Natural gas promoters explain that it burns much cleaner than other fossil fuels such as coal or gasoline. What if we can turn it into a zero-pollution fuel, and get a few bonus products from it? One big dream, capturing greenhouse gases and turning them into useful, non-polluting fuels or even materials, still drives researchers to find those answers. We have reported on several approaches to turning atmospheric carbon into carbon fiber recently, but Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) is working on turning its main product, natural gas, into hydrogen, carbon fiber, and carbon nanotubes. SoCal has partnered with the startup C4-MCP with the goal of offsetting the expense of making hydrogen by selling carbon fiber and carbon nanotubes that come incidentally from the production of the hydrogen. Those material sales could lower the cost of hydrogen to $2 per kilogram, competitive with conventional gasoline and Diesel vehicles. Yuri Freedman, SoCalGas’ senior director of market development, explains, “This technology takes …
