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Dude, where's my fuel?

prometheusfuels.com

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Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#161

Post by Manuel_D »

ncmncm wrote: post #107
Manuel_D wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm more than comfortable letting BMW put $12.5 million into Prometheus. If they shared even half of your confidence in this tech, they'd invest a lot more than that. My take, and likely the investors' takes too, is this is yet another carbon capture company, and it's success hinges on whether or not they can actually hit the performance their promising.

BMW are certain to understand investment strategy better than you. Probably they are putting seed funding into a bunch of different start-ups, and will invest more as they see further evidence of viability. That is a much more productive activity than carping ignorantly from the sidelines. Most startups flop for reasons unrelated to their technology underpinnings. E.g., incompetent website implementation.

> Probably they are putting seed funding into a bunch of different start-ups, and will invest more as they see further evidence of viability. That is a much more productive activity than carping ignorantly from the sidelines

This is exactly what I'm saying: they're testing to see if this technology is viable, because we don't know if it's viable.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#162

Post by ncmncm »

jabl wrote: post #123
ncmncm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can but are not obliged to.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#163

Post by coderintherye »

ncmncm wrote: post #89
coderintherye wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solectrac is making electric tractors in production. They are available today (though waiting period between deposit and delivery).

Boutique item, maybe unless the batteries can be replaced while it operates. They would need a hell of a lot of spare batteries, and somebody running around replacing them. Presumably today people are driving out to fill up fuel in existing tractors after some number of rows.

Yes and no. It's not targeted at massive monoculture farms such as corn farms in the Midwest. Rather it is targeted at operations where a smaller tractor with a few hours runtime is useful. That includes not only hobby farmers but also vineyards, etc.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#164

Post by DennisP »

pjc50 wrote: post #147
DennisP wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to their "need for speed" page, their plan is to build factories producing units the size of shipping containers. They think they can have three of them by 2030, each churning out a quarter million units annually.

... I'll file that under "believe it when I see it". It would be genuinely transformative of the world economy if it happened.

Indeed it would. It certainly wouldn't be possible if they needed heat and pressure. See this part of the article:

> Our Fuel Forges are similar in many ways to hydrogen electrolyzers, in that they consist of many layers of cells, each consisting of a cathode, an anode, and a separator. In an H2 Electrolyzer, the anode is where electrons are stripped from water, producing oxygen, and the cathode is where electrons are added to protons, producing hydrogen gas. In our system, the anode works the same way, but our cathode, in addition to making H2, also makes liquid fuels. Both systems have capital costs dominated by the costs of the electrochemical stacks.

> This brings us to the issue of economies of scale. For high temperature / high pressure systems like Fischer Tropsch or e-methanol to gasoline (MTG), economies of scale mean large refinery installations that cost billions of dollars and years to build (and still don’t get to cost-competitive fuels). For modular, mobile systems like our Titan Fuel Forges, however, economies of scale mean mass manufacturing.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#165

Post by scotty79 »

archi42 wrote: post #156
scotty79 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has the benefit of creating incentive for capturing CO2 which is something we should be willing to pay for in coming decades.

That's a distraction: The extraction is only temporarily. The value of an amount of efuel is not in that it's made from captured CO2, it's in burning that efuel to drive some machine. So yeah, there will be some CO2 captured in storage and transit, but that's will be less than what we release every year. If you want to capture CO2 for good: Capture it, dump it somewhere and don't touch it ever again. The trick is to…

I think the only way to make capturing CO2 valuable is to tax the economy and pay for actually captured CO2 directly.

Fuel manufactured out of CO2 might be easily verifiable proof of capturing CO2.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#166

Post by ncmncm »

nyokodo wrote: post #105
ncmncm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is secondary. Cost is primary. As the cost of generator capacity continues on down, people worry less about efficiency. The top-line input, sunshine, is free. So it is a question of capital cost amortized over energy produced.

> Efficiency is secondary. Cost is primary. While the question I was responding to was explicitly about efficiency, you might be right about cost. However, ICE tractors that are already owned along with the capital required for their use and maintenance are potentially a lot more attractive to keep vs new electric tractors. Sunshine might be free but it’s not available in sufficient quantities everywhere with current…

Solar panels are produced in many more places, now. (Former-Soviet) Georgia produces a very great number of them, for example, at exemplary prices.

There is plenty of sunshine most places if you can bank fuel during off-season. Finns will probably still need to import from the south or via transmission line if the wind is off -- as they have done for many decades on a more regular schedule.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#167

Post by ncmncm »

DennisP wrote: post #164
pjc50 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... I'll file that under "believe it when I see it". It would be genuinely transformative of the world economy if it happened.

Indeed it would. It certainly wouldn't be possible if they needed heat and pressure. See this part of the article: > Our Fuel Forges are similar in many ways to hydrogen electrolyzers, in that they consist of many layers of cells, each consisting of a cathode, an anode, and a separator. In an H2 Electrolyzer, the anode is where electrons are stripped from water, producing oxygen, and the cathode is where electrons ar…

Heat and pressure are readily available in small-format equipment.

What would make a difference are whether it is expected to start and stop operation, how much supervision it needs, and how much customization is desirable. The quoted text above cites ability to manufacture mass numbers of units, and by implication to distribute, install, and operate them with minimal attention to details.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#168

Post by ncmncm »

seltzered_ wrote: post #154
alex_young wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just make electric tractors? The energy efficiency of converting wind -> electricity -> fuel -> mechanical power has to be less efficient than wind -> electricity -> mechanical power right?

You have to look at gravimetric and volumetric energy density, the book 'the future is rural' has a nice chart on this: https://twitter.com/vivekgani/status/1426017955398176770?t=0...

Chart omits liquified anhydrous ammonia. Its volumetric energy density is about half of diesel's, with a somewhat better mass energy density. You need bigger tanks that can hold back a bit of pressure, and new plumbing disinclined to corrosion.

It also omits liquified hydrogen, which is inconvenient to handle, but not much moreso than liquified methane.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#169

Post by ncmncm »

adrian_b wrote: post #138
hoseja wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you burn it without releasing a lot of nitrogen oxides? I realize the main reaction id 4 NH3 + 3 O2 -> 2 N2 + 6 H2O but there must be a lot of trace sideproducts, no? edit: By using excess ammonia, you reduce nitrogen oxides with a mechanism similar to AdBlue in diesel engines.

Using excess ammonia might have the risk of releasing unburnt ammonia in the atmosphere. Fuel cells using ammonia seem much safer, but they are farther from being a commercially available solution.

The exhaust doesn't have ammonia. The nitrogen really likes to link up, giving up protons to do it. You would be left traces of unburnt hydrogen.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#170

Post by Layke1123 »

scotty79 wrote: post #152
Layke1123 wrote: post #46

I see carbon nanotube tech and become immensely skeptical. I am under the impression that anything carbon nanotube still cannot be done at scale, and the article is very light on that part of the process. Following the rabbit hole leads to http links (in 2022?) and various publications from science journals I am unfamiliar with. Does anyone else get the smoke and mirrors vibe from this or am I just being overly skept…

It's not a key element of their process. You could just distill it and humanity had millenia of expeirience in scaling and optimising that process.

Distilling doesn't make it more economical than traditional refining though, according to their whole position. Boiling involves ALOT of energy compared to passive membrane separation.
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