SpaceX to start making their own fuel supply

If SpaceX is going to launch as often as they say they want to, there's a big problem they need to address.  We got a hint about this in Flight Test 10 - after two days being scrubbed because of weather, on the third day, the coverage team said if it couldn't launch on that day, they couldn't try again the next day.  The cryogenic fuel and oxidizers were used up and it takes many days worth of deliveries to refill their tanks.  

Let's start with what seems to be a very obvious disconnect here.  SpaceX has spent years and millions on the building called Starfactory, that was designed to produce one Starship per day.  That's nothing short of an astounding number.  Remember the talk before FT-10 about "the machine to build the machine?"  That's Starfactory.  But what about the fuel?

Tanker trucks have typically delivered rocket propellant to launch pads at America's busiest spaceports in Florida and California. SpaceX has used the same method of bringing propellant for the first several years of operations at Starbase.  There are tons of reports that the road to Starbase those tanker trucks take are falling apart with potholes and cracked pavement everywhere. 

But a reusable Starship's scale dwarfs that of other rockets. It stands more than 400 feet tall, with a capacity for more than a million gallons of super-cold liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants. SpaceX also uses large quantities of liquid nitrogen to chill and purge the propellant loading system for Starship.

It's not just Starship's size. SpaceX has the green light from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch Starships up to 25 times per year from South Texas, and is seeking regulatory approval to fly up to 120 times from new launch pads on Florida's Space Coast. Eventually, SpaceX eyes daily launches of Starship, or even more, as the company deploys a fleet of ships traveling to low-Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. 

To accommodate one Starship launch, more than 200 tanker trucks traveling from distant refineries are needed to deliver all of the methane, liquid oxygen, and liquid nitrogen.   Now imagine one launch every hour for a full day.  4,800 trucks?   I'll just say can't be done.  Ain't gonna happen. The answer SpaceX chose is to create their own fuels.

The company recently received approval from local authorities to build an air separation plant across the highway just north of the Starbase launch pads. Construction of the plant began this summer. Once operational, this facility will take in air, condense it, and separate it into oxygen and nitrogen. The resulting liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen will flow about 1,000 feet through a pipeline into ground storage tanks at the launch site.   

This, of course, is only part of their needs.  There's no mention of fuel (methane).  

The answer to this problem is a pair of methane liquefaction facilities to convert natural gas—initially delivered by truck or a future pipeline—into pure liquid methane, and eventually, a methane generation plant co-located with Starbase's dual launch pads. 
...
A public notice released by the US Army Corps of Engineers on August 27 describes SpaceX's plans, and an accompanying map illustrates the changes coming to the Starbase launch site. 

This map published by the US Army Corps of Engineers shows SpaceX's proposed expansion at Starbase. The launch site's existing footprint is in blue, and SpaceX's proposed expansion is in white. Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers

The plans for the Kennedy Space Center are behind this level of completeness as the launch facilities are behind the Starbase, Texas level of completeness, and the Corps of Engineers is soliciting comments and feedback on the plans.

Plans for Starship's future launch pads in Florida, still undergoing environmental reviews, show SpaceX intends to produce its own propellant there, too. The Army's public notice for SpaceX's plans at Starbase didn't include any details on how the air separation unit and methane liquefaction facility will work. But a draft environmental impact statement published by the Federal Aviation Administration last month lays out how SpaceX will bring the on-site propellant generation capability online at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

In the interest of keeping this to be a shorter read, I've left out much of the commentary that's in the original story at Ars Technica.  As always, you'll get more details out of the original story than I excerpt.