What's your Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) on that? Specifically, this means if you took the gasoline you made from this and put it into an efficient generator how much electricity would you get out of it vs how much electricity you put into it to make it in the first place? This would be very useful in comparing this technology to biodiesel as a method of carbon sequestration for example. Biodiesel has o…
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
#582Appreciate you're sharing some of these details (thank you). I have been thinking about this same basic idea but with hydrogen and fuel cells but will need to evaluate the merits of electricity -> gasoline vs. electricity -> hydrogen. Being able to work with existing infrastructure and vehicles and other components designed to work with gas is a huge advantage. And of course the simpler storage of gas vs. hydrogen is…
Synthetic fuels will make most sense for aviation (higher energy density compared to hydrogen), (possibly) shipping and as a transitional fuel for transport to reduce our emissions.
Synthetic fuels could also be a solution for seasonal storage.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#583Let's assume we have 100W (typically 12V) solar panels in ~1m Square space. How many litres of alcohol/syntfuel will it generate during an (expected) 8hours of 100% power capacity in a day?
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#584Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#585Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#586The unit economics around this are by no means perfect but the BIG point here that should probably be in all caps is that fact that the thermal process is displaced by the use of electricity. We could argue on what is used to generate said electricity, but that is beside the point since this innovation opens up many more possibilities than are stated here. We could also argue about the comparative cost of produced en…
Or we could just run engines on alcohol.
Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
#587A 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…
I think there are really two major business cases for Prometheus. One is in earning back carbon offsets (reducing net CO2 production from a polluting source) while producing a valuable byproduct. The other is as a way to ethically and profitably use local excess energy to create that same byproduct.
I think it makes sense for the Prometheus apparatus to be paired with electrical load balancers (aka industrial battery banks) built for renewable energy. Allow me to expand:
1. Renewable sources like solar collect electric energy on an inconsistent basis.
2. Depending on local energy demands (a factory, the neighboring town, etc.), the grid will either use or store the electric energy. Storage for large businesses and nations nowadays occurs through industrial battery banks (i.e. BYD's).
3. Usually, those who use battery capacity battery stored energy can be used before conditions are right for collection again. However, if local energy demands less than can be stored and used in the next collection cycle, that "buffered" energy is wasted.
This is a prime use for that wasted energy. I imagine it only becomes viable at scale. And there is one other issue to address...
Companies like BYD who do national-scale renewable grid storage usually undershoot the amount of battery storage they provide because over-storing is costly (the energy isn't used or is distributed less efficiently and the batteries incur both capital, installation, and maintenance costs).
If Prometheus reaches cost effectiveness, a renewables/storage company could start over-providing energy generation and battery storage and pair it with CO2 factoring to a) reduce costs associated with wasted energy b) earn carbon offsets for large companies and c) create valuable byproducts.