This company is working to produce a machine that produces methane from waste electricity, water, and atmospheric air.

I searched for this company and only found a few references from several years ago.

I’m always skeptical of these bold claims, and my skepticism for something useful is still here with this company.

That said, from all of their public press and their description of their approach and goals, there could be something here. Time will tell.

The most important aspect of their approach is that they make no claim of this being energy efficient. Quite the opposite. They say it takes about 300% more energy input into their process than results from the energy in the methane that comes out.

Why this still looks like a possible viable path, is that they are building this to consume overproduced electricity that cannot otherwise be used or stored. As in, put it at a solar farm where the utility is rejecting more energy at the height of a sunny day (because of overcapacity).

I like how they’ve broken the technological challenges down into three main parts:

  • input CO2 source
  • input H2 source
  • methane formation step.

Further, they’re building out their product to ship on container skids, so deployment (or redeployment) doesn’t have the same permanent infrastructure requirements a virgin build might (such as pouring concrete, etc). They also claim to not require any exotic materials for any of their steps.

Lastly, what give me the most confidence is in April 2024 they have already built a working prototype of their tech and produced synthetic methane from it and sold it to a utility company! I fully recognize that have a working prototype doesn’t mean that that their approach can scale to anything useful, but I give them credit for recognizing the shortcomings of their approach while still producing a prototype that does what it claims to do: Produce methane from waste electricity, water, and atmospheric air.

  • Tobberone@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 days ago

    We have the excess electricity already, but I’m not yet at the legally required amount of solar panels.

    At work we are investing in energy storage, both batteries and heat storage and looking for more solutions.

    I’m looking at hydrogen, because it’s known tech and I dream of finding a way to use it in a more stable chemical form for storage.

    This is very interesting! And that fuel could be used either to make electricity, heat or a combination!

  • poVoq@slrpnk.netM
    0·
    3 days ago

    This has the same problem as CO2 capture technologies, that is the relatively low CO2 concentration in the air.

    The only way to make this even remotely feasible are end of pipe solutions where you directly capture the exhaust of a fossile fuel combustion process. But that in turn is at best a temporary band aid.

    • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      This has the same problem as CO2 capture technologies, that is the relatively low CO2 concentration in the air.

      You’re correct that the CO2 concentration in atmospheric air is low: 0.04%. Consider the following:

      • Each molecule of C02 has a single carbon atom.
      • Each molecule of methane also has a single carbon atom.
      • So we could say that atmospheric air has 0.04% of methane production capacity.

      I would agree with you this would be a waste of time if the goal was CO2 sequestration, but it isn’t. The goal is to use otherwise 100% wasted electricity to produce something useful that can be stored long term that there is a market for, in this case methane.

      The only way to make this even remotely feasible

      What is your definition of “feasible” here? Economically compared to fossil based methane? Volume of production?

      … are end of pipe solutions where you directly capture the exhaust of a fossile fuel combustion process. But that in turn is at best a temporary band aid.

      The company agrees with you. They called out that being able to direct capture pure CO2 from an industrial application would be ideal, but as they also concluded, thats not where the excess electricity is that is really the primary economic driver of this technique.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.netM
        0·
        3 days ago

        Economically feasible compared to other option what to use the excess electricity for, even when you factor in remote location issues.

        • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
          0·
          3 days ago

          What are the other options you see for the excess electricity that would be more feasible than this methane approach?

          • poVoq@slrpnk.netM
            0·
            3 days ago

            Pretty much anything one can think off because this methane production from normal air is so incredibly inefficient.

            The most obvious alternative would be to use the abundant nitrogen from the air and produce ammonia with it, which is both an energy storage and an important precursor for artificial fertilizer production.

            • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
              0·
              3 days ago

              What it looks like this company is building would be partially compatible with that approach.

              For the Haber-Bosch process needs input H2 (plus the atmospheric Nitrogen). 33% of what this company is building is an electrolyser. Further, the Sabatier reactor they’re using (another 33% of their process) could possibly be swapped out for a Haber-Bosch reactor.

              I don’t know enough about the environmental conditions needed for handling ammonia vs methane to understand if there are any “gotchas” to creating ammonia in situ.

    • PuddleOfKittens@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      It’s useful because (besides displacing fossil methane) it’s a stepping-stone to producing methanol, which can be used to produce propane, which has a lower greenhouse coefficient per gram than CO2 (and also displaces fossil propane).

    • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      Confused, how is this useful?

      There are many MANY useful applications of carbon neutral methane. The most beneficial and obvious to me are:

      • Useful method of storing excess generated solar and wind power
      • Entire industries, markets, and infrastructure already existing for the storage, transportation, and consumption of methane

      You can get methane out of a cow’s ass all day long

      You cannot get pipeline grade methane out of cows ass, and even if you could, you wouldn’t have the technology to capture it for use in the marketplace in any quantity that would be cost effective against fossil fuel based methane. As in, even if you could (and you can’t), it would cost so much that no one would buy it and instead just pull more out of the ground. The solution proposed here is on the path to being worth skipping the fossil fuel route for methane and using this instead.

      and methane is a greenhouse gas,

      So is the CO2 that is being used as the feedstock to create the methane. This would be reducing atmospheric CO2, which I hope you would agree is a useful element when directly combating climate change from C02 emissions.

      I thought we wanted less methane, not more.

      This wouldn’t be producing net more methane. The market is already consuming all of methane it demands. This would replace some of the supply that is currently being fulfilled by carbon positive fossil fuel sources.

      • over_clox@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 days ago

        Interesting. Guess you’ve never heard of a fistulated cow before, they can totally connect tubing or pipes to cows to harvest methane straight out of their intestines.

        I’ll leave it to you wonderful people out there to look up what a fistulated cow is. Disclaimer, it’s a bit disturbing.

        • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
          0·
          3 days ago

          Guess you’ve never heard of a fistulated cow before, they can totally connect tubing or pipes to cows to harvest methane straight out of their intestines.

          And the cost for fistulating each cow? And how much methane will such a cow produce? How contaminated will the methane be? What methods would be required to refine it to pipeline grade? Further, can you feed a cow with the output overproduction of a PV solar panel?

          This is what I meant when I said cows wouldn’t be economically viable sources of methane from electricity. If you think cows are they, then I won’t stop you though.

          • over_clox@lemmy.world
            0·
            3 days ago

            Now see, this is the kind of content I like to see, informative and educational banter, with thoughts, opinions, and relevant links 👍

            Now, what ever happened to regularly riding horses around? I mean hell, they’re self-fueled lawnmowers that double as transportation…

            • photon_echo@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
              0·
              3 days ago

              Now, what ever happened to regularly riding horses around?

              Besides the issue with horse excrement, other issues occurred (Hayden, 2016):

Dead horses often clogged city streets;
In New York City in 1880, 15,000 horses died on the streets, or 41 dead horses a day (which had to be removed);
Some place to stable the 100,000+ horses that operated within New York, and food to feed them;
On a per capita basis, 19th century horse-drawn vehicle accident rates were similar to those of the automobile in the 20th century.

              source