use a big share of that solar power to make methane from the air in a kind of "carbon neutral" way.
1> why not focusing on simply generating and selling more electricity? (reason: not easy to store?)
2> why not focusing the usage of the extra electricity (negative selling price, not easy to store, when production capacity is far above demand, ...) to simply power for instance the Climeworks carbon capture & storage ?
(reason: there would still be an economic model and demand for methane/electrofuels?)
3> the gas pipelines can be re-used yes, but methane or LNG (liquefied natural gas) transport oversea is not the most efficient / environmental friendly, see for instance: https://yle.fi/a/74-20041290
4> One reason mentioned in the older interview https://cleantechnica.com/2022/08/29/interview-with-terraform-founder-casey-handmer/ of Terraform Industries founder, Casey Handmer, would be to make the US fracking/shale oil extraction completely obsolete in term of business model: the billions of $ poured to no end there, would go instead to make methane out of the air... (but why not use those billions for 1 & 2 above instead?)
We expect several further speedbumps when it comes to the mechanics of material transport and solid/gas reactions, but at this point we’re confident that if we can’t make this work at near our planned costs then there’s something very wrong with humanity’s understanding of physics.
Sorry I never replied to this awesome comment! (Even though I am not a huge fan of the condescension shown in your linked article!)
1: Yes! We can do that. As much as possible. Storage is a problem as you say. In other cases, methane might be necessary. Eg, burning it might be needed for high temperatures in industry (harder with electricity). Also, for things that require high energy density per weight (eg, planes) methane can be a precursor to things like kerosene. So you're right in your reason in parenthesis.
2. Carbon capture can't be sold. You must tax to pay for it. Taxing what? Energy? Which makes it more expensive, which is bad for society? Better to have the market make it happen: Same result (no more CO2 in the atmosphere), but ppl buy instead of suffering from taxation. So you're right again in your reason in parenthesis.
3. With solar-induced methane generation, you don't need LNG. Production is much closer to consumption. You only need pipes.
Yes, as Casey mentions, the fundamentals of physics are sound. I'm excited!
I'm going to push back on what I'm guessing Mr. Pueyo already considers the weakest part of his argument: that we'll run out of CO2. This would only happen if a significant portion of CH4 were used for processes that do not create CO2. The vast majority of CH4 is used for transportation, electricity, or heat generation, which of course is powered by CH4 + O2 → CO2 + H2O. So that CO2 ends up right back in the atmosphere. Less than 10% of CH4 is used as a chemical feedstock.
But even of the 10% being used as a chemical feedstock, 90% of it still turns into CO2, because it's being used for fertilizer! That process is (1) CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2, (2) CO + H2O → CO2 + H2. The other 10% is used to make methanol (a lot of which, of course, ends up being oxidized back to CO2, but I'll admit that not all of it does). So that's maybe 1% of your CO2 that's not coming back to you.
CH4 not used in plastic-making. It's the other components of geological natural gas -- ethane, propane, butane, and the alkenes -- that end up being used in plastics. Petrol and recyclable plastics are also much better feedstocks for making new plastic. Now in theory, if you had nothing but CH4, you could use it to make plastic -- but that would presume a total ban on oil & gas production and the total, utter failure of the plastic recycling industry. Barring that, you're going to get your CO2 back.
I think the main argument here is that using carbon from the atmosphere rather than the ground stops the addition of carbon into the atmosphere.
I think you’re attacking the 20th argument: that this would also progressively reduce the CO2 from the atmosphere, because some CH4 isn’t released back. You say most of it is. This is a fair challenge.
I believe this is mostly a moot point though, because we both probably agree that this won’t extract all the CO2 we need to extract from the atmosphere during the 21st century.
Aside from that, you bring interesting points. The only one that is worth challenging back is that most of what you say is true today, but won’t be in the future. The H2 for fertilizer will be better sourced from electrolysis as electricity costs from solar plummet.
Similarly, more complex carbon-based molecules like butane or ethane can be produced from CO2 and electricity too. It’s a matter of waiting for electricity costs to drop enough, no?
My guess is they’d agree on much of the data, but say that CH4 for long-term storage is lossy. But I don’t know. I can ask, although I don’t know them.
