Get to keep current infrastructure, engines, powerplants etc? Check!
Get the probability of gasoline with carbon neutrality? Check!
What an exciting technology!
Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
241–250 of 589 posts
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#242Very exciting! I believe these types of approaches will be greatly beneficial in turning the tide of environmental change. However, I am curious about the long (very long) term effects of this technology. If atmospheric CO2 becomes a resource for the production of goods that do not release the CO2 back into the environment for reuse, would there be a risk of O2 overabundance? If left unchecked it could overcorrect fo…
Seems unlikely that overcorrection would be a problem. By the time we are there, there should be many other options, and there will be plenty of time to prepare.
Right now, it seems the big concern is the next 20-50 years.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#243Very exciting! I believe these types of approaches will be greatly beneficial in turning the tide of environmental change. However, I am curious about the long (very long) term effects of this technology. If atmospheric CO2 becomes a resource for the production of goods that do not release the CO2 back into the environment for reuse, would there be a risk of O2 overabundance? If left unchecked it could overcorrect fo…
>If left unchecked it could overcorrect for global warming and usher in an ice age.
The entire point of being able to control it is that it's not just left unchecked. We'll modify it while studying it, and then when it becomes so routine it's trivial, we'll automate it.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#244> turns out that doesn’t matter as long as the electricity is zero carbon and low cost. If the cost of our equipment is also low, then we believe we can not only make zero carbon fuel, but actually compete on price with fossil fuel. That's a lot of "if". How close are you to that? If you plan to sell to car users, how do you plan to compete with electric cars, that can get about 8x the use out of the electricity (and…
There are lots of current uses of fuel besides short-transit automobiles.
Large sea shipping, aircraft, and rockets will continue to use fuel for a long time.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the alcohol upgrade to gasoline makes sense technically and economically for you, why is it not commonly done with (presumably much cheaper and extant in great volume) industrial alcohol today?
He said "inexpensive", not "economical". The whole process isn't economical yet . Perhaps conversion is more economical with their particlar sorts of alcohol though.
Understood, although eventually it has to become "economical" or it doesn't fly.
My point was, you can view the alcohols as a feedstock for the gasoline production, and given that, you might just stream in large quantities of already-produced and cheap grain ethanol etc. from Indiana.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#246Are you using anything to do with those nano-spike catalysts? Was one of the first things that came to mind when I read the pitch. - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/intervie...
Not using nanospikes, but there are many proven heterogeneous catalysts now that can do the same job. Can't elaborate here, sorry!
Yayy, a mystery. I like mysteries. Could you elaborate on where you could elaborate?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#247You've elsewhere quoted 60 kWh per gallon of renewable gasoline. The US consumed 391.40 million gallons per day on average in 2018 [1], and concurrently had generation capacity for 1.153 billion kWh per day from non-hydroelectric renewable sources [2]. That suggests that full replacement of current gasoline usage would require ~23.48 billion kWh per day, which far outpaces what is currently available. Of course any r…
To replace all gasoline in the US, it will require a substantial increase in renewable power plants. We estimate it will cost approx. $1T to build that capacity, although the cost could go down as it is done. To put that in context, the amount invested in shale fracking in an 8 year period between 2010 and 2018 was approx. $0.7 T, so not as crazy as it sounds. https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2018/july/investment-an…
Thanks - that makes a lot of sense. I suppose the same issue exists with a large scale up of electric vehicles, so your interests would dovetail with other parties there and hopefully collectively spur grown in renewable generation capacity.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#248By law, gasoline gets cut with ethanol, degrading engine performance. If I buy gas from you guys will it be legal to put 100% gasoline into my engine? If so that's a "killer app," (so to speak) for people who care about their engines, even if it is more expensive in early development stages.
Why do you say ethanol degrades performance? Ethanol is an anti-knocking agent when added to gasoline, so it actually enables higher performance.
It degrades energy density of the fuel (by volume).
In other words, today's gasoline in US takes you 4% less distance than gasoline from 70s.
It also creates problems with internal corrosion (which is why it is not used in aircraft fuels), though modern auto engines are designed to deal with that (and are more expensive because of that, too).
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#249Very exciting! I believe these types of approaches will be greatly beneficial in turning the tide of environmental change. However, I am curious about the long (very long) term effects of this technology. If atmospheric CO2 becomes a resource for the production of goods that do not release the CO2 back into the environment for reuse, would there be a risk of O2 overabundance? If left unchecked it could overcorrect fo…
> If left unchecked it could overcorrect for global warming and usher in an ice age.
Human society can live through, and has lived through, glacial periods, all within the current ice age. It hasn't survived through a warning period that ended an ice age. Warming is both more imminent and more dangerous.
That said, consuming CO2 without releasing O2 won't significantly increase the O2 level anyway, because the total CO2 level isn't a significant proportion of the O2 level. Depleting CO2 too far runs a bigger risk of reducing O2 by reducing plant biomass which depends on CO2 and produces O2.
In any case, any risk of reducing CO2 concentration is easily mitigated by ramping up enough fossil-fuel-based energy production to counteract the decrease. CO2 underabundance isn't a problem we have, but it's certainly a problem for which we have (without specific intent) done an excessively good job of developing, proving, and deploying infrastructure to mitigate if necessary.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#250Earlier 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…
>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…
Not sure how in the last 10 years after the last gas shock that people have forgotten the petroleum is a finite resource that we are going through rapidly. If you read E&P announcements and various P2/P3 reserve estimates of existing resources and measure those against daily global consumption it is pretty alarming. Presuming stable petroleum input prices may not be a reasonable assumption.