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Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

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Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#111

Post by s1artibartfast »

mbesto wrote: post #107
mbesto wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suggestion that there isn't some powerpoint presentation that the US Navy created (or consultants to them) that says "if we invest $X millions/billions to create smaller fuel jet fuel tanks we won't save money" is total nonsense. That's not how capital intensive government projects work.

Couldn't edit my original but I finally had some time to google this: > The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is the single-largest consumer of fuel in the world and Jet fuel accounts for 71% of the entire military’s petroleum consumption. Therefore, DoD needs to maintain a strong logistical support to provide jet fuel for its equipment across the world. https://patentyogi.com/aircraft/us-navy-plans-produce-jet-fu...

That doesn't mean that synthetic is a cost savings measure.

The DOD could be interested in it purely for the tactical and strategic advantage.

For example, it could cost 2X when everything is taken into account, but still be attractive because it provides a type of combat advantage that can not be obtained in any other way. Not everything is fungible.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#112

Post by rmcginnis »

pkrein wrote: post #102
rmcginnis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to make electrofuels cost competitive, you've got to use new utility scale solar, which is now less than $0.02/kWh : https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/08/saudi-arabias-second-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/07/01/new-sola... Assume an overall efficiency of approx. 40% to be conservative.

Ok so the 40% efficiency and 2.5x reduction in electricity prices cancel each other out... we're still at electricity costs == energy in the jet fuel. No room for electrofuel plant capex or any other electrofuel plant opex. And to get those low electricity prices you have to only run your plant at 30% duty cycle when the sun is shining (3x capex). How does capex and other opex fit in?

The second important thing is to make the CAPEX really cheap. That's been the core focus for us for the last 2.5 years since demo day and we're looking at really low costs for equipment now. Hope to announce some new info on this in the next few months.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#113

Post by rmcginnis »

pkrein wrote: post #102
rmcginnis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to make electrofuels cost competitive, you've got to use new utility scale solar, which is now less than $0.02/kWh : https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/08/saudi-arabias-second-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/07/01/new-sola... Assume an overall efficiency of approx. 40% to be conservative.

Ok so the 40% efficiency and 2.5x reduction in electricity prices cancel each other out... we're still at electricity costs == energy in the jet fuel. No room for electrofuel plant capex or any other electrofuel plant opex. And to get those low electricity prices you have to only run your plant at 30% duty cycle when the sun is shining (3x capex). How does capex and other opex fit in?

Jet fuel energy content is approx. 37 kWh/gallon. At 40% efficiency that's 92.5 kWh. At $0.01/kWh, $92.5 cents per gallon for energy cost. Spot price for jet fuel is approx. $2.00 average over 2006-2021 https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E... Add to this the LCFS credits which can be over $1.50 and there is a lot of room for Capex.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#114

Post by rmcginnis »

pedalpete wrote: post #106
rmcginnis wrote: post #88

Hi everybody, I'm the founder of Prometheus. Happy to answer any questions!

More a bit of feedback then question. You are obviously aware of the issues with the site. I like the vision and how you've laid it out, but I felt you were missing a trick with design a bit. You lay out the "for centuries the way.." really well, and it's fun. I feel like I'm in Mad Max. But then, you introduce your technology, and everything is still desert. I don't feel like you've "changed the world" because your…

Thanks for the feedback. Working on the site and hope to have improvements in the next few months with improved tech explanations, clarity, and speed.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#115

Post by rmcginnis »

trog wrote: post #108
rmcginnis wrote: post #88

Hi everybody, I'm the founder of Prometheus. Happy to answer any questions!

While I generally agree with some of the comments about the usability/accessibility/load times, this is a visually amazing website and is a super impressive piece of design. Ran really nicely on my admittedly over-spec'ed laptop. (I say this as someone that would be happy if every website on the Internet was just written in plain HTML with no CSS and just a few images.)

Thanks! Really appreciate the positive comment :)

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#116

Post by 6510 »

rmcginnis wrote: post #115
trog wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I generally agree with some of the comments about the usability/accessibility/load times, this is a visually amazing website and is a super impressive piece of design. Ran really nicely on my admittedly over-spec'ed laptop. (I say this as someone that would be happy if every website on the Internet was just written in plain HTML with no CSS and just a few images.)

