Guest “I was wrong about this guy” by David Middleton
SpaceX Plans to Drill for Natural Gas Near Texas Launchpad
Sergio Chapa
Jan 23 2021(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk recently moved to Texas, where he launches some of his rockets and is building a battery factory. Now, for good measure, he plans to drill for natural gas in the state.
The billionaire’s SpaceX intends to drill wells close to the company’s Boca Chica launchpad, it was revealed during a Friday hearing before the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s energy regulator.
Production has yet to start because of a legal dispute between the SpaceX subsidiary Lone Star Mineral Development and another energy company. Tim George, an attorney representing Lone Star, said at the hearing that SpaceX plans to use the methane it extracts from the ground “in connection with their rocket facility operations.”
While it’s unclear what exactly the gas would be used for, SpaceX plans to utilize super-chilled liquid methane and liquid oxygen as fuel for its Raptor engines. The company’s Starship and Super Heavy vehicles are tested at Boca Chica, and orbital launches are planned for the site.
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Bloomberg
Frac on Elon!
Well, they don’t have to sell all of their remaining tax credits.
It won’t be long before he uses his own gas to power his battery factory. He should be smart enough to see where the price of electricity is going and his battery factory will require a lot of it.
Liquid methane and liquid oxygen as rocket fuel? Large amounts of heat AND CO2 into the atmosphere? That’s it, Musk is trying to poison earth and sell rides to Mars at exorbitant prices!
Kerosene (diesel) fuel and LOX is a much better, higher density rocket fuel source and easier to engineer for. And safety is probably the biggest advantage for kerosene+LOX rather than LNG+LOX.
Kerosene (actually RP-1, a purified kerosene) has been used for stage 1 boosters because of its high energy density. I think if Saturn V used H2 as fuel the first stage would have been almost as tall as the Saturn V.
Size is less a concern for upper stages and smaller rockets and rockets that use the fall-away solid boosters so H2 is preferred as it achieves the highest efficiency and specific impulse performance, after the boosters are ejected.
I suspect LNG is a tradeoff between these two and was deemed to be not quite energy-dense enough for a large stage one (and the need for cryogenic handling and insulation tipped the scales further) and not quite as efficient as using H2 for the upper stages.
As to why SpaceX is interested in using LNG, It seems to have to do with the Mars mission. They think it is possible to make methane fuel on Mars so maybe that has something to do with it. But also methane has higher specific impulse than JP-1 and easier to store than LH2 (lower cryro temps, no hydrogen imbrittlement) and also burns cleaner than JP-1 (important for engines that start/stop a lot and get re-used). Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_rocket_propellant#Methane
I suspect LNG might make sense for interplanetary missions that are fueled from an orbital space station. Its tradeoffs may work to its advantage there.
I knew that about Saturn 5. Nothing on the chemical rocket fuel side has changed in 50 years. Nothing. A solids, while dependable and storable and make good strap-ons, are not “throttleable” (is that a word?).
To guide writers into writing clearly and truthfully, George Orwell proposed the following six rules:
I suggest your new word fits nicely under rule #6 … I knew exactly what you meant.
What does his Environmental Impact Statement say that he is using?? 🙂
While taking advantage of taxpayers and competitors with subsidies for his electric cards. ??? !!!
Good thing he didn’t move to New York. Still no Fracking there…
Yes. But NY State is still allowing new Gas power stations to run with gas piped from Pennsylvania shale fields
I find it very amusing that so many people believe that fracking is some kind of recent innovation in the oil and gas industry. It’s been known since the 1860s and widely used world wide since the 1940s … for oil, gas and WATER wells. It is extremely beneficial to the environment since it improves overall efficiency.
The modern iteration of fracturing is new. Along a precisely drilled horizontal drill stem through a 50 m to 200m thick shale deposit and the use of propants (carefully selected sands) to computerized 3D seismic surveying to make it all possible. New technologies. Not just “old style” fracking the bottom of a conventional well.
And? Improvements in old technologies aren’t necessarily bad. You sort of missed the point I made. Everything comes with a cost.
