Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dude, where's my fuel?

prometheusfuels.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 191 posts

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#121

Post by stonegray »

neonate wrote: post #14

[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…

Thanks, a lot of readers might not be able to load this, especially over a cellular connection.

The site itself weighs 375MB, ~150MB after compression, and pins my CPU for about 3 seconds on load, using 1.70GB of real memory.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#122

Post by Accacin »

pedalpete wrote: post #22
neonate wrote: post #14

[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…

Yeah I gave up and came here to read the complaints against the site and I'm glad I did as I found the article interesting.

Even more "interesting" is that in their news section was this article: https://www.prometheusfuels.com/news/prometheus-site-of-the-... - so I don't think they're going to be listening to HN about their design anytime soon, which is a shame as that site is awful.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#123

Post by jabl »

ncmncm wrote: post #63
toast0 wrote: post #45

Earlier 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…

> Fences made of double-sided solar panels mounted a bit more than tractor-width apart

Er, tractors often tow implements that are significantly wider than the tractor itself.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#124

Post by jabl »

rmcginnis wrote: post #38
johngalt wrote: post #3

Prometheus should be laser focused on being first to market in commercial quantities. There are people who want carbon neutral fuels today even if they are more expensive than fossil fuels. 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... The goal of $3/gallon is pushing Prometheus down the rabbit hole. Waiting for th…

$3.00 / gallon is our v 1.0 (before taxes)

It is mentioned in the blog post that the basic reaction is for producing ethanol. Are you then upgrading this ethanol to other fuels like gasoline, kerosene, diesel with traditional processes (e.g. something MTG, MTO-like), and how much cost does that add?

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#125

Post by sokoloff »

neonate wrote: post #14

[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…

I wonder the extent to which Trevor Milton’s shenanigans at Nikola Motors have made life more difficult for other entrepreneurs in this space.

“Our tech works in the lab. Simple math shows it can be competitive in the market. Now, we’re focusing on scaling the tech.” Those words make sense when coming from a genuine effort that could succeed. Those words are therefore copied by charlatans as well.

I have no reason to think Prometheus is in the latter camp, but the presence of that camp makes life harder for them I think.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#126

Post by kreeben »

leobg wrote: post #111
DennisP wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if Peter Zeihan is right, the loss of Russian exports is just the beginning of oil supply disruption over the next decade.

If I read just one book of this author, which should I read? Or if not a book, which podcast/video? Thank you.

This one hour podcast really got me interested in Peter Zeihan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdP01go8wdQ&t=258s

His latest book is "The end of the world is only the beginning".

I follow him through the YT channnel "GEOPOP".

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#127

Post by jabl »

coderenegade wrote: post #108
ncmncm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sweet spot for synthetic fuel, in most cases, is anhydrous ammonia. It stores in liquid form at room temperature under mild compression. Ammonia can be burned in place of natural gas in generators, and in place of bunker oil in ships given retrofitted tankage and plumbing. It is probably practical for retrofitted freight trucks, rail locomotives, and farm machinery. Its volumetric energy density is lower than ker…

Maybe. Ammonia is certainly the best carbon-free fuel, the only real issue with it is its toxicity. Methanol is a lot easier to handle since it's a liquid at SSL conditions, and generally less dangerous, but it has it's own downsides (it's hygroscopic, for example). But I agree with you in the sense that, to me at least, the two most sane options for an e-fuel are methanol and ammonia. I think the path of trying to m…

> Ammonia is certainly the best carbon-free fuel, the only real issue with it is its toxicity

If we don't care about toxicity, might as well go with hydrazine, which is liquid at room temperature and has higher energy density than ammonia. ;)

(No idea about the cost of hydrazine synthesis, though)

> most sane options for an e-fuel are methanol and ammonia

The article seems to say their process produces ethanol. If it really works as well as they claim it does, it could be a gamechanger.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#128

Post by deadbunny »

veltas wrote: post #113

Website text size seems to be based on window width, doesn't resize when I zoom out, I'm zooming out because I don't want to read your website as if I'm trying to read a war memorial from 1ft. I shouldn't have to resize my window to read comfortably.

It's obscene, I have a 1440p ultrawide monitor and it renders like this[1]. One paragraph on the screen, and utterly garbage scrolling which actively makes things harder to read. I know bitching about stuff like this is against site rules but what a shit show.

1. https://i.imgur.com/lmq8iTC.jpg

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#130

Post by leobg »

kreeben wrote: post #126
leobg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I read just one book of this author, which should I read? Or if not a book, which podcast/video? Thank you.

This one hour podcast really got me interested in Peter Zeihan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdP01go8wdQ&t=258s His latest book is "The end of the world is only the beginning". I follow him through the YT channnel "GEOPOP".

Thank you!
Post reply on HN