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Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
441–450 of 589 posts
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electricity costs more than heat, as a rule. (electricity = heat at pretty much 100% efficiency) Intermittent operation blows up CAPEX costs. There's no heat in the system until you start dumping electricity into the resistive heating of your cells - you won't ever be able to run at scale at room temperature. A gallon of gas per second unit - something nicely sized for intermittent operation at a gas station - would…
It's true that running part of the time is not as good as running continuously, but if the capital is low enough, it's ok to start out running intermittently until we get to the point where we have low cost dedicated power and can have a higher uptime. We will have to shed heat from the system to the environment, but that can be done passively. Current densities are likely going to be substantially lower, but our cap…
Hook to nuclear and hydro electricity and you can get your uptime much higher while remaining carbon free. That should give you a good 2x boost on capex at least.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#443Why did you name this Prometheus, sounds like you know the startup will be punished for trying to help Humankind, Who is Zeus and how pissed off is he for this knowledge being shared. In the future do you foresee Prometheus bound to a rock, with an attendant vulture to eat out it's liver? The stolen gift of fire has been variously interpreted as representing a great number of crucial human capacities such as mechanical arts, science, language, imagination, consciousness itself... Prometheus became our benefactor by making a raid on the knowledge withheld from us by Zeus in his anger. Prometheus' defiance became our salvation in an episode that appears to rebut the proverb that ignorance is bliss, but it seems unwise to deprive Prometheus of the rest of his story in Hesiod's versions. In retaliation for Prometheus' insubordination, Zeus sends Pandora as she too was a gift not stolen but made in order to tempt Prometheus' gullible brother, Epimetheus. By falling victim to her charms (harms) Epimetheus brought into our midst the creation that's name means "giver of all" or "gift of all." What Pandora gave us, when she removed the lid of the box was grief, cares, and all evil. Her curiosity about the contents of the box matches Epimetheus' curiosity about a new companion. The dire effects of her "gifts" cancel out the benefits bestowed by Prometheus' defiance of the gods. Naming something Prometheus is undoubtedly going to be a jinx, quickly changing a startup into a enddown. Pandora only lets ills out of the box she does not force ills back into the box. You must create a new Name for this.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#444This 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!
I'm conflicted. This is clearly better than what we have but I was really hoping for a carbon negative future. I hope projects like this are a stepping stone and not a handbrake on progress.
If it breaks our dependency on fossil fuels then I'm all for it.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#445[deleted]
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#446A 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…
"why extract from the air when you can just put a device on the smokestack of an existing coal or natural gas plant? "
The process uses clean electricity to reverse the CO2. I suspect here we have a timing issue. When the sun shines, the gas plant will be idle, and that's when the spare electricity is available is used to reverse the process.
And the physical position - the gas plant is likely to be where the sun shines less.
As ever we have a storage buffer problem.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#447Is it possible to take the stuff from the air and store it in wood? If it was you could sell "CO2 storage furniture". This would make your business model green green.
I cannot find the reference but I remember that a chemists organisation was years ago suggesting one should buy furniture/wood products. (This certainly sounds adventurous and I might not remember this correctly.) Certain types of wood come from controlled wood growing/farming, and those trees grow quite fast. So the bottom line was that they suggested to consider Wood a natural CO2 sink.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#448A 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…
"why extract from the air when you can just put a device on the smokestack of an existing coal or natural gas plant? " The process uses clean electricity to reverse the CO2. I suspect here we have a timing issue. When the sun shines, the gas plant will be idle, and that's when the spare electricity is available is used to reverse the process. And the physical position - the gas plant is likely to be where the sun shi…
The co2 could be stored underground? I guess that could deal with the timing issue at least?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#449Is it possible to take the stuff from the air and store it in wood? If it was you could sell "CO2 storage furniture". This would make your business model green green. I cannot find the reference but I remember that a chemists organisation was years ago suggesting one should buy furniture/wood products. (This certainly sounds adventurous and I might not remember this correctly.) Certain types of wood come from control…
Good idea, we could even give it a name like "tree" and we could scale it up to something like a "forest"
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#450Is it possible to take the stuff from the air and store it in wood? If it was you could sell "CO2 storage furniture". This would make your business model green green. I cannot find the reference but I remember that a chemists organisation was years ago suggesting one should buy furniture/wood products. (This certainly sounds adventurous and I might not remember this correctly.) Certain types of wood come from control…
Good idea, we could even give it a name like "tree" and we could scale it up to something like a "forest"
Thank you. :D I was thinking that one could additionally enrich the wood. Being a porous material this shouldn't be too difficult, although probably one should watch out that inflammability doesn't increase.