51–60 of 124 posts
Didn't Google X try out something similar, and then decided it was uneconomical? https://x.company/projects/foghorn/
The US Navy continues to research similar technology for manufacturing synthetic kerosene out of sea water onboard aircraft carriers. They aren't too concerned about economics. Their goal is to reduce the amount of jet fuel they have to haul around.
If the founders are around... trying to understand their economics. They claim to sell Jet A at the market clearing price. Jet A goes for $0.45/L. The lowest industrial electricity rates in the US are $0.05/kWh (double that in California where they are selling today.) With 100% efficiency, no capital costs and no other opex, you get $0.05/kWh * 9.5 kWh/L = $0.47/L electrofuel Jet A. How can that work?
(Not claiming it's feasible, but playing devils advocate because of course I'm hopeful)
Like they recently claimed that they can capture CO2 from the air with 36$, which is like 20-30 times lower than what current best tech can offer, and also lower than what people believe is generally possible.
See some discussion (while snarky, both people know this space well): https://twitter.com/gnievchenko/status/1385357863191814149# https://mobile.twitter.com/rutherdan/status/1385459168107057...
If the founders are around... trying to understand their economics. They claim to sell Jet A at the market clearing price. Jet A goes for $0.45/L. The lowest industrial electricity rates in the US are $0.05/kWh (double that in California where they are selling today.) With 100% efficiency, no capital costs and no other opex, you get $0.05/kWh * 9.5 kWh/L = $0.47/L electrofuel Jet A. How can that work?
Here's an article about this strategy form the CEO: https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(20)30002-7.pdf
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US Navy continues to research similar technology for manufacturing synthetic kerosene out of sea water onboard aircraft carriers. They aren't too concerned about economics. Their goal is to reduce the amount of jet fuel they have to haul around.
> Their goal is to reduce the amount of jet fuel they have to haul around. Which has economic consequences :)
If the founders are around... trying to understand their economics. They claim to sell Jet A at the market clearing price. Jet A goes for $0.45/L. The lowest industrial electricity rates in the US are $0.05/kWh (double that in California where they are selling today.) With 100% efficiency, no capital costs and no other opex, you get $0.05/kWh * 9.5 kWh/L = $0.47/L electrofuel Jet A. How can that work?
Just so people are aware, Prometheus comes up every now and then among people on twitter following the climate tech space, and most think that their claims are bogus and completely unbelievable. Like they recently claimed that they can capture CO2 from the air with 36$, which is like 20-30 times lower than what current best tech can offer, and also lower than what people believe is generally possible. See some discus…
36$ is their cost after reselling the fuel. The 20-30x is the cost to capture and then sequester a ton, with no revenue for this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've done a decent amount of research on Prometheus Fuels, and I'm a believer. They've licensed a couple of key technologies out of Oak Ridge. First is a catalyst that converts CO2 + H2O + electricity directly into ethanol. The other is a membrane with parallel carbon nanotubes that are just the right size to filter that ethanol. The rest of the business involves the chemical conversion of pure ethanol into other typ…
I myself don't like much how my brain sees Musk everywhere, yet I think similar methanol production will first come from SpaceX for Mars. Also i wonder whether moonshine style distillation is worse than the carbon nanotubes membrane filtration, especially if you have a source of cheap waste heat.
I have yet to see a significant source of usable "waste" heat that's not already being used for something else. Low-grade heat isn't helpful--you generally need reasonably high temperature differentials in order to power large-scale industrial processes.
[Disclosure: I've invested in Prometheus Fuels, but don't speak for them.]