Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Capture that entire market with v1 of the process even if it's $10/gallon. Take everything learned to make v2 at $7/gallon and v3 at $5/gallon etc... Due to Russian oil drying up volatile high prices globally will be the norm until technology like this comes into play and at least puts a ceiling on the price. So, the real question is how quickly and how cheaply can they reach 4 million barrels per day of production…
And if Peter Zeihan is right, the loss of Russian exports is just the beginning of oil supply disruption over the next decade.
Dude, where's my fuel?
111–120 of 191 posts
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#112This is neat and all (sincerely!), but what we really need much more of than this, and fast, is bulk anhydrous ammonia synthesis. It takes a lot less energy to produce ammonia, ammonia burns where natural gas is used today, and many places burning oil (such as ships and trains) can switch to ammonia with only tankage and plumbing retrofit. Burning electrically-synthesized ammonia displaces entirely as much fossil CO2…
edit: By using excess ammonia, you reduce nitrogen oxides with a mechanism similar to AdBlue in diesel engines.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#113Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#114This all sounds amazing but it also gives me Theranos vibes. While I understand the general science around this has been around a long time (the aforementioned Fischer Tropsch process) I would love for this to get some independent scientific validation before I'm willing to buy in to their dream here. It just "feels" too good to be true. Even with the Faraday Reactor considerations Seems much more scientifically plau…
Relevant thread - question asked by Ramez Naam on the feasibility of Prometheus: https://twitter.com/ramez/status/1516199169911713794?s=21&t=...
> There are no shortcuts around the physics required to assemble a molecule.
So the process is viable, but the cost is prohibitive?
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I've ever seen a web site where the content was so interesting, but the presentation was so piss poor that the bulk of visitors likely leave without having even read any of this cool stuff. For the love of god, throw your web site away and start again with some simple, static HTML pages.
I'd second this, just tried loading it on a tablet and gave up on the load screen. It was 50/50 I'd read the comments but I'm glad I did now. Please please, for goodness sake, put a quick loading static page front and center quick! This stuff is too important and too cool to be lost to same hokey web design.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#116[Since a lot of people can't read the article and the format is annoying enough that even archive services haven't captured it, here's the text.] As you know, Prometheus converts renewable electricity from solar and wind power into zero net carbon gasoline, diesel, and jet e-fuels (short for “electro-fuels”) that compete with fossil fuels on price. What some readers may not know is that the process we use to do this…
Thank you for copy and pasting this. They need to fire their designer right away. There is absolutely no reason for me to wait 10+ seconds for their website to load text data. WTAF are they thinking? It may seem like a small thing, but it is an important detail, and it makes me question if the company is snake oil or not. It doesn't appear very professional to take this approach. Maybe it was ok in 1998, but not toda…
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#117See it, then believe it.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#118Oh I see, their lander is mining Bitcoins with my browser to subsidize the product. /s Seriously, that page took 10s to load, pegged my laptop CPU and got the fans spinning. WTF?
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#119Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Burried in the long post (as copied in the thread), it sounds like they are starting to move something to production, which they say will enable enough fuel to do demos and what not. Depending on what exactly that means when it happens, maybe they can start selling $10/gallon gasoline somewhere. If it's a turnkey fuel production device, I'm sure there's a market for hook up electricity in remote location and get a ta…
Tractor fuel produced at the foot of a wind turbine in the middle of a farmer's field, that doesn't need to be transported from a refinery, would have immediate value. Fences made of double-sided solar panels mounted a bit more than tractor-width apart, running N-S, coexist nicely with row crops, and cut water loss, improve conversion efficiency (via evaporative cooling), and often increase yield besides (via reduced…
Given how much cutting edge process chemistry is involved in this fuel manufacture, it will be a long time before it's available in small units, which will of course be more capital-intensive and less efficient than large units because that's how scaling works.
It's far more likely this fuel will end up simply co-mingled with the global market and shipped all over the world from a few sites which are good for generation but not for direct consumption.