How long does the the carbon nanotube membrane last? How many gallons can it produce before it needs replacing? And how much it costs to manufacture?
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
#252You'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…
The real question should be: How much improvement over time in the efficiency of this process could be expected? 1.1x? 2x? 10x? 100x? Every new technology goes through a refinement cycle where costs & resources are reduced, and I would assume the same is possible here.
Presumably they would make gains in efficiency, but only to a point - if a gallon of gasoline contains 34 kWh of energy you'll always need at least that much to create one, and at 60 kWh/gal now they aren't that far off.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#253[deleted]
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#254So, what's your current fuel output per squaremeter of membrane?
EDIT: read the Bloomberg-report and this reminds me a little bit of the cold-fusion buzz and the occasional kid doing yellow cake in his/her basement. But hey, today there's enough money floating around and why not bet a little ...
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#255Looking for any software engineers?
And if not, what do you need?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#256Can you make vodka out of thin air?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#257It's never said explicitly and I couldn't find a question about it, but everyone talks as if we'll need solar input to power this. I assume this means the machine doesn't produce enough fuel to power itself?
At any rate, amazing product. Can I (eventually) buy one of those machines or donate somewhere to make my area CO2 free?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#258Very 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: “unchecked”: I was speaking more from an economic perspective, rather than a technical one. If there is a new CO2 sourced product with a long lifetime and the carbon does not return to the atmosphere for a long period, and it is in high global demand, it could open the door to the issues I’m trying to highlight in the original comment.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#259My most immediate question (after others you already answered in this thread) is about getting enough CO2. When you start absorbing CO2 from the air, won't the CO2 in the neighborhood be depleted very quickly? And I'm assuming you can't pump enormous amounts of air either for various reasons (noise, energy usage, other environmental issues). Of course there's wind to bring more CO2, but I'm curious about your computa…
Don't you just need to open a window and wait a few seconds to desaturate a room where too many people breathe ?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#260It's never said explicitly and I couldn't find a question about it, but everyone talks as if we'll need solar input to power this. I assume this means the machine doesn't produce enough fuel to power itself? At any rate, amazing product. Can I (eventually) buy one of those machines or donate somewhere to make my area CO2 free?
Well of course not. It does not defy the laws of thermodynamics.