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It should not be overlooked that having MOF where you can tailor at the atomic level the pore size you can selectively extract hold and then release a gas. CH4 , H2O, CO2 are all valuable gasses. MOF are being looked at to store high density CH4 that’s natural gas to the nonchemists but at under 500 psi not 3000+ going from expensive carbon fiber tanks to cheap steel would really help the trucking industry. Cummins has a “diesel” engine correctly a MCCI (mixture controlled compression ignition) that was certified as zero/zero/zero recently. That’s zero NOx,zero SOx,zero 2’5PM aka criteria pollutants. By achieving 0/0/0 the EPA job and regulatory reach is done only water,nitrogen and CO2 come out the exhaust pipe job’s over go home.

0/0/0 can only be achieved with gaseous fuels liquids due to physics will always make either particulates or NOx and if they have sulfur even at ppm levels SOx. Catalysts and particulate traps can reduce but not eliminate this unavoidable products of the combustion process.

Having a easy way to store methane means more clean running trucks and Ngas is half the cost of diesel in a lot of states on a equal BTU basis.

Methane can also be made from CO2, water and electrons via a number of electrochemical pathways. Elon plans to fuel his Starship this way as it’s the tech you need on Mars to make fuel from Martian atmosphere CO2, water ice and solar power or better yet nukes. Here on earth if you have cheap off peak nuke electrons and a MOF that can extract CO2 from the air cheaply you can make synthetic methane for your trucks,cars and gas grid. With nukes the fast breeder kind you have billions of years worth of uranium to make effectively unlimited synthetic methane since when it’s burnt it comes back to CO2 and a water in the atmosphere which is where you got those in the first place for the synthetic methane.

[To make 1 kg of methane CH4 from CO2 and H2, you need approximately 2.74 kg of CO2 and 0.5 kg of H2 plus a bit more hydrogen to account for the reaction’s stoichiometry. The overall chemical reaction, known as the Sabatier reaction, is: CO2+4H2>>>CH4+2H2O]

[1 gallon of diesel is equivalent to approximately 2.61 kg of methane CH4 in terms of heat energy output. ]

2.74kg*2.61(DGE)= 7.15kg CO2
0.5*2.61= 1.305kg H2

$75/1000kg= $0.075 per kg that’s 7.5 cents of CO2 if you can grab it from the air for $75 per tonne Georgia Tech says they can do that today not using targeted MOF so it could be cheaper. 35 euro is $42 per tonne that’s 4.2 cents per diesel gallon equivalent of synthetic methane.

The H2 is the energy expensive part you have to make it from water and electrons. The industry value for alkaline electrolysis is 50 kilowatt hours per kg. You need 1.3kg to make a DEG amount of methane. That’s 51.75kwh at Texas ERCOT off peak wind rates of $10 per megawatt hour or under the same rates can be had when the Sun is blasting during the period from 8 am till the noon peak Sun we see $5-10 per megawatt hour. $5 per MWh is 5/10s of a cent kWh $10 is 1 cent per kWh. So 25-51 cents per diesel gallon equivalent of synthetic methane.

Of course you have to pay for the electrolysis cells the richest man in India has personally financed a company that crossed the $200 per kg per hour on capital costs with a design lifetime of 30,000 operating hours for the alkaline electrolysis cells and cats.

This leads to a capex of $200/30000= 0.667 cents per kg of H2 at this cost only running those cells when wholesale power is $5-10 is feasible you get 4 hours in the sunny morning and 4-8 hours over night on windy nights.

You could buy a CANDU nuclear reactor and run it 24/7 for just synfuel use thuse put put $18 per megawatt hour to the plant gate LCOE with capacity factors of 80+ %

$18 MWh gives 93.15 cents per diesel gallon equivalent of synthetic methane. Still plenty low enough in real dollar value to have the necessary mark ups for, profits, distribution, marketing and taxes which make up 2/3-3/4 of the retail price of any fuel.

If you really want to get crazy put your electrolysis and methane reactors plus CO2 capture right next to a solar panel field and only run them when the Sun is up directly off the 480V DC coming from that field.

Wholesale bifacial thin film 800 watt commercial panels can be had for 12 cents per watt of capacity with a design lifetime of 30 years to 80% original wattage. There are 40+ year old panels still in use above 80% SOH the decline curves are all trending asymptotic after the first 5 years or so. But we will use the warranty life for the maths.