No, not new technologies, Joel. Horizontal fracking has existed for ~40 years. Horizontal drilling has existed for ~50. Oil field 3D seismic surveys have existed for ~55. The use of proppants has existed for ~75. Vertical well fracking has indeed existed for ~150 years.
I remember looking at a educational diagram at OK City capitol grounds (there were oil wells on the grounds) when I was a kid in 1976 showing directional drilling as a relatively new technology – not quite horizontal yet but showing they could cover large areas from a single drilling site. I’m sure it wasn’t long after that that they were achieving true horizontal drilling.
Directional drilling is a lot different than turning a drill stem 90º 5,000 feet down a hole and following a precise 50 meter thick shale formation for 2 more kilometers, and then shock/fracking with proppant injection back along that line every 50 to 200 meters.
In a prior life in 1981 I worked as a cementer for Haliburton. We fracked a deep well with so much sand, water and proppent that it took every pump truck and man in the yard to be on site. It was a world record sized frack job at the time. I forget how many millions of pounds of frack sand and water we used but the numbers were enormous. Among other proppents we used tiny metal ball bearings. They came in 50 pound bags and had to be cut open and dumped on a conveyor belt. It was only a one stage job but we pumped at high pressure for 2 hours or so. They still use frack sand, water and lots of proppent. The main difference now is the number of stages. Most have multiple stages to each frack job. The design has changed a bit but the pumping and materials used has stayed much the same.
Yeah, because oil field engineers were fracking shale in the 1970’s in response to the Arab oil embargo.
Letting rocket companies be rocket companies, and gas drilling-fracking companies be gas drilling-fracking companies seems to me to be the prudent business decision not to get diversified outside on one’s business skillset.
Large corporations don’t have skill sets beyond acquiring other companies in order to pursue their interests.
Like all Musk promises, it will either not occur and is just used as a pump to the stock, OR there is an alternate reason for saying it, like he needs to keep the tunnel to Mexico he’s built hidden. I mean, did anyone really think he bought a tunnel boring machine to build a subway? Any idea why he and his board member’s planes are constantly flying between Texas, Mexico, Colorado and LA/SF? Trafficking women? Cash? Drugs? How does hundreds of millions in scrap just disappear off his factory and he fires the security manager who spotted/investigated it. So far the guy has promised battery swapping in minutes rather than charging, Roadster 2, a Semi, a “Cybertruck,” a flying car (no joke), solar panels on his factory (something he still hasn’t done). The guy is a huckster and fraud, but people are so gullible.
https://elonsbrokenpromises.com/
Well, I for one am still waiting for him to actually launch a rocket!
Oh wait…
Love him or hate him I have to admit Elon has the personality to be a Texan.
It’s more likely that Elon Musk’s drug tunnel to Mexico has been discovered and he needs to pretend to drill for gas rather than have it discovered by someone else snooping on his land for with mineral rights.
With Tesla’s run-up in stock price, Elon could buyout every drug cartel in Mexico.
Yes, on paper. But of course, the reason he doesn’t use any of his stock to acquire anyone is that it would tank the stock, and he’s already leveraged loans against his stock position. Tesla is one giant Ponzi scheme which has never made a dime on selling cars, and his scrap business is entirely designed to launder money for the Mexican cartels. He’s an endless pumping machine, but natural gas? That’s a new one.
Captain Climate
You say he has a scrap business? Tell us more. What kind of scrap?
Now that was f’n funny.
Let’s see how long the Socialist/Marxists let him exercise his entrepreneurship. He already exited California to get away from their ideology only to find it’s overtaking the country.
It’s overtaking most of the world … and it was the Democrat sell-outs and globalist elites who virtually provided China with the means by taking over US manufacturing and now entertainment industries. Until January 20 … there wasn’t much more than Trump and his followers to slow China’s rapid advances. Now what?
The Biden administration is neither Socialist or Marxist: it is a centre right govt.
griffy – your stupidity is showing again. Go read Orwell and Huxley.
DrEd, you have to remember, when you are as far out left as griffy, even the radical far left is considered somewhere to the right.
As for your reading suggestions, people like griffy already think of Orwell as a how to guide.
