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.