The only expensive thing you need is energy.” Lol His assumptions around the falling cost of solar confuse “slave labor and cheap dirty coal” for innovation. Solar became cheap for a while because fossil fuels were cheap and China illegally flooded the global market to capture monopoly share. Thanks for the link, but it is an unserious document. Yikes 😳
I mean it’s their style to look clever and dismissive. If that’s their opinion on solar panel costs, with a trend that now has been lasting 45y, I think that’s a surprising statement. We’ll see what happens!
Jul 12, 2023·edited Jul 12, 2023Liked by Tomas Pueyo
(Apologies if this has been discussed below, didn't run through the entire comments section, too long already)
When electricity becomes that cheap to produce with solar (presumably W/Kg and area efficiency of solar panels will also increase at a slower rate), what use cases will really be left for methane?
-Automotive will not need it
-nat gas is already being banned for newly installed building heating where I live. District heating may be able to use it in dense areas, where infrastructure is in place?
-Air travel can't use it (all sorts of problems there)
-Electricity generation at night when the direct solar panel/wind energy just so happens to be insufficient? (baseload nuclear, pump storage and some innovative short-term storage solutions can take care of it soon)
-Shipping may be able to use it in nat. gas engines?
- Maybe store energy across the seasons by pumping it back in to nat gas reservoirs to be used just in the few dark winter months at higher latitudes?
One way to think about it is this: methane is backward-compatible with the current system. That has huge value. And for the future, methane is a core building block of many carbon-base molecules. As long as we will use fuels, you can use methane. Finally, this system works for methane, but the sabatier reaction is just one component of the system. If you need another molecule, you modify the reactor.
1. Those that are transient until electrification (Eg heating vs heat pumps)
2. End states for which methane will be the main fuel or a component
Eg for airplanes they might not use methane but they will use fuel, and methane is most likely going to be a precursor to that. Rockets use methane. Big candidate for long-term storage.
You mentioned land, but you didn't say much about it. Solar panels replacing farmland and forest land reduce the amount of food and wood available and the amt of CO2 extracted by plants. Already solar energy is being gobbled up in some places for crypto mining and data centers, which use hugely more energy than homes and cars. Where will all these panels be located?
Yes, I think this is something to definitely consider.
Right now, the entire human consumption of energy could be covered with a small patch of Sahara desert, so the cost-benefit is still there for now.
If in 100 years our energy consumption is 100x higher, solar might not be enough. But I think right now our need for surface is small enough that we shouldn't worry too much about it.
If it becomes substantial, then we'll have to think of alternatives, from the crazy ones like space solar energy harvesting, to the hopeful ones like fusion, to the no-brainer ones like fission. I will cover fission in the future.
I'm not sure why why think it's a stop-gap solution. It actually fully stops the need to extract fossil fuels from the ground, which is the single biggest source of global warming!
If it is used on a large enough scale, it should reduce the CO2 significantly enough to limit its usage. How long that would take is unknown at present, but once people have a cheap means of energy, they will use more and more, thus making it obsolete quicker than otherwise would be the case.
How does it become obsolete if demand goes up? The only way I see it being uneconomical is if the IRA PTC (in the US) are eliminated making natural gas relatively cheaper.
Granted it is predicated on a rather long term outlook.
People love using energy, the more they have and the cheaper it is, the less they are interested in saving energy or energy saving products. Just as we emitted CO2 for a few centuries, that is a resource that can be exploited and removed by the same means we created it, using energy.
Until we can figure out a way to store energy, such as solar, so that once the sun goes down,, the light do not go out, in a few centuries we could be looking at the same problem we have now, how to get energy cheaply enough to keep people satisfied.
Does land on which to place all these solar panels become a constraint and environmental issue. Water vapor in the desert is present but in small amounts that might make location an issue
Electrical transmission efficiency is also a limiting factor. How does this affect the scheme
Also putting solar on land that is already used reduces the environmental impact, like with agrivoltaic farming. Lots of crops grow better with some shade.
Roof installation is a bit more complicated than assuming if we just put them on roofs. Roofs are generally private property, instillation should be made on a roof with at least a 20 year life span and have the capacity to support of additional structural elements. Affordability and other issues are involved even with government support. Cities have long term contracts with coal fired plants that are privately held.
Farming under panels can require investment in new planting and harvesting methods. I am concerned that all these solutions will take years to be instituted. Current carbon capture methods being advanced for coal plants are of questionable utility and cost recovery given energy intensity requirements Green washing is common
Yes roof installation is more complicated. But doesn't roof installation reduce the environmental issue of needing lots of land for solar power to power methane capture?