So true. No joke, I was watching a live stream where a Brit advised the Americans to vote as far left as possible (a primary was coming up). One of the Americans said, “In America, that’s a moderate.” I just about fell out of my chair. We literally have card-carrying socialists like Bernie Sanders in office, and that’s not far enough left for these West Coast people?
griff is so far to the left, that he thinks Mao was a moderate.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Must… catch… my… breath… bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Hasnt left California , Tesla Fremont plant is the largest US car factory
Elon, as the previous poster stated, has – he is now a resident of Texas. Tesla, on the other hand, hasn’t … yet. It currently still has, as you point out, a factory in Cali. It’s easier for a man to move from one state to another than it is for a factory to do so. (factories don’t just appear and disappear overnight, it takes time). Perhaps once the new plant Tesla is building in Texas is up and running, Elon will consider whether it’s worth it to still have that Cali plant, he’s certainly not going to close it down until he’s got a working replacement for it.
When you got US$189,000,000,000 I guess pretty much anything legal is within your power to dabble in. E. Musk has now passed the renown billionaire Bill Gates in the American net worth bonanza.
In August of next year, one of Elon’s SpaceX rockets will be launched to observe Psyche 13, (an asteroid containing an estimated $10,000 quadrillion worth of iron and precious metals (about the size of Massachusetts), and will start orbiting the asteroid from January 2026.
Leftists working to ban fossil fuels and insanely wasting $trillions on global Green New Deal projects will delay the development of new incredible industries such as space mining…
Leftists are clueless on the unintended consequences of their terrible policies.
Or are they clueless, really?
Leftists are both clueless and evil…
Not a very beneficial combination…
The Leftist elites who’ll be in power in the Brave New World know the end game, but the people who vote for their own enslavement are truly clueless..
More ridiculous fact free nonsense from the letter Q
Euler-san:
Try reading some history and BAC is economics….
BTW, the 5 jerks who actually believe the Qanon BS are complete nutters… It’s absolutely hilarious Lefties think these 5 dudes will takeover the US…
You’re delusional…
Do the people at Bloomberg have any idea what natural gas is primarily MADE of? Or are all of their editors Harvard grads?
Hydro carbon fuels are still the most viable way of generating large amounts of electrons. Renewables can never do it. Nuclear is incorrectly considered unsafe, and Dams are also labeled as unacceptable to environmentalists.
Some of the commenters here would do well to to do a little research before mouthing off.
Musk’s Starships and Super heavy boosters being manufactured on the production process at Boca Chica run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The largest component of natural gas is methane which can be separated out fairly easily and he’ll likely burn some of the methane and separated components to run a plant to make liquid oxygen. All quite logical and in line with SpaceX’s vertical integration.
Why methane? The rocket engines are reusable and methane does not have the coking problems that RP-1 has. It is the next best fuel to liquid hydrogen which is difficult to handle and isn’t used unless necessary.
Musk just bought two semi-submersible offshore oil rigs also probably as offshore launch and landing platforms. I wouldn’t bet against them also being connected to gas wells offshore.
For more go to http://www.nasaspaceflight.com and go to the forums section dealing with SpaceX and specifically Starship and Super Heavy.
One more thing: Musk wants Mars. You can use energy + CO2 + water to manufacture liquid methane and liquid oxygen on Mars. RP-1 is much more difficult as we know of no Martian oil wells.
+42×1042
From the article: “(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk recently moved to Texas, where he launches some of his rockets and is building a battery factory. Now, for good measure, he plans to drill for natural gas in the state.
The billionaire’s SpaceX intends to drill wells close to the company’s Boca Chica launchpad, it was revealed during a Friday hearing before the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s energy regulator.”
That’s funny! I just heard talking head Harold Ford, former Democrat representative, say on Fox News, how smart he thought Elon Musk was because he was building electric cars and launching spaceships and was having nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Now we see Elon is going into the drilling business!
Harold Ford was interviewed on Fox News last week and in the background of his house, you could see he had a picture of the Chinese Dictator Mao hanging on his wall behind him.
The picture has subsequently disappeared from later appearances.
Now why would a former Democrat representative have a picture of Mao in a position of prominence in his home?
I used to think Harold Ford had a little bit of sense, but I’m not so sure now.