Terraform Industries has a process for converting atmospheric CO2 and water into hydrocarbons (particularly "natural" gas), at the cost of a huge amount of electricity.
Because solar panels keep getting cheaper and oil doesn't, they think they can out-compete the cost of oil in some markets (sunny with expensive oil) in the near future, and more places over time if solar power keeps getting cheaper.
The author hopes to encourage a huge investment in solar power, which would be good for the planet and people in general (and unstated, also Terraform's bottom line).
Thank you, that is what I gathered, give or take. I guess I was just taken aback by the idea that instead of displacing natural gas we would use more energy to make natural gas. Seems like the ultra-gargantuan investments needed for this kind of transition would be better spent transitioning to a mostly-electric energy economy.
If you're a central planning committee trying to solve for the best outcome under physical constraints, nothing beats nuclear power and railroads.
If you're living in an economic system where investment is primarily determined by rate of profit, then you need to identify a solution where everyone involved is making more money than they would be without you. So it's very important they're competing with oil on economic terms while increasing demand for solar.
Maybe if natural gas was in short supply I could understand their angle. But it isn't, so I don't. Seems like a solution in search of a problem. Meanwhile, global warming, the paramount problem, needs fast solutions, not elaborate stopgap workarounds.
You're missing the part where this would displace fossil fuels with "electrofuels", meaning for every ton of this stuff made, that's more fossil fuels left in the ground. Replacing a fossil fuel with a carbon neutral fuel means a reduction in net carbon emissions.
The other part you're missing is that this decouples fuel production from locations with large fossil fuel sources (often run by governments with authoritarian rulers who use their exports as leverage). This means that you can spread production to anywhere the sun shines which means highly decentralized, local production of electrofuels.
The third part you're missing is how this increases demand for solar panels and carbon sequestration technology which has an amazing feedback loop that makes these cheaper and more efficient over the decades, meaning that as hydrocarbon demand declines over time as other technologies take over (e.g., electric cars reducing demand from the transportation sector), this built up intellectual capital and infrastructure can be used to just sequester carbon for long-term storage, which would be net negative instead of just carbon neutral.
There's probably more you're missing but I'd just recommend reading more of the blog where he explains everything.
Remind me, western europe, that is the place where offshore wind is way cheaper than natural gas and other alternatives but where the political and economic system seems to be completely unable to connect investments with rational policy goals (survival, independence) and needs of the population (maintaining core temperature within non-lethal ranges, etc.)? :)
So I mean, I assume the original point is about supply/demand, but supply of gas is already short, prices are already high, alternatives are already cheaper, and yet our system is still failing to take any action that might lead to a survivable outcome. So the supply/demand thing seems like a completely meaningless tangent at this point??
Methane has some significant advantages over electricity: it's storable over time and can be used to fuel vehicles. About a third of the vehicles in this country are methane-fueled, in fact. A CNG tank is a hell of a lot cheaper than a car-sized lithium battery. If you go further and make the methane into kerosene you can fly airplanes with it. Airplanes can't fly while they're plugged into the grid.
In the long term, complete displacement of hydrocarbons from the economy is probably the end goal. However, we are nowhere near being able to do that right now. Obviously for the billions of vehicles on the road and the current grid power generation we need not just solar/wind generation, but also massive amounts of grid storage (or massive increases in nuclear) and vehicle batteries. But in industry there are tons of chemical processes that also require hydrocarbons that we haven’t found suitable replacements for yet.
Because it’s not clear how fast we can get absolutely massive amounts of grid storage or nuclear deployed, finding ways to make effectively carbon-neutral natural gas/petroleum is a good step in the right direction, where we can continue to use some hydrocarbons without a net increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and oceans.
It’s also not clear if we will be able to replace all of our current petroleum reliant industrial processes with non-carbonized alternatives, and in those cases, this will be the absolute best case for us.
No, I think we are quite near to being able to achieve that.
There may be billions of vehicles on the road, but as soon as the system fails to be able to upkeep all the deployed capital required to maintain them in operating condition (road resurfacing, parts manufacture, refinement and transportation of fuel, maintaining the value of currency in order to motivate the workers to participate in all of the necessary steps, security from hostilities, roads not being flooded/melted, and so on). In such eventualities sizeable portions of the fleet may be rendered inoperable quite quickly and cars will be displaced, out of necessity, by walking.
What you're making is a different point, it's not that we can't displace hydrocarbons, it's that we can't displace them with something equivalent-or-better. We can probably displace cars with walking, concrete structures with ad-hoc shelters, and hospitals with prayer. That is all not just very achievable, but has actually been increasing in inevitability during our prior decades of "inaction" (obviously you can't really call it inaction when we're taking positives steps to hasten these outcomes)
Looks like hopium peddling around their new invention which will solve climate change (spoiler alert: it absolutely won't) and generate limitless energy at the same time (spoiler alert: we have effectively limitless energy in the form of fossil fuels, and even if you ignore climate change, we have already used it to basically destroy our own future by treating the earth as a garbage dump / shithole to be asset stripped of everything of worth to convert it into worthless landfill while basic human needs are still unmet).
Let me know if you're interested and PM be because, gosh, do I have the investment opportunity of a lifetime for you. /s :)
