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Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

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Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#71

Post by [deleted] »

solarkraft wrote: post #64
tofof wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 coun…

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#73

Post by semi-extrinsic »

mrguyorama wrote: post #28

Would 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 main thing that's turned me positive on "e-fuels" is that there's such a huge amount of petroleum that's used today in applications where we basically have no other options.

Think stuff like big jets, or container ships. If you sit down and crunch the numbers for any non-carbon energy carrier, you either end up sinking the ship or with a fuel tank twice the size of the cargo.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#74

Post by mrguyorama »

tofof wrote: post #40
mrguyorama wrote: post #28

Would 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…

>What would be the point of converting the carbon dioxide to alcohol to gasoline and spending electricity to do it? At a minimum you could just pump at the alcohol stage.

Sounds like a great idea! My general point is that zero carbon energy sources like wind and solar are at least mildly zero sum, and creating brand new load on them would likely just result in capacity moving over to other producers like natural gas and coal.

I guess I don't understand why YC is throwing money at this because I'm not confident there's profitability on the horizon, unless they nail down mind bogglingly large scale of production of aviation fuel,

Meanwhile, if San Fran is looking to dump money on (IMO) nebulous and green projects, give me money and I'll plant 100k trees

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#75

Post by ballenf »

mshron wrote: post #37
Damorian wrote: post #19

How 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…

Solar is already down to $0.065/kWh for industrial applications [1]. That's $3.90/gallon at today's prices, and solar prices continue to fall. The DOE's 2020 targets came three years ahead of schedule. Their 2030 target is $0.04/kWh [2], which would work out to $2.40/gallon. Mix in the fact that a bunch of countries (and US states) have implemented carbon taxes and you've got yourself a good long term investment. [1]…

Do those figures include gas taxes? Don't those make up a large part of the price at the pump?

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#76

Post by berbec »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #73
mrguyorama wrote: post #28

Would 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 main thing that's turned me positive on "e-fuels" is that there's such a huge amount of petroleum that's used today in applications where we basically have no other options . Think stuff like big jets, or container ships. If you sit down and crunch the numbers for any non-carbon energy carrier, you either end up sinking the ship or with a fuel tank twice the size of the cargo.

Plastics! Zero-carbon plastics would be great. Pull CO2 from the air, mix with water and wind/solar elec and product bags, phones etc!

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#79

Post by tlb »

tofof wrote: post #40
mrguyorama wrote: post #28

Would 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…

California electricity is only 1% coal. 52% is natural gas and 40% is carbon-free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California. Most growth is in renewables.
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