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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

#421

Post by stephen_g »

UzhasKakoi wrote: post #353

Thank you for the detailed description. I wonder what impact may this technology have on nature. Plants after all need CO2 to exist. Thank you. I’ll be rooting for you.

There is no risk in terms of taking too much CO2 out of the atmosphere. Over the last couple of hundred years, humans have put several trillion extra tonnes of the stuff in (by burning material sequestered over millions of years). Further, this tech carbon neutral, not carbon negative. The advantage is that when the fuel is used, it's just putting CO2 back into the air that was there before, not adding more.

Hopefully this kind of thing, in addition to switching the electricity grid to zero emissions tech will allow us to halt global warming where it's at.

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

#422

Post by fxfan »

[deleted] wrote: post #420
apo wrote: post #108

I'm skeptical, but fascinated by what you're doing. It sounds like all of the steps of your process are known, except: 1. CO2 fixation uses only electricity - no natural gas or other fossil fuels. It works at room temperature. 2. Distillation of the immediate products (alcohols) is not necessary. A carbon nanotube membrane solves the problem at room temperature through reverse osmosis. Correct? If so, then why target…

[deleted]

If you don't like Saudi's I'm guessing you don't use twitter or Citibank?

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

#423

Post by icelancer »

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…

>> who is paying $7/gallon for gas

A lot of people in the world. And Americans would pay close to that without subsidies + rising gas prices.

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

#424

Post by tedmcory77 »

NortySpock wrote: post #367
rmcginnis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our current prototype is the size of a refrigerator. One of the cool things about our tech is that it can work well at small scale. We don't have to get to a billion dollar plant to get the economics right. We could make a system to fit in your garage and make fuel at home. This isn't our focus right now because we want to solve the problem of CO2 emissions from fuel, so need to scale as fast as possible. That's the…

Still, "refrigerator-that-produces-fuel" would probably be a hit with those interested in living off the grid. Just an idea for a side market.

Possibly, a licensing play? May be a way to inject capital to get to the larger problem?

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

#425

Post by icelancer »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #306
NortySpock wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, gas taxes are low (I think I pay 15 cents per gallon tax on a total of $2.50 per gallon). Taxes are low as here in the US (a) many people hate taxes and (b) with such a low population density, commerce is very reliant on road vehicles. So raising taxes has an outsized impact on commerce.

California has higher gas taxes. Our gas is currently about $3.70 a gallon where I live.

About that in parts of Seattle as well. Which is low given a few year rolling average. We should expect gasoline prices to rise, and fast. So anything that starts to look into economically viable options at $7-10/gallon is worth checking into now in a startup phase.

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

#426

Post by Simple_Guy »

> Since we use zero-carbon electricity from sources like solar and wind to make our fuel, there are no net CO2 emissions when you use it.

So solar panels and wind turbines come into existence in a pure majestic carbon free manifestation?

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

#427

Post by GuB-42 »

That's basically what plants do. So the question becomes: what is the advantage of your system over biofuels?

An obvious one is that you can use electricity from any source (I am thinking nuclear), while plants are solar-only. But since you mentioned solar electricity, I think a side by side comparison of a biofuel producing field and its factory with a solar farm tied to your system could be interesting.

EDIT: In case it isn't clear, my point is not to call you stupid, I assume everyone who wants to extract CO2 from the air also considered plants, and for some reason, found that artificial means are somehow better. The real question is why? For example I know that natural photosynthesis is not very efficient, but there may be other reasons.

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

#428

Post by brilee »

A few questions from a chemistry major

1. why extract from the air when you can just put a device on the smokestack of an existing coal or natural gas plant? The higher CO2 density of the effluent will make things more efficient. 2. Your key innovation isn't the part where you pull CO2 out of the air; it's the nanotube-based reverse osmosis process for separating ethanol from water. This process could just as easily be applied to other fields. For example, bioethanol production similarly requires a very expensive distillation step to extract pure ethanol from the fermentation medium. Making that step more efficient would be much simpler than reinventing the entire supply chain around carbon dioxide extraction and subsequent reduction to ethanol.

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

#429

Post by rhinoceraptor »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #132
qmanjamz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bizarre comment. Being able to quickly refuel is one of the key advantages internal combustion engines have over electrics.

If the ev car companies got their shit together, they could have used swappable battery packs. You can wait around for 12h to charge, or you can turn in your cores and pay for 100% capacity batts now. And the swap would be quicker than standing around filling up a tank. But no. Each ev is different and proprietary. The chargers aren't even the same.

Swapping an EV battery is like swapping an ICE transmission. You can do it if you have a car lift and a scissor jack to drop it.
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