This doesn’t use much water, about .6 acre-feet per year, even in the dry part of Arizona (Quartzite) this would cost about $6000/year so wouldn’t add much cost, and the land for the solar panels would be very cheap.
I assume, the later would help. The methan-plant relatively close to the solar plant. The methane piped to where needed. - Still, in many cases, a lot of new infrastructure.
Electricity is very cheap and efficient to transport, so you might put your solar plants where the Sun hits, then send the electricity to a place where gas installations already exist, and generate the gas there.
Is electricity cheap to transport? Well of course if the powerlines are built. But we are massively behind building more and half the startups I engage with in the space are trying to find non-wires methods for moving energy as it’s so hard to build powerlines. Have always liked your articles Tomas but reading this on a space where I have deep knowledge, wondering if I’ve been having a gell-mann effect with your other stuff.
“We” as in the US I assume? Maybe not in other places—here I’m covering more the physics than the permitting.
My point here is specifically that this works as long as you can have solar in the transmission range of existing gas infrastructure.
As for Gell-Mann, it might be! I’m very conscious of it. I can’t possibly be a worldwide expert in all the fields I cover (Eg my experience in epidemiology when COVID started was having read 5 papers and experience with software virality!)
But I do think it’s crucial that some people go deep across disciplines. Otherwise, there’s too much compartmentalization and not enough synthesis. so that’s what I’m trying to do here in UT.
That runs the risk of making mistakes. Every now and then, I make some indeed.
Here’s how I try to fight it:
1. I’m very open about potential mistakes, so that ppl like you can correct me. It’s the good thing about having a broad audience: there’s always better experts than me in any field I cover!
2. I seldom do primary research. Nearly everything I do is synthesizing what other experts have studied. Normally, I read dozens of other expert sources before forming my own opinion
3. I show all sources and reasoning so that others can dive deep, analyze, and criticize.
4. Every quarter, I share an update with everything we’ve learned on the topics we’ve covered. This includes mistakes.
I sure hope it works out this time. It was 2009, when I was excited about the "desertec" project (its PR-text is still on wikipedia). 2014 it was dead and still is. ( I do NOT disagree, with anything you wrote, my mode is just: wait-and-see.) Good luck!
Right now, the entire human consumption of energy could be covered with a small patch of Sahara desert, so the cost-benefit is still there for now.
If in 100 years our energy consumption is 100x higher, solar might not be enough. But I think right now our need for surface is small enough that we shouldn't worry too much about it.
If it becomes substantial, then we'll have to think of alternatives, from the crazy ones like space solar energy harvesting, to the hopeful ones like fusion, to the no-brainer ones like fission. I will cover fission in the future.
Electrical transmission is quite efficient over long distances. So you generate the electricity wherever there's sunlight, and then just produce the gas wherever you can plug it into the network
I am not sure what is so revolutionary about this except painting the situation in bright colours. This tech already exists, but it is not widely used, because we don't have enough clean energy and we still have relatively cheap fossil hydrocarbons.
I get the carbon neutrality hype, but it all includes a lot of machinery and upfront costs. What happens when you need to create enough e-fuel for everybody on the whole planet? Give me numbers!
There is nothing inherently special about this process as carbon just circulates in nature. And this basically only becomes available after we manage to solve green growth and green transformation, which is still a huge question mark, especially regarding materials, not energy. And even after that, a lot of energy is lost in the process, so you actually need abundance of clean energy to sacrifice it when clearing hydrogen, then methane of whatever. Always better to just use electricity, which then does not capture any carbon.
See e.g. https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/19-simon-michaux
Thanks for your thoughts!
This is a bit like saying in early March 2020 that the entire world will be in a pandemic in a few weeks. It doesn't feel like much has changed, and indeed nothing in daily life has. But things are evolving exponentially, and soon we'll be in a completely different world. Good to see it coming and preempt it.
The only difference is that this will run in a matter of years, not days or weeks.
The entire point is that all this tech doesn't quite exist already, because it needs to continue being optimized *for cost*. But as it does, it soon becomes *more economically advantageous than alternatives*, and that's when the world truly changes exponentially, because the majority of investments turn around and pour into this.
Electricity is great for many things, but as we saw, not for everything
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/future-energy-revolutions
For example, electricity is not great for things like air transport and long-term energy storage. For things like these, we will still need fuels.
