95% of our energy could be downstream from solar by 2042 | The Freethink Interview: Casey Handmer

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“10 years ago, my colleagues and I looked at the prognosis for Climate Change, and it looked pretty hopeless. There really was no way out.” But something happened - something good.

Could solar energy be the key to unlocking a future free from fossil fuels and extreme poverty? Casey Handmer, founder and CEO of Terraform Industries, believes so. His company is pioneering technology that could revolutionize how we produce and consume energy, potentially solving climate change and global energy inequality in one fell swoop.

Terraform Industries is developing machines that create synthetic natural gas from sunlight and air. It sounds like science fiction, but the technology is rooted in simple chemistry and powered by the rapidly advancing field of solar energy.

But Handmer's vision extends beyond just replacing fossil fuels. He sees solar energy as the catalyst for a new era of human progress. By providing cheap, abundant energy to every corner of the globe, we could potentially eliminate extreme poverty within our lifetimes. It's an ambitious goal, but one that Handmer believes we have a responsibility to pursue.

Dive deeper into Terraform Industries' plan:

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Read more of our stories on climate tech:
9 ways AI is helping tackle climate change
Google AI is searching the world for methane leaks from space
Scientists are deep-freezing corals to repopulate the ocean
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Watch our original series:

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About Freethink
No politics, no gossip, no cynics. At Freethink, we believe the daily news should inspire people to build a better world. While most media is fueled by toxic politics and negativity, we focus on solutions: the smartest people, the biggest ideas, and the most ground breaking technology shaping our future.
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According to him, they will create a methane with an efficiency of 20-30% and then we burn that methane we will get only 30% (at best) heat which is used and rest are losses. So doing basic math this comes down to Solar generating energy (100) converted to methane (30) converted to useful energy which is a meager 9 points AT BEST. So you are losing 91% of the energy in this process just because you do not want to switch to other means of consuming energy (e.g. electricity directly). Makes NO SENSE to me.

hft_trader
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I’m an energy researcher - to me his economics don’t add up: The US Natural Gas 'well price' (aka Henry Hub) is the world's cheapest at ~$3/MMBTU… or ~$10/MWhr. Even *IF* you could get PV at $10/MWhr, at his 30% efficient process to convert the building blocks back into CH4, you’d need energy at $10kWhr/30%= ~$3.3/kWh electricity.

Perhaps the reactor doesn’t need energy, but the material (element) inputs are NOT free, either:

Current CO2 ‘direct air-capture’ (DAC) is ~$1/kg, and electrolysis H2 production is ~$5/kg Even assuming “dream scenarios” of CO2 DAC @ $0.2/kg and H2 @ $2/kg…. results in CH4 material costs ~$10/kg. For reference, the above Henry Hub well price of Nat Gas is equivalent to ~$0.14/kg per natural gas… 2 orders of magnitude lower!

Furthermore, a couple other slight-of-hands in his pitch: (1) He only showed a very ‘particular’ solar prediction using ‘Class 1’ landscape (ie, the best/hottest deserts in the world) and only the “advanced innovations” scenarios (aka science Hail Mary breakthroughs), not the other standard projections. Secondly, to get low cost electrolysis Hydrogen production requires very high ‘capacity factor’ (% of hours in a day)… requiring >90% for good economics. Solar can reach 20~25% but requires mechanical tracking to do so (thus, moving parts). So to get solar >90% capacity factor requires either storage/battery backup or grid-connections to achieve… greatly increasing the cost beyond the scenarios he shares.

I truly want them to win. And cold-fusion. And the stuff I work on. And another 100x Cleantech breakthroughs… the world does indeed need them. It’s just that energy economics are truly *brutal*… and we need to be HONEST about what it takes. “Hot air” has gotten us into this climate crisis… more of it isn’t going to get us out! ;)

jdtransformation
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We're big Freethink and Casey fans (check out our doc on his tech, some footage from it was used in this!)

s_build
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Using this we would only transform 20% of the solar energy captured into vehicle motion. If you use a battery then at least 90% of the solar energy is transformed into vehicle motion. The way this makes sense is for long term energy storage to offset seasonal variations in solar energy capture, however, even then, there are far more efficient promising options being developed like iron air batteries, direct hydrogen storage, compressed air storage. This is simply green washing of ice vehicles, suggesting you don't need an EV as tech like this makes an ice car part of a cyclic system, when in reality this is to just prolong a market for fossil fuels.

johnphilipwilson
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9:22 I think if everybody was motivated by this cause and works toward a solution to the biggest problems on earth, the way that our grandparents worked to solve the big problems of their time (like WW 1&2), we as a society would progress a lot faster towards a higher stage of civilisation.

