Elon Musk’s carbon capture project appears to be progressing, and he now plans to make it fuel for SpaceX rockets.
Last May, Elon Musk launched a $ 100 million contest to reward anyone who comes up with a great idea that can extract at least 1,000 tonnes of superfluous CO2 from the atmosphere. The idea seems to have gained ground since: the billionaire announced that SpaceX was launching a “program to turn CO2 from the atmosphere into rocket fuel.”
It’s hard to say if this idea comes from the famous competition, but in any case it seems to be gradually turning into a real industrial project. Indeed, the billionaire even invites his audience to “join him in case of interest”; a wording that suggests that something concrete is taking place.
SpaceX is starting a program to take CO2 out of atmosphere & turn it into rocket fuel. Please join if interested.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2021
Carbon capture, a promising concept
We must admit that on paper, the idea has something to seduce. A system of this type would revolutionize aerospace logistics with a source of fuel that is universally abundant, and which we are already trying to get rid of. Because it is no secret: carbon dioxide is one of the main culprits of the greenhouse effect that feeds the climate situation.
An industrial process of this type would therefore kill two birds with one stone. Indeed, there is growing concern on the part of observers about the ecological impact of aerospace. Such a technology would certainly not achieve carbon neutrality, but it could at least limit the damage.
However, the concrete feasibility of such an enterprise still remains to be proven. And as often with his cryptic tweets, the billionaire absolutely does not detail how he intends to go about it. According to Bloomberg, he plans to use a technique still under development called Direct Air Capture. The American media explains that the largest installation of this type has just opened in Iceland and plans to extract more than 4000 tonnes of CO2 per year. Interesting Engineering also speaks of a Scottish installation which should open in 2026, but on a much larger scale since it expects to reach one million tonnes per year.
The key to future space travel?
The concept is therefore not just an abstract fad. But it will probably take several years of additional research to hope to move to the stage of industrial exploitation. However, we also know that Musk is obsessed with the speed of research and development; a philosophy that could come back to haunt him in the long term, but which could be beneficial to the entire industry in this specific case.
Because Musk is far from being the only one to hope to use atmospheric CO2 constructively. We can for example cite the MIT projects or the Carbfix program funded by Bill Gates. It is therefore a whole emerging industry that could potentially benefit indirectly from the spinoffs of this work. And the implications even extend beyond Earth. Because once far from the blue planet, we will no longer have access to the same industrial processes to produce fuel.
It will therefore be necessary to reinvent an entire industry on site, and many experts are already considering using CO2 from other planets to produce fuel. It will therefore be very interesting to follow the SpaceX project in the months and years to come.