I'm not sure I understand your other thoughts.
Yeah, I know electricity cannot really be used for everything. And also many materials depend on fossil hydrocarbons, so in this way you can basically make plastics and fuel from gas and what not, which is somehow cool.
I read the post one more time, more properly, and you do warn about potential issues and bottlenecks. And this is something I am not very sure about. So far we have been hyped a lot, we are pouring money here and there, every day there is a different way how to save the planet. I am not sure who is actually doing the real math. Recently it was on news that EU is allocating less than 1/10 for the transmission than what is actually needed. So far the real changes in renewables are on the scale of percents, more like covering what we need extra every year. So I guess the question for me is not about the tech you present, but whether the exponential goodness is really that obviously going to happen so easily. Not sure about the alternatives except downscaling, but the transition is not exactly a win if we manage it and destroy so many habitats in the process. Is there even any definitive resource answering this question, or are we all just trying to put the pieces together?
But perhaps I am approaching this too broadly. When you have too much energy momentarily and there is no demand, it is obviously better to store it in hydrogen or methane, so it does not really hold you need to first replace all electricity sources with renewables for this to make sense...
Tomas, I think you may be approaching the analysis of the feasibility of this idea incorrectly. Even if I accept all concepts, numbers, and tech at face value, in order for market forces to make this idea a reality, the utility of the energy input must exceed most other uses. I can imagine at the point where this might be cost neutral, there will be many other options to use that excess energy that will make this one look wasteful.
Thank you for your thoughtful and tactful disagreement!
I hear you, but here's the thing about solar: It doesn't produce whenever you want it!
As we saw in this article:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/future-energy-revolutions
There are already times and places where solar electricity costs are *negative* because of this.
If we were talking about a highly reactive energy source like hydroelectric I might agree. But right now electricity supply and demand can just not meet.
This is the obvious argument. The less obvious argument is that, as electricity costs fall, energy companies will start producing more and more methane, which will then drop in cost too. This will increase consumption. At some point, an equilibrium is reached between electricity costs, methane costs, and consumption. Hopefully, the equilibrium will be so that we'll be using all the methane we want without worrying about it at all. In effect, we will see methane consumption the way we see water or air consumption in developed economies today: something we don't even think about!
WOWWWWWW
You surpassed yourself to-day Thomas
Thank you Paul!
Very interesting thought!
Not entirely sure on your sources but I believe the price/W in solar panels is usually stated in maximum output while the average power is 2-5x less. That would mean 2-5MW worth of panels to power the 1MW requirement on the plant.
Second thought is that, if methane is mostly used for energy and solar power becomes extremely cheap, methane prices should drop as well, right?
Seems to me the economics on this should be understanding the efficiency of this process as a way to store/transport and deploy energy vs source of energy as it is today. Does that make sense?
These are baked in. Eg, Terraform's calculations use 1MW and account for 6h of solar working.
Indeed, methane costs should drop according to this.
And yes indeed, the efficiency of this is important—but less and less as solar becomes cheaper and cheaper. Other costs become more important then, right?
Great to see another workable (soon, if really needed) solution to rising CO2/temperature. Trusting in capitalist greed, I doubt this approach will be a big thing this decade. But times are changing - and in one direction. I wonder: a) concentrating CO2 from air seems hard - maybe the first batch of "terraformers" will be installed next to fossil fuel plants? (many of those try to keep their CO2 out of the atmosphere). b) while a) sounds silly, another first use of the process might be to even out the irregular supply of solar power (none at night, too little in winter). c) Burning down energy-rich and expensive H2 to boring CH4 sounds mad, too. But then H2 might not be such a wonderful carrier for energy. While the infrastructure for CH4 use exists and works. And it might be the least wasteful way to get CO2-levels down, (switching to H2 when CO2 levels went back to the levels of .... (I'd say: 2020.)) Though I'd prefer to turn maritime deserts into oases.
It looks like this is already viable in some parts of the US. And then, it's just a matter of time before it's viable in other places! So this decade we will start seeing it, and my guess is the scale revolution will happen in the 2030s.
Terraform has a few thoughts on where their terraformers will connect to the grid: Anywhere where you can get sunlight and are close to a gasoduct / gas facility. One option is close to gas burning plants, but it doesn't need to be there.
Indeed, the long-term storage of energy is a key use case for this.
