Turning Air, Water, and Sunlight into Natural Gas: Casey Handmer’s Vision for Sustainable Energy Part 1
Casey Handmer, founder of Terraform Industries, explains his company's approach to producing sustainable natural gas by combining direct air capture of CO2 with green hydrogen generated via electrolysis. He argues that conventional green hydrogen is economically unviable due to high costs and infrastructure challenges, advocating instead for modular, low-cost electrolyzers powered directly by cheap solar energy to produce methane on-site. Handmer draws on his background in space exploration and physics to frame the problem as one of energy arbitrage, emphasizing the necessity of hydrocarbons for heavy industry and aviation while dismissing hydrogen as a standalone fuel.