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bodhiandphysics | 1 year ago

Just to point out... the whole point of Terraform Industries is to solve the problems that are raised in that sobering view! That doesn't mean they will succeed, but saying "this is hard, so they won't" is also not terribly useful. Ultimately, when faced with difficult problems, the only hope is to try to figure out how to solve them.

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jillesvangurp|1 year ago

> the only hope is to try to figure out how to solve them.

Or to find alternative ways of doing things that aren't bottle-necked on pesky physics. Who needs really expensive methane? Natural gas is only convenient when it's cheap. When it's not, other means of creating heat are available. The whole premise of synthetic gas is that we don't have to change and it will be great.

The reality is that this isn't all that great. Even at the cited prices it would be an order of magnitude more expensive than what people pay for their gas currently. And I would take those optimistic estimates with a huge grain of salt.

bryanlarsen|1 year ago

Their target methane price is $10/kcf. That's not "an order of magnitude more expensive". It's about 2X current prices in the US and significantly cheaper than European prices.

Natural gas prices are dominated by the price of transportation in most places. Terraform's process can produce close to where it's consumed.

In other words, if the price of natural gas is $0 in Alberta, Terraform might be able undercut the price of that gas in Europe by setting up a plant in Spain.