I'll talk about H2 in the premium article this week! But you're already pointing in the right direction.
We should still flood the deserts!
This would be a great use, especially in remote locations. In Hawaii most electricity is generated by dirty expensive oil which needs to be shipped in over 1000s of kilometers (and because of the Jones act, usually imported instead of American, adding more costs), with some wind and solar during daylight hours. Instead of using batteries for storage, this could produce methane all day, store it in cheap tanks and then generate electricity from the power plant whenever solar is unavailable. In Maui for example the oil-fired electric plant is adjacent to lots of underutilized sugar can fields so water and land for solar panels is right there.
The only thing about Hawaii is that land might be scarce too. If it isn’t, it’s a good solution indeed. If it is, nuclear might be better.
The round trip from electricity to methane to burning to generating electricity loses ~85% of energy if I’m not wrong. So it’s not ideal, but might be used for long-term storage maybe. For overnight or short-term needs, straight electricity through batteries might be best.
As to Hawaii, wind-power on the sea might be an option. The price drops too.
Great article as usual. So are you going to launch a startup to implement this ? :)
If I had time to launch startups on all the topics I'm interested in...
No! Terraform Industries is already doing it better than I would ever!
Emissions and solar. Check out my post here : https://gemenergyanalytics.substack.com/p/where-to-put-solar-for-maximal-emissions
Good article and the summary is correct: Bet on eMethane (and eMethanol and eAmmonia) not on H2. But these eFuels will be made from green H2 so the article is quite confusing and incomplete for non experts, especially when coupled with your "hydrogen is not the solution article". Hydrogen is not the end-user solution, you will not see it in your car or your building as h2 I believe, but it is the intermediate product needed to produce the solution (eFuel, eMethanol, eAmmonia, eMethane). In that way hydrogen can address 1/3 of the global energy problem (steel and other industries, fertilizer production, off-grid and heat & power, and heavy-duty mobility) In all these industries neither batteries or direct electricity is a viable solution. The other 2/3rds of the net-zero challenge will be addressed by direct green electricity and batteries. The h2 carrier will be different (steel=probably direct h2, fertilizers=ammonia from green h2, hd mobility (aviation, shipping, trucks)=efuels (emethanol or other from green h2), heat&power (mostly heat pumps no h2, but also eMethane from green h2). So H2 is in many cases an intermediate product (for the reasons you mention in that article, but the H2 carrier is simply eMethanol or Green Ammonia or Green Methane (as in this example). Furthermore, there are fuel cells and ways (including combustion for that matter) to use eMethanol and eFuels directly at non-water based fuel cells (ht-pem fuel cells or sofc fuel cells). These generate heat and electricity, can use eFuels and don't have any of the water issues. Furthermore, eMethanol means we can use current gas stations, trucks, oil tankers with minimal infrastructure change (trying to change them to do H2 compressed would be crazy). And once you fill a ship with eMethanol it is 100% green (net-zero) not grid-level 40%? green as an EV is today. Methanol packs about half the juice that diesel does, but the fuel cell can be close to twice as efficient, therefore it should be close in terms of tank. Same, for Methane. As for numbers and feasibility, replacing all the oil tomorrow with eFuels (exclude passenger cars) would require about 10% of the Saudi Arabia desert (ballpark calculation) covered with solar, (about $5trillion of solar now), and a lot of CO2 exists to cover the co2 input. Gradually all this can happen, it is cheaper than what covid cost and will solve a much bigger problem, the one of our existence. Also for rough calculations: 1ton H2+7 tons CO2 = 5 tons eMethanol
Very well said, and fantastic clarification. Thank you, you're very right!
I actually love the comparison with COVID costs. It puts it in perspective!
There is discussion on LinkedIn on this article too: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/olivierguyot_can-we-solve-the-global-warming-problem-by-activity-7087021627195953152-y4jQ
-> Ugo Bardi's blog post: https://thesunflowerparadigm.blogspot.com/2023/07/can-you-solve-global-warming-problem-by.html
The baseline assumption that solar electricity generation is getting cheaper and cheaper, and that its global deployment may well keep up on an exponential curve, is something that can be agreed upon, see for instance the latest report from RMI : https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2023/07/rmi_x_change_electricity_2023.pdf
Now what may sound like a crazy idea, is to use a big share of that solar power to make methane from the air in a kind of "carbon neutral" way.