You need to know what your PVOUT value is for the site you plan to put those panels. West Texas has PVOUT of 4.8-5.6+. PVOUT is the 30 year average daily output a panel will make including all clouds,rain,and night time. It’s in kWh per day or kWh per year. A PVOUT of 5 with an 800 watt single sided panel makes 4kWh per day over 365 days so 1460 kWh per year which is really what PVOUT is a yearly average, of course the panel will make more in August than January. Bifacial panels have two sides and make upwards of 25% more than the PVOUT value due to reflected light on the other side of panel. Bifacial can also be mounted vertical surfaces and make power in any angle and orientation even north south and vertical as they catch the rising and setting Sun beams they also make significantly more than flat panels in winter when the Sun is lower the day
Is out there.

Proof is in the pudding.

https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1844102046871666963

Ok so let’s use 1460kWh per year per panel that’s enough to make 29.2kg of H2 and using the syn CH4 reaction above 28.2 diesel gallon equivalent of synthetic methane per year. This is from a 3sq meter sized piece of Silicon 2.4*1.4 metres in size. That 28 dge sends a semi at 8mpg 225 miles down the road for a 100,000 mile a year truck you would need 443 of such panels to make the SNG to fuel it. That is also 1,329.78 square meters worth of space a hectare is 100*100 meters of 10,000 square meters so a single trucks yearly SNG could be provided by 1/13th of a hectare. Put the other way a hectare which is about the size of a regulation football(soccer) pitch can provide the electrons for SNG for 7.52 trucks running 100,000 miles per year.

[The size of the West Texas desert (Chihuahuan Desert) within Texas borders is approximately 24.5 million hectares or about 95,000 square miles. ]

^^^^there is lots of Fing desert in West Texas.

When I say forever energy this is what bloody well I mean by forever energy.

So cost of solar electrons at the field edge. Off the panel its 12 cents per watt of capacity capex so PVOUT at 5, 1460 kWh per year and a 30 year lifespan. From 100% to 80% over 30 years cuts the output using 90% at 15 years. So the annual production over the 30-year period forms an arithmetic sequence, starting at 1460 kWh and ending at 1168 kWh per year.

This means the lifetime kwh is integrated as 39420 kWh from a panel that was delivered on site for $96. This makes those solar electrons have a panel capex cost of 0.2435312 CENTS per kilowatt hour over the life of the panel. Again the IEA also has days but it should be clear this is the cheapest form of moving electrons humans have ever come up with not even nukes can touch that number. We have fusion power it’s in the bloody sky we just need energy harvesting machines to use it and those machines exist and can be dropped off by the semi truck load for $90 ish per device which give 2/10th of cent kWhs , mounting and wiring adds more but you can get that under 50 cents per watt of capacity including the inverters , for electrolysis you don’t need inverters they run on DC as is you need a DC/DC setup to lower the high voltage from the panel field to low volt electrolysis cells levels.

This is forever energy stored in CNG or MOF based tanks that SNG just sits there till you need it , you could just as easily burn it in a combined cycle gas turbine at night for 24/7 power too.

The numbers get better for the Tesla Semi...

[Real-World Efficiency Figures

1.55 kWh per mile: The most efficient reported figure, achieved by logistics company ArcBest in a 3-week, nearly 5,000-mile trial.

~1.7 kWh per mile: An earlier, widely cited figure from PepsiCo and confirmed by Elon Musk in 2022.

1.72 kWh per mile: A figure reported by DHL during a 3,000-mile pilot test. ]

Remember that single panel is going to make 39,420 kWh over it’s life of 30 years, or avg 13,140 for each of three ten year blocks. 10 years and 1 million miles is 1.7 million kWh needed to charge that truck.

1.7 million kWh /13140= 129.3 panels not the 443 for SNG production. 129 panels is 338 square meters worth of space if layed flat horizontal that’s only 4/10ths of a hectare to send a Tesla Semi a million miles over ten years. West Texas has billions of hectares of

Again THIS JS FOREVER ENERGY. It never runs out that fusion reactor in the sky has at least a billion years of life before it goes Red giant and cooks us to a crisp.