Why would the go after me than leaks if they know people will by their products?

A lot of the methane leaks are not “leaks” but intentional releases to “protect” equipment or to simply get rid of it. Until there are fines on the pollution it won’t stop.

> In the US, regions

First of all the US isn’t the whole world.

Like you said transportation is a problem which is why you would produce it close to where it’s needed (say Nebraska). You don’t need an “ideal” solar output location.

Yes I am well aware of the energy difference.

> Exactly. 20 kg of methane costs $3 today, but contains 15 kg of carbon that could be worth $20-$30. It's a non-trivial issue if you hate generating value

If carbon free hydrogen is going to be worth doing at scale it will be because there is a price on the carbon. So the input methane will go up in price.

As for the output, global demand for carbon black is currently ~14 million metric tones a year [0].

Current hydrogen demand is ~100 million metric tones a year [1].

100 Mt of hydrogen needs ~400 Mt of methane and produces ~300 Mt of carbon.

300 Mt vs 14 Mt of current demand. What do you supposed will happen to that carbon black price when you produce even a fraction of total hydrogen demand through pyrolysis?

It’s non-trivial cause you’re gonna be having to create reverse coal mines to store all that shit.

[0]: https://www.chemanalyst.com/industry-report/carbon-black-mar...

[1]: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-hydrogen-review-2025/dema...

By all means, define synthetic and explain why we should avoid “synthetic” foods.

But why?

What is commonplace today would be considered synthetic decades ago. Look at the breed of plants we grow, animals we raise, and staple foods (cheese) we eat.

Water is critical but not hard to get. The energy and cost required to take a m3 of dirty water and turn it into pure water is a rounding error compared to the energy required to hydrolyze it.

Yes methane is an environmental problem, even small methane leakages have a large GHG impacts. But the best way to deal with that environmental problem is to not pull it out of the ground in the first place

Plus for pyrolysis, you have to deal with the carbon which makes up 75% of the methane by weight. A non-trivial issue.