1> why not focusing on simply generating and selling more electricity? (reason: not easy to store?)
2> why not focusing the usage of the extra electricity (negative selling price, not easy to store, when production capacity is far above demand, ...) to simply power for instance the Climeworks carbon capture & storage ?
(reason: there would still be an economic model and demand for methane/electrofuels?)
3> the gas pipelines can be re-used yes, but methane or LNG (liquefied natural gas) transport oversea is not the most efficient / environmental friendly, see for instance: https://yle.fi/a/74-20041290
4> One reason mentioned in the older interview https://cleantechnica.com/2022/08/29/interview-with-terraform-founder-casey-handmer/ of Terraform Industries founder, Casey Handmer, would be to make the US fracking/shale oil extraction completely obsolete in term of business model: the billions of $ poured to no end there, would go instead to make methane out of the air... (but why not use those billions for 1 & 2 above instead?)
While we wait for July update on https://www.terraformindustries.com/ , I can't resist to highlight the following from Terraform home page:
"
We expect several further speedbumps when it comes to the mechanics of material transport and solid/gas reactions, but at this point we’re confident that if we can’t make this work at near our planned costs then there’s something very wrong with humanity’s understanding of physics.
"
Sorry I never replied to this awesome comment! (Even though I am not a huge fan of the condescension shown in your linked article!)
1: Yes! We can do that. As much as possible. Storage is a problem as you say. In other cases, methane might be necessary. Eg, burning it might be needed for high temperatures in industry (harder with electricity). Also, for things that require high energy density per weight (eg, planes) methane can be a precursor to things like kerosene. So you're right in your reason in parenthesis.
2. Carbon capture can't be sold. You must tax to pay for it. Taxing what? Energy? Which makes it more expensive, which is bad for society? Better to have the market make it happen: Same result (no more CO2 in the atmosphere), but ppl buy instead of suffering from taxation. So you're right again in your reason in parenthesis.
3. With solar-induced methane generation, you don't need LNG. Production is much closer to consumption. You only need pipes.
Yes, as Casey mentions, the fundamentals of physics are sound. I'm excited!
I'm going to push back on what I'm guessing Mr. Pueyo already considers the weakest part of his argument: that we'll run out of CO2. This would only happen if a significant portion of CH4 were used for processes that do not create CO2. The vast majority of CH4 is used for transportation, electricity, or heat generation, which of course is powered by CH4 + O2 → CO2 + H2O. So that CO2 ends up right back in the atmosphere. Less than 10% of CH4 is used as a chemical feedstock.
But even of the 10% being used as a chemical feedstock, 90% of it still turns into CO2, because it's being used for fertilizer! That process is (1) CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2, (2) CO + H2O → CO2 + H2. The other 10% is used to make methanol (a lot of which, of course, ends up being oxidized back to CO2, but I'll admit that not all of it does). So that's maybe 1% of your CO2 that's not coming back to you.
CH4 not used in plastic-making. It's the other components of geological natural gas -- ethane, propane, butane, and the alkenes -- that end up being used in plastics. Petrol and recyclable plastics are also much better feedstocks for making new plastic. Now in theory, if you had nothing but CH4, you could use it to make plastic -- but that would presume a total ban on oil & gas production and the total, utter failure of the plastic recycling industry. Barring that, you're going to get your CO2 back.
I think the main argument here is that using carbon from the atmosphere rather than the ground stops the addition of carbon into the atmosphere.
I think you’re attacking the 20th argument: that this would also progressively reduce the CO2 from the atmosphere, because some CH4 isn’t released back. You say most of it is. This is a fair challenge.
I believe this is mostly a moot point though, because we both probably agree that this won’t extract all the CO2 we need to extract from the atmosphere during the 21st century.
Aside from that, you bring interesting points. The only one that is worth challenging back is that most of what you say is true today, but won’t be in the future. The H2 for fertilizer will be better sourced from electrolysis as electricity costs from solar plummet.
Similarly, more complex carbon-based molecules like butane or ethane can be produced from CO2 and electricity too. It’s a matter of waiting for electricity costs to drop enough, no?
"The only one that is worth challenging back is that most of what you say is true today, but won’t be in the future."
I'll grant you that! As long as research into cheaper green energy keeps yielding results, the possibilities for the future are staggering.
Tomas, would love if you could get Doomberg to review your assumptions in this piece.
Intriguing idea.