It is only when mankind stands united, that we achieve the impossible.
So go wander into the world with the intention of making it a better place.

o-o_pingu
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Maybe the efficiency of using hydrocarbons could be dramatically improved if they used fuel cells made specifically for hydrocarbons?
Another option is combustion by a "light engine". They could be upto around 80% efficient: The fuel heats up a gas that emits only one frequency, then the energy is captured by photovoltaic cells that are optimized for that frequency and the efficiency is much much higher than regular solar cells.

jimj
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Good on him for pointing out the efficiency, but it begs the question, why go through all the effort of making gas at 30% efficiency, and high cost, then burning it at 25-40% efficiency, giving about 7-12% of the energy back, when you could just use the energy directly. Fuel stoves are much less efficient because most the heat goes around the pan instead if into it. This would give cars about 10% efficiency vs like 80-90% for electric. Heating your house would make no sense, requiring 10x the energy, not even counting heat pumps.

The only potential use is for energy storage, but then, it is significantly worse than even hydrogen, which has a horrible round trip efficiency, IIRC about 25%, but that is much better than 10%. I think battery, and thermal energy storage make much more sense. This is an interesting idea, but it requires 100% of the energy grid to be beyond dirt cheap on solar, which we are no where even close, and no other good options, which there are plenty.

I am 100% for solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, but don't buy too much into these hype ideas that make little to no sense on paper. Hydrogen will never become mainstream, and this, though interesting, has little chance of taking off at scale.

xeridea
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The end consumer will definitely notice because it's much more expensive to run a gas burner on synthetic fuel than to simply use the electricity directly. Synthetic fuels have a future in aviation, orbital rockets and hard to decarbonize industries. But it makes no sense to cook and heat your home with synthetic fuels.

chrisb
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And what is the EFFICIENCY of burning? 10-20%
Batteries and electric motor is +80%.

Soon there are VERY cheap sodium batteries.

SwedeInCPH
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All things aside, the production quality is amazing!

Danielsingerymusic
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Fresh water is the big issues. It is becoming increasingly scarce around the world as our population and industry grows. This increasing shortage is going to create societal instability. Both the hydrogen economy and this tech depend on fresh water currently as the technology is not available to create sustainable, economic hydrogen from brackish / salt water due to the corrosive nature of the salts in this type of water on the catalyst that split the water into hydrogen an oxygen. I think we may see effective battery tech long before a solution is created.

Companiesinnovating
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The More Steps You Add, The More Efficiency You Lose In A System...


The world runs on (jumbo jets and cargo ships) and they need heavy fuel. A better way is to make fuel from sunlight, which can be done using plants, like seaweed biofuel. And throw the plant residue back, so it doesn't lose the fertility of the coast. (don't be too greedy )

abhijeetbyte
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wind turbines are much more efficient. If you cover the desserts with solar plants, you still end up with a huge infrastructure problem to bring the energy to where it is needed.
I think they only want to sell a good story whithout considering the cons... Conversion also makes no sense due to the low efficiency. Industry has to switch. Only the parts that require it might need a system like this. But keep in mind, that this tech is not unique and that there are other companies as well doing exactly that which are already on the market.
Hence, the idea is far from new and in most of the cases it is also not advisable to do it. To focus on solar is questionable as well. They treat the topic like it is the only renewable energy out there.

LordRamachandran
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Interesting points. The problem with e-fuels:

a) They're inefficient to produce and inefficient to burn for fuel if again using in internal combustion
b) Still pollute our city air carcinogenic toxic emissions: NOx, SOx, CO, particulate matter (PM2.5) and other volatile hydrocarbons. It's a major part of the sickly yellow-brown smog that hangs over all the major urban centers of our planet. Go visit some dense Asian cities for a face full of the stuff all day long.
c) Although e-fuels will be net-zero carbon, we actually need to *reduce* the carbon in our atmosphere so net-zero may *not* provide sufficient ramp down since the carbon crisis is dire.

Specifically for natural gas methane (CH4), it exists as a light-weight gas that absolutely wants to escape any vessel its contained in. CH4 has 80X the greenhouse effects as CO2! Methane leaks everywhere during production and transportation. It's called the "fugitive emissions" problem.

One overlooked grid-scale storage solution is thermal storage: Use large, enclosed volumes of ceramic blocks and use embedded electric heaters to heat the ceramic up with solar, wind and other non-fossil fuel energy. Ceramic blocks are cheap as chips and easy to make. The heat can be used directly in industrial applications (steel, concrete) and it can be turned back to electricity using good old steam turbine technology as needed.

beyondfossil
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Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy does not include externalities such as grid update and energy storage. In reality PV panels are significantly more expensive than what is said in this documentary.

salahidin
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Bio-ethanol/methanol route is way cheaper than this convoluted method.
You could still suck out CO2 from atmosphere with solar PV though.

aryaman
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I'll give him points for optimism 👍

patrickmckowen
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Love the idea but am I missing something? Regardless of how you make methane, is burning it still not producing CO2 into the atmosphere despite taking it from the atmosphere to start with? I am not sure how this helps the big picture.

PrimalBlue-lo
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At first, I was like "This guy is just repeating the same old talking points 🙄". Then he started discussing his tech and that caught my ears. Very interesting 🤔

marcus_b
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What are ALL of the byproducts of burning the fuel you are making? i.e. Would it deplete water, air, carbon, hydrogen, etc. from the atmosphere and water bodies at all and if so, at what rate? Would any of the byproducts be detrimental to life?

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