Thanks! Really appreciate the positive comment :)

My desktop is overly low end. Scrolling is a bit laggy but the presentation was interesting: Change nothing.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#117

Post by avaldes »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #83
hsavit1 wrote: post #73

Why should anyone be excited about reusing captured C02 as fuel for gasoline? The climate crisis is incredibly dire, do not forget. We are rapidly sleepwaliking into a catastrophic 2 degrees C of warming.

EV passenger cars are feasible for the average person today. But without an order of magnitude leap in battery tech, it's never going to be feasible to electrify planes, cargo ships, farm equipment, etc. Other carbon capture tech doesn't have a useful end product, so the only incentive for it to exist is to offset other carbon emissions in some sort of larger cap and trade or carbon tax scheme. So it would be great i…

> EV passenger cars are feasible for the average person today.

Where? California? The world's bigger than the US and Europe and massive EV adoption in the developing world isn't a thing. EV are still a expensive luxury in most countries.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#118

Post by pkrein »

rmcginnis wrote: post #113
pkrein wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok so the 40% efficiency and 2.5x reduction in electricity prices cancel each other out... we're still at electricity costs == energy in the jet fuel. No room for electrofuel plant capex or any other electrofuel plant opex. And to get those low electricity prices you have to only run your plant at 30% duty cycle when the sun is shining (3x capex). How does capex and other opex fit in?

Jet fuel energy content is approx. 37 kWh/gallon. At 40% efficiency that's 92.5 kWh. At $0.01/kWh, $92.5 cents per gallon for energy cost. Spot price for jet fuel is approx. $2.00 average over 2006-2021 https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E... Add to this the LCFS credits which can be over $1.50 and there is a lot of room for Capex.

Not sure how we got to $0.01/kWh (half the cost of the lowest PPAs ever signed for solar in Saudi Arabia), but if the electricity cost is 10x lower than current California prices, I see how electrofuels could pencil.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#119

Post by lambdatronics »

pkrein wrote: post #118
rmcginnis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jet fuel energy content is approx. 37 kWh/gallon. At 40% efficiency that's 92.5 kWh. At $0.01/kWh, $92.5 cents per gallon for energy cost. Spot price for jet fuel is approx. $2.00 average over 2006-2021 https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=E... Add to this the LCFS credits which can be over $1.50 and there is a lot of room for Capex.

Not sure how we got to $0.01/kWh (half the cost of the lowest PPAs ever signed for solar in Saudi Arabia), but if the electricity cost is 10x lower than current California prices, I see how electrofuels could pencil.

By the time they get their technology ironed out & scaled up (5-10 years) we may see that, if historical decay rates of solar cell prices continue.

Re: Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation

#120

Post by lambdatronics »

qqqwerty wrote: post #87
pkrein wrote: post #52

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?

There is probably a fair bit of wishful thinking going on, but that is essentially a perquisite for starting a company like this. The pessimists don't get very far. But something worth considering, in academic circles the "old" school of thought was that we could get a high penetration of renewable energy by building sufficient transmission capacity (i.e. send electricity from sunny/windy areas to places where it is…

>"skate to where the puck is going"

Exactly. They're doing what PARC was: looking a decade ahead and building the technology that makes sense in that future.

I'm quite optimistic about them. Even if they can't immediately compete head-to-head with fossil fuels, there are probably some ways to get early revenue, by making other industrial chemicals, or marketing higher-priced fuel to eco-conscious consumers, or the alcoholic beverages idea they mention on their webpage.

The idea of directly electrolysing the low-concentration CO2 in the air-capture fluid and then extracting the low-concentration product is brilliant. Most of the energy cost for standard air capture is heat used to 'boil' the CO2 out of the fluid. If their osmotic membrane can separate the fuel with better energy efficiency, it's a win. It's hard to produce high concentrations of fuel products electrolytically anyway, so there was always going to be a need to concentrate the fuel somehow. The big questions in my mind are:

1. How efficient can the osmosis be? 2. Does the low concentrations of CO2 imply the need for very large electrolyzers? These tend to be the biggest capital-cost item.

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