The modern world is dependent on a vast network for extracting, processing, transporting and ultimately consuming hydrocarbons like crude oil and natural gas.
Instead of reducing humanity’s dependence on hydrocarbons — which is impossible or undesirable or both, depending on who you ask — Terraform Industries’ solution is to produce this resource, using electricity and air, via a system it calls the Terraformer.
Today, the startup is announcing that it has commissioned a demonstrator Terraformer and produced synthetic natural gas for the first time.
Roughly the size of two shipping containers, the Terraformer consists of three subsystems: an electrolyzer, which converts solar power into hydrogen; a direct air capture system that captures CO2; and a chemical reactor that ingests both these inputs to produce pipeline-grade synthetic natural gas.
The startup says that improvements are already in the works to bring these prices down even further to ensure that its synthetic natural gas hits cost parity with conventionally sourced liquified natural gas.
But then there’s methane, which has driven about 30% of climate change, according to the IEA.
Leaks are one of the main sources, both from aging natural gas infrastructure and oil and gas fields.
The company has been able to observe a significant portion of estimated oil and gas methane emissions in the U.S., the IEA said in a report released Wednesday.
Huppertz and co-founder Jack Angela have developed a suite of algorithms to detect methane emissions using freely available satellite data.
“And so making sure that methane and natural gas stays within infrastructure and does not leak into the atmosphere will always be a crucial point until the last drop of natural gas is used.”
Hot on the heels of the successful completion of its grid-connected geothermal power plant in Nevada, Fervo Energy is raising $221 million per SEC documents, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
Previous geothermal plants have only scratched the surface by accessing hot springs or shallower rock formations.
Fervo uses directional drilling techniques pioneered by the oil and gas industry to extend its wells far beyond their surface footprints.
Once those wells are drilled, Fervo then strings them with fiber optic cables connected to a range of sensors.
Previous investors include BHP Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, DCVC, and Prelude Ventures.
An engineer by training, Meyerowitz leans heavily on that concept at Clairity Technology, the direct air capture startup he founded in 2022.
The company is currently working on the next size up, which should be able to capture one metric ton per year.
Clairity is one of the latest entrants into the direct air capture (DAC) market, where companies compete to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at the lowest cost.
He and his team, now eight strong, have designed a box that’s “good enough” to capture carbon dioxide over 80% purity, he said.
By using carbon dioxide as an ingredient, “it improves the quality of the concrete.
Orbital operations company Astroscale has revealed new details about its approach to refueling satellites in space, as part of a $25.5 million project exploring the concept with the Space Force.
The concept of on-orbit servicing and repair is attractive to anyone who doesn’t want to see a $100 million investment literally burn up.
Astroscale won a Space Force contract last Summer to explore the possibility in orbit, and the company just published how it plans to do so.
After refueling it, the APS-R will back off and perform an inspection of the client satellite, looking for any fuel leaks or other issues its operators might want to check.
No doubt we’ll hear more about this and other space sustainability projects well before then.
Hertz is selling off a third of its electric vehicle fleet, which is predominantly made up of Teslas, and will buy gas cars with some of the money it makes from the sales.
Hertz’s move to slash its EV fleet comes as electric vehicle sales growth has cooled from record highs.
Just two years ago, Hertz announced plans to buy 100,000 EVs from Tesla by the end of 2022.
Instead, as of October 2023, Hertz had only purchased 35,000 Teslas and its entire electric fleet included about 50,000 EVs total.
It announced plans in 2022 to buy up to 175,000 EVs from General Motors, and another 65,000 from Polestar.
It also objected to Google limiting or refusing to allow interoperability of services included in GAS with third-party services.
“We are particularly concerned about the compulsory bundling of services with great market strength and reach with services that are less strong.
“Google is also prepared to eliminate its contractual provisions on setting Google services as default applications or displaying them prominently in the infotainment platform,” the FCO also noted.
The question of whether Google’s proposals will result in an unbundled offering of Google’s services in the automotive sector will be decisive in this context,” it added.
Which may give the FCO reason enough to continue its scrutiny of Google Maps in the meanwhile.
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