An Interview with Terraform Industries CEO Casey Handmer About the Solar Energy Revolution
Summary
This is an interview with Casey Handmer, the founder and CEO of Terraform Industries, conducted by Ben Thompson of Stratechery. The conversation revolves around the potential of solar energy and the technology being developed by Terraform Industries to produce natural gas and oil from sunlight and air. Casey Handmer comes from a background in physics and has worked in academia, startups, and NASA before founding Terraform Industries.
Solar energy is undergoing a cost revolution, with prices dropping at an exponential rate, making it increasingly attractive as an energy source.
Batteries are a crucial component in enabling the widespread adoption of solar energy, as they allow for energy storage and load balancing.
Terraform Industries is developing a technology called the "Terraformer" that can convert solar energy into natural gas and oil, which can be easily transported and used in various industries.
The localization of energy production through solar and synthetic fuels could lead to a reorganization of society and a reduction in dependence on long supply chains.
While there are regulatory and environmental concerns, the economic benefits of solar energy and synthetic fuels are compelling, and their adoption appears inevitable.
Excerpts
On the cost revolution of solar energy:
"Solar technology is is improving at a predictably enormous rate. And at this rate in 10 years' time, it should be extremely interesting. And here we are, you know, I guess, 13 years later now, and and it's been extremely interesting for a few years. But, yeah, fundamentally, it just comes down to the question of energy."
"You know, as solar gets cheap enough, doesn't really matter which process you choose. It's probably 300 different approaches that Terraform could have taken. We think we picked the right one. But, yeah, there's plenty of other companies out there trying different ones, and it'll become pretty clear."
On the importance of batteries:
"Well, so actually even Ramesses' predictions were were too conservative. No no one has predict no one no one back then predicted that solar would get as cheap as it has now. Like, if you look at the DOE's predictions in 2012 for, like, how long it would take for us to get to current solar costs, their best guesses were, like, 21.50. And I I don't know if I'll live that long. So so, of course, like, you know, their entire road map for decarbonization didn't include this."
"Battery manufacturing is probably a little bit more complex and not quite as, well developed as, like, silicon solar panel manufacturing. But, you know, we're seeing year on year growth of battery manufacturing is, like, well over a 100%. So it's actually growing faster than solar. And then the cost improvement is not quite as steep, but it's easily like 5 or 10% per year, depending on, you know, which technology you're looking at."
On Terraform Industries' Terraformer technology:
"So, so, I mean, from a from a customer's perspective on the outside, essentially, what a Terraform does is it allows you to build your own oil or gas well in your backyard, regardless of, you know, the fact that you don't own a drill rig. And and in fact, you don't live anywhere near where oil and gas occurs naturally, which is, again, pretty cool. Right?"
"But how does it work under the hood? Well, it consumes electricity, and and most of that electricity gets used, locally. Actually, I should state the terraformer itself sits in the solar array, and that's to reduce the cost of transmission of electricity, which is would be absolutely prohibitive in this in this case. And and the electricity gets used to, capture CO2 from the air and to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. We throw the oxygen away, like like trees do."
On the potential for localized energy production:
"I think it's huge positive. Right? Like and I think one of the challenges we face conceptually is that when people think of oil and gas, they think of, like, you know, it's all in Saudi Arabia and maybe parts of Texas or something. It's certainly not evenly distributed around the world. Whereas like solar power is pretty much evenly distributed everywhere that people live."
"Yeah. I mean, in this transitionary period, the the battery operators are making making an absolute killing. But, you know, I think I think, you know, in in 20 or 30 years, everyone has a 50 kilowatt hour battery pack in the house. You know, we don't we no longer have to invest the sort of money that is bankrupting PG and E, ensuring that we have 99.9% uptime on on every corner of the grid."
On the inevitability of solar energy and synthetic fuels:
"As a physicist or a mathematician, I like to think about existence proofs. And the existence proof is that all the underlying technology required to do this has been understood for a 100 years. And, you know, until maybe 5 years ago, solar was nowhere near cheap enough to make this worthwhile. Right? So you could you could do it. You just lose a lot of money. But, you know, as solar gets cheap enough, doesn't really matter which process you choose."
"Well, so actually even Ramesses' predictions were were too conservative. No no one has predict no one no one back then predicted that solar would get as cheap as it has now. Like, if you look at the DOE's predictions in 2012 for, like, how long it would take for us to get to current solar costs, their best guesses were, like, 21.50. And I I don't know if I'll live that long. So so, of course, like, you know, their entire road map for decarbonization didn't include this."