[elif]

Yup and musk also argues in favor of a carbon tax. He is openly hopeful that the fundamental economics will be changed to make producing their own methane via Sabatier economical.

It is up to the controllers of incentive structures to change the fundamentals of commerce/ecology.

[lazide]

Pretty sure that would require something like a 5x cost increase in carbon, though I can’t find hard numbers anywhere easily. Do you have any pointers?

[elif]

If musk followed strict economics as implied by your premise, he would be launching disposable rockets with Boeing.

who knows what expense space X would be willing to shoulder to be sustainable... We are fortunate that it is still privately owned, and isn't legally obligated to pursue the financial interests of shareholders like all the other players in aerospace.

[lazide]

Pretty sure what Musk has been doing is a reasonably common business case - generating demand with some impressive salesmanship to increase volume and disrupt a schlerotic market ripe for disruption by driving down unit costs - and eventually competitors out of business. With decreases in unit costs, it unlocks more uses, which is a positive cycle.

It’s not an unusual playbook at all, but it is unusual that it is done in the satellite launch space. Kudos to him for that.

All the other players are military industrial complex, and the reason they act the way they do is more about market capture than anything else - shareholders are of course a concern, but not a huge one.

It also doesn’t change thermodynamics or any of the energy gathering, chemical precursor gathering, infrastructure, or raw input gathering problems.

Mars gets very little insolation. Mars has no infrastructure. Mars has no breathable air. Mars has no known life or biological sources we could survive on. Mars is very cold. Mars has no raw materials (or useful environments we know of to process anything) that would justify the energy required to export it.

It’s literally more hospitable and more useful to be on the North Pole, and I don’t see anyone in a rush to build housing developments there.

[gpm]

> Pretty sure that would require something like a 5x cost increase in carbon

5x over what? The US doesn't have a carbon tax does it?

[lazide]

5x over the current baseline cost of fuel. The only studies I could find of doing this were using large scale bulk solar and not counting financing costs into the equation.

They found that if avoiding fossil fuel use (natural gas is the cheapest easily available Hydrogen source right now), and cracking water to get it, end to end energy efficiency is between 44-56% (as in electrical efficiency to theoretical available chemical energy in the fuel). Burning said fuel for energy (turbines being one of the most efficient ways) then varies from 40-63% efficiency, rockets can hit up to 70% efficiency (varies immensely by many factors).

So, getting what they need from a fossil fuel is up to 70% efficient. Getting what they need from a Sebatier process? 28-41% efficient (combined). Add in extra capital costs and maintenance of acquiring and running the equipment, about 5x more expensive fossil fuel evens out.

It’s potentially worse than that of course when you factor in potential increases in electrical rates if fossil fuels did get 5x, but there is nothing saying that would for sure happen. They presumably could run it during oversupply from a large solar plant, but that is already factored into those studies. If you’re doing it at scale, that ‘free energy’ won’t be free for long.