Could you also make a filter that distills liquor?
Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
61–70 of 589 posts
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#62Incredible pitch, I wish you luck. This would be an amazing alternative to batteries in areas where there would otherwise be renewable over-capacity. While it appears less efficient, it is transportable and easy to store.
Please keep us all updated on how it goes, I'm sure you will see a lot of excitement about what you are doing.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#63This is really cool! I hope that you can rise above the comments of the "this isn't good enough" or "zero carbon or bust" crowd. This type of innovation is what we need to move the needle in a realistic manner and that helps to build on the infrastructure that we already have in place.
I'm excited to see what comes of this in the coming years!
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#64Would you be willing to share vague details of your roadmap? Specifically; How many barrels of ready to burn gasoline are you outputting per day in 6 months? 1 year? 3 years? The fact that the general fuel is going to be sold and re-burned means this is at best carbon neutral, so from a cynical environmentalist point of view, what's the point? This can't help anyone unless you pump the synth-gas into the ground and s…
...the general fuel is going to be sold and re-burned means this is at best carbon neutral, so from a cynical environmentalist point of view, what's the point? This can't help anyone unless you pump the synth-gas into the ground and sequester it... The status quo today is that we are removing carbon from the ground and putting it into the air. This replaces those fuels that currently come out of the ground. It's stil…
An EV makes several times the motion from the same energy input.
> Even electric vehicles aren't carbon neutral, because they're mostly charged by coal power.Even electric vehicles aren't carbon neutral, because they're mostly charged by coal power.
Is thus an invalid/irrelevant argument.
I can get excited about jet fuel however, since battery powered planes are considerably less practical than their traditional counter parts with the current technology.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks!
How much of what you are doing is "behind closed doors / patented / patent pending"? If there was a list of materials needed to do this on a consumer level, I could see a lot of people wanting to play around with this as a hobby.
Patented, yes. You could do the fuel synthesis in water on a hobby level, and use a thermal still to get something flammable, but you wouldn't be able to use it in an engine. It's pretty fascinating to work on though.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#66Is your supply chain carbon neutral?
The inputs are zero carbon, but there will be life cycle (LCA) impacts in the materials of construction. We'll likely be well in carbon negative territory even including materials, and will do a LCA to verify this when we get a chance.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#67I don't have anything new to add, other than to say - this is a very well written startup pitch. I'm in awe of how clearly you've laid out the opportunity.
I concur. This is really great news about a great product. I only have supportive feedback and no complaints. It carbon neutral and it’s competitive. It’s one of the pieces to the puzzle solving pollution and GHGs in the atmosphere.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#68How could the math possibly work out on this? If a gallon of gas holds 33.70 kWh of energy, and you can get cheap electricity for $0.1/kWh, you're looking at $3.37/gallon if you have a magical process that converts with 100% efficiency. Even if you hit your efficiency goal, which would be impressive, who is paying $7/gallon for gas? Just buy an electric car. This can only possibly be useful when all of the oil is gon…
Don't skate to where the puck is, skate to where the puck is going to be. Electric cars can't compete against gasoline cars until the price hits about $6/gallon. And considering that crude prices are relatively low, but gas in CA is almost $4/gallon in the Bay Area, it doesn't take much time for normal rates to hit $6/gallon in the next 10 years or so. At that price, it becomes more economic and that's the time frame…
ICE cars cant compete with convenience of:
* not needing to refuel
* less maintenance needed
* not spewing particulates in air etc (if you care about what you breathe)
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#69Can you talk a bit about the waste-water left over? Assuming it's non-potable, what does the disposal path look like? How much of such water is there at scale, e.g., water-per gallon of petro-product? Thanks, sounds awsome.
There is no waste. The only inputs are water, CO2, and electricity. The only outputs are fuel and oxygen.
With respect, that answer skirts the question of what happens to the water.
You said you're using the nanotube membrane to separate petro products from the water. What do you do with the water left over? What state is the water in when the process is complete? Potable? In need of treatment by traditional water treatment facilities?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#70How quickly could you pull CO2 out of the air if you were scaled up to make full use of a typical nuclear reactor for the electricity? If you just stored the output of that process rather than refining it into gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel, how would that product compare in cost to drilled oil in the same state?
My thinking here is that creating gasoline and selling it for immediate use is at best carbon neutral, and at worst delaying the replacement of that gasoline-burning equipment with an all-electric version. But if your focus was on replenishing raw oil reserves for future (hopefully mostly non-burning) use, you'll be removing CO2 from the atmosphere. To do it at significant scale requires a lot of energy, and a nuclear reactor is much better at providing that level of energy than other zero-carbon sources. The trade-off is nuclear waste, but that's much more containable than the waste from non-zero-carbon energy producers for equivalent amounts of energy. Eventually it could be reprocessed to extract more energy from it as well, until the radioactivity is used up.