Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Class A Common StockSpaceX building in-house foundry to cast turbine blades addresses a key bottleneck, potentially accelerating gas turbine production.
Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX is building a foundry in Bastrop, Texas, to cast gas turbine blades and vanes in-house, a move that could accelerate natural gas turbine production by up to 18 months and address a key bottleneck for AI infrastructure. Musk wrote on X that SpaceX and Tesla are each building 100GW/year of solar production capacity as fast as possible, but natural gas will still be needed to supplement and bootstrap solar for several years, and the limiting factor for gas turbine production is casting the blades and vanes. The foundry, which The Information reported on, will produce blades that must be cast as single unbroken crystals, a process mastered by only four companies worldwide, all currently at capacity. This capability would give Musk-controlled entities a manufacturing edge, but it also raises pollution concerns, as gas turbines have drawn lawsuits and health studies over emissions, including in Memphis where SpaceXAI operates turbines and in Virginia where a study estimated additional premature deaths and health damages.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Class A Common StockSpaceX building in-house foundry to cast turbine blades addresses a key bottleneck, potentially accelerating gas turbine production.
Tesla IncTesla mentioned as building solar capacity, but no direct impact on Tesla from the foundry news.