My guess is they’d agree on much of the data, but say that CH4 for long-term storage is lossy. But I don’t know. I can ask, although I don’t know them.
I asked for you.
The only expensive thing you need is energy.” Lol His assumptions around the falling cost of solar confuse “slave labor and cheap dirty coal” for innovation. Solar became cheap for a while because fossil fuels were cheap and China illegally flooded the global market to capture monopoly share. Thanks for the link, but it is an unserious document. Yikes 😳
I mean it’s their style to look clever and dismissive. If that’s their opinion on solar panel costs, with a trend that now has been lasting 45y, I think that’s a surprising statement. We’ll see what happens!
I'd never heard of Doomberg before and with that introduction to their style of thinking and communicating, I'm going to avoid them in future.
("jesus christ what an asshole" emoji)
My intermediate concerns with solar are intermittency, inadequate storage and aging transmission lines. I'm in favor of a mix of solar and nuclear.
(Apologies if this has been discussed below, didn't run through the entire comments section, too long already)
When electricity becomes that cheap to produce with solar (presumably W/Kg and area efficiency of solar panels will also increase at a slower rate), what use cases will really be left for methane?
-Automotive will not need it
-nat gas is already being banned for newly installed building heating where I live. District heating may be able to use it in dense areas, where infrastructure is in place?
-Air travel can't use it (all sorts of problems there)
-Electricity generation at night when the direct solar panel/wind energy just so happens to be insufficient? (baseload nuclear, pump storage and some innovative short-term storage solutions can take care of it soon)
-Shipping may be able to use it in nat. gas engines?
- Maybe store energy across the seasons by pumping it back in to nat gas reservoirs to be used just in the few dark winter months at higher latitudes?
One way to think about it is this: methane is backward-compatible with the current system. That has huge value. And for the future, methane is a core building block of many carbon-base molecules. As long as we will use fuels, you can use methane. Finally, this system works for methane, but the sabatier reaction is just one component of the system. If you need another molecule, you modify the reactor.
2 types of uses:
1. Those that are transient until electrification (Eg heating vs heat pumps)
2. End states for which methane will be the main fuel or a component
Eg for airplanes they might not use methane but they will use fuel, and methane is most likely going to be a precursor to that. Rockets use methane. Big candidate for long-term storage.
You mentioned land, but you didn't say much about it. Solar panels replacing farmland and forest land reduce the amount of food and wood available and the amt of CO2 extracted by plants. Already solar energy is being gobbled up in some places for crypto mining and data centers, which use hugely more energy than homes and cars. Where will all these panels be located?
Yes, I think this is something to definitely consider.
Right now, the entire human consumption of energy could be covered with a small patch of Sahara desert, so the cost-benefit is still there for now.
If in 100 years our energy consumption is 100x higher, solar might not be enough. But I think right now our need for surface is small enough that we shouldn't worry too much about it.
If it becomes substantial, then we'll have to think of alternatives, from the crazy ones like space solar energy harvesting, to the hopeful ones like fusion, to the no-brainer ones like fission. I will cover fission in the future.
Just putting solar on rooftops could power a large % of what the US uses.
A Federal study found that solar on all U.S. roofs would supply 39% of power
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3053882/solar-on-all-us-roofs-would-supply-39-of-power.html
Also agrivoltaic farming is a great option. Lots of crops grow better with some shade.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/agrivoltaic-farming-solar-energy/
I didn’t know either of these. Thanks!!
Great post. It is a stop gap, but with population decreasing, it may last further than would expect.
I'm not sure why why think it's a stop-gap solution. It actually fully stops the need to extract fossil fuels from the ground, which is the single biggest source of global warming!
If it is used on a large enough scale, it should reduce the CO2 significantly enough to limit its usage. How long that would take is unknown at present, but once people have a cheap means of energy, they will use more and more, thus making it obsolete quicker than otherwise would be the case.
How does it become obsolete if demand goes up? The only way I see it being uneconomical is if the IRA PTC (in the US) are eliminated making natural gas relatively cheaper.
Granted it is predicated on a rather long term outlook.
People love using energy, the more they have and the cheaper it is, the less they are interested in saving energy or energy saving products. Just as we emitted CO2 for a few centuries, that is a resource that can be exploited and removed by the same means we created it, using energy.
Until we can figure out a way to store energy, such as solar, so that once the sun goes down,, the light do not go out, in a few centuries we could be looking at the same problem we have now, how to get energy cheaply enough to keep people satisfied.
