Business, Economics, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Carbon Capture

22 Comments

Elon wants to manufacture fuel from the earth’s atmosphere. He takes climate much too seriously.

22 thoughts on “Carbon Capture”

  1. One of the simpler methods of carbon capture is to turn CO2 into grass, then feed the grass to cows, and then let cows ferment the grass into methane. You tap the cow methane off with hoses to fuel your rocket, and get steak as a byproduct.

    But on Earth CO2 and methane are extremely rare compared to H2O, which can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, liquified, and used as a completely carbon free rocket fuel.

    He should be careful about indulging the environmentalists too much because they’ll eventually turn on him and start chanting “RP-1 stands for Raping Planet One!”

    We should probably copyright that slogan just so we can sue them if they start using it. 🙂

  2. Right now, space is actually more about marketing than engineering. So this is probably a good business move at any rate.

    And you can always start buying cheaper propellant if that changes.

    1. I did some math a few months ago and concluded that ethanol could outperform RP-1 if it allowed a switch from a gas generator cycle to a staged combustion cycle. Ethanol is about $1.50 a gallon, which is much cheaper than even kerosene.

      The marketing pitch for such a switch would be the usual “renewable green fuel” talking points that they use for ethanol in motor fuel.

      I think V-2’s may have given ethanol a reputation for poor performance, but the early missiles used a low-grade (very watery) mix in a low pressure engine, and switching to a higher-performance petroleum based fuel in both the US and USSR, which have oil coming out their ears, made a great deal of sense.

      Of course from a farming and production standpoint, it really didn’t make much sense to put ethanol in anything but whisky bottles, but here we are, with an ethanol industry to help the environment. If some rocket company wants to capitalize on it, I won’t complain.

      1. Peanut oil is a better propellant, in terms of Isp, density, and thermal stability (for use as a regenerative coolant). And it is undeniably renewable, without any fermentation steps.

    1. That was very interesting, and what really caught my eye was this:

      A slightly different enzyme, used in the same process, can convert methane—an even more potent greenhouse gas—to the more soluble methanol for removal, she says.

      Many oil rigs flare the methane because there isn’t a sufficient gas pipeline infrastructure to make it profitable (see Saudi Arabia). Methanol is a liquid fuel and a feed stock for lots of chemical processes, and even hauling it out by tanker truck might be worthwhile.

      1. Huh, in the DOI paper, they don’t mention methane at all.

        This is the closest to that paragraph.

        By simple replacement of CA enzymes with alternate enzymes, we propose that our ultra-thin, enzymatic, nano-stabilized liquid membrane concept could be readily adapted to other separation processes.

  5. Anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, but there’s no reason to not use the available atmospheric CO2 to make ultra-clean, energy dense liquid fuels. The speaker is talking about the Navy’s Small Modular Reactors, but there’s no reason that the idea can’t be adapted for use with LFTRs, which Elon is going to need on Mars.

    https://youtu.be/G8zOHZINyG8

    1. Yeah. His endgame pretty much requires nuclear powered CO2 based fuel synthesis on Mars, gonna have to build a few test rigs on Earth.

  6. We could just do away with carbon-based fuels by using organo-silicon fuels. Penta and hexa silane are both liquids within the normal temperature ranges experienced on Earth. They are denser than hydrocarbon liquids, are self-igniting in air, and yield comparable specific energy. Plus the silica vapor produced during combustion tends to deposit a thin film on the throat surface of de Laval nozzles, substantially reducing heat flux (in fact, adding silicone oil to rocket fuels for this purpose was used on Vanguard, and gets reinvented every 20 years or so).

    I’m sure that Greenies wouldn’t mind the rampant cases of silicosis that would result from using organo-silanes to replace all fossil motor fuels. It would serve their desire to depopulate the planet of human beings sooner rather than later.

  7. I think the best, most efficient method of “carbon sequestering” is continuing to bury our plastic waste into landfills, where it will take thousands of years to return to the ecosystem. For the ones where methane is being produced from decay, tap the methane off and feed it back into making more plastic grocery bags etc.

    1. There’s no need for ‘carbon sequestering’ because the CO2 level on Earth is far too low right now. Plants evolved when the level was around 2000ppm, and would benefit from us burning far more fossil fuels, which are one of the ways in which CO2 was removed from the atmosphere they prefer to live in.

      If humans were to die off tomorrow, in less than 50,000,000 years most plant life would die from lack of CO2.

      Removing CO2 is not just anti-scientific bollocks, it’s potentially going to kill all complex life on Earth.

      1. I know, I just wanted to see if any heads would explode at the idea of using the status quo to accomplish one of the greenie’s pet demands.

  8. This is just one more example of why Elon is filthy rich. He is the master of dual-use tech. He has an electric car company, which would work very well on a planet, (or moon), where no oil is nearby. He has a tunnel boring company, which would work very well on a moon or planet that has a hostile atmosphere, (or no atmosphere). Now he has an idea to keep the environmentalists happy by converting atmospheric carbon to rocket fuel. That would also be handy on mars. The only thing that I can’t put my finger on is the flame throwers. Maybe he did that just for fun.

  9. It’s funny how Musk has made fun of Gerard O’Neill’s orbital habitat proposals (saying it would be like trying to build the United States out in the middle of the ocean), but otherwise keeps echoing ideas O’Neill suggested long ago.

    I remember O’Neill proposing that SPS energy could be used to extract carbon from the atmosphere to make liquid fuels which were carbon-neutral.

    But more significantly, Musk is successfully promoting the idea of magnetically suspended and propelled vehicles moving through evacuated tunnels. O’Neill was promoting this concept back in the early 80’s.

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