Does land on which to place all these solar panels become a constraint and environmental issue. Water vapor in the desert is present but in small amounts that might make location an issue
Electrical transmission efficiency is also a limiting factor. How does this affect the scheme
We can get really for without solar panel land use becoming an environmental issue.
If we just used rooftops, for example a Federal study found that solar on all U.S. roofs would supply 39% of power.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3053882/solar-on-all-us-roofs-would-supply-39-of-power.html
Also putting solar on land that is already used reduces the environmental impact, like with agrivoltaic farming. Lots of crops grow better with some shade.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/agrivoltaic-farming-solar-energy/
Roof installation is a bit more complicated than assuming if we just put them on roofs. Roofs are generally private property, instillation should be made on a roof with at least a 20 year life span and have the capacity to support of additional structural elements. Affordability and other issues are involved even with government support. Cities have long term contracts with coal fired plants that are privately held.
Farming under panels can require investment in new planting and harvesting methods. I am concerned that all these solutions will take years to be instituted. Current carbon capture methods being advanced for coal plants are of questionable utility and cost recovery given energy intensity requirements Green washing is common
You bring up the issue that we need a stop-gap solution. I agree.
Yes roof installation is more complicated. But doesn't roof installation reduce the environmental issue of needing lots of land for solar power to power methane capture?
This doesn’t use much water, about .6 acre-feet per year, even in the dry part of Arizona (Quartzite) this would cost about $6000/year so wouldn’t add much cost, and the land for the solar panels would be very cheap.
I assume, the later would help. The methan-plant relatively close to the solar plant. The methane piped to where needed. - Still, in many cases, a lot of new infrastructure.
Electricity is very cheap and efficient to transport, so you might put your solar plants where the Sun hits, then send the electricity to a place where gas installations already exist, and generate the gas there.
Is electricity cheap to transport? Well of course if the powerlines are built. But we are massively behind building more and half the startups I engage with in the space are trying to find non-wires methods for moving energy as it’s so hard to build powerlines. Have always liked your articles Tomas but reading this on a space where I have deep knowledge, wondering if I’ve been having a gell-mann effect with your other stuff.
“We” as in the US I assume? Maybe not in other places—here I’m covering more the physics than the permitting.
My point here is specifically that this works as long as you can have solar in the transmission range of existing gas infrastructure.
As for Gell-Mann, it might be! I’m very conscious of it. I can’t possibly be a worldwide expert in all the fields I cover (Eg my experience in epidemiology when COVID started was having read 5 papers and experience with software virality!)
But I do think it’s crucial that some people go deep across disciplines. Otherwise, there’s too much compartmentalization and not enough synthesis. so that’s what I’m trying to do here in UT.
That runs the risk of making mistakes. Every now and then, I make some indeed.
Here’s how I try to fight it:
1. I’m very open about potential mistakes, so that ppl like you can correct me. It’s the good thing about having a broad audience: there’s always better experts than me in any field I cover!
2. I seldom do primary research. Nearly everything I do is synthesizing what other experts have studied. Normally, I read dozens of other expert sources before forming my own opinion
3. I show all sources and reasoning so that others can dive deep, analyze, and criticize.
4. Every quarter, I share an update with everything we’ve learned on the topics we’ve covered. This includes mistakes.
Does that make sense? What else would you do?
I sure hope it works out this time. It was 2009, when I was excited about the "desertec" project (its PR-text is still on wikipedia). 2014 it was dead and still is. ( I do NOT disagree, with anything you wrote, my mode is just: wait-and-see.) Good luck!
Thanks!
What gives me hope is that the solar price drops appear like an unstoppable force. Everything is downstream of that.
Solar panels: pasting from another reply:
Right now, the entire human consumption of energy could be covered with a small patch of Sahara desert, so the cost-benefit is still there for now.
If in 100 years our energy consumption is 100x higher, solar might not be enough. But I think right now our need for surface is small enough that we shouldn't worry too much about it.
If it becomes substantial, then we'll have to think of alternatives, from the crazy ones like space solar energy harvesting, to the hopeful ones like fusion, to the no-brainer ones like fission. I will cover fission in the future.
Electrical transmission is quite efficient over long distances. So you generate the electricity wherever there's sunlight, and then just produce the gas wherever you can plug it into the network