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Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

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Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#41

Post by ericd »

mrguyorama wrote: post #28

Would you be willing to share vague details of your roadmap? Specifically; How many barrels of ready to burn gasoline are you outputting per day in 6 months? 1 year? 3 years? The fact that the general fuel is going to be sold and re-burned means this is at best carbon neutral, so from a cynical environmentalist point of view, what's the point? This can't help anyone unless you pump the synth-gas into the ground and s…

Well, every barrel of their stuff that is burned is one that wasn't sucked from the ground and put into the carbon cycle. So as long as it doesn't depress the price of gas much and cause consumption to increase, I'd take a bit of a less cynical view towards it.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#42

Post by rmcginnis »

Damorian wrote: post #30
lumberjack wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not make sense today, but in 10 to 15 years, with climate regulations, having a carbon neutral jet fuel might start making a lot of sense.

I expect I'll see new battery powered aircraft before I see today's aircraft powered by kerosene synthesized from water and carbon dioxide in the air. And we'll probably see more rail/car before then since the massive cost increase on airline tickets from this will destroy the industry.

There is a good chance we will make jet fuel in the next 2-3 years. There appears to be a lot of demand for it. We're starting with gasoline because it's a much bigger market / impact, but it's not that hard to make jet fuel too.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#43

Post by harpastum »

Grustaf wrote: post #4

So you are competing with batteries? I suppose batteries have much higher roundtrip efficiency, but maybe there are other advantages to your technology, like being able to rely on combustion engine cars?

The energy density of gas makes it incredibly useful for storage and transportation as well. For example, Tesla's 50MWh battery installation in Australia has the same energy as only 1,500 gallons of gasoline. (It's not an apples to apples comparison, I just wanted to give an example of a "large" battery installation.)

Obviously there are lots of benefits of batteries over gas, but being able to load up a standard 10,000 gallon tanker truck with 300MWh of energy and drive it anywhere there's a road is something batteries simply can't do.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#45

Post by rmcginnis »

ineedasername wrote: post #17

Can you talk a bit about the waste-water left over? Assuming it's non-potable, what does the disposal path look like? How much of such water is there at scale, e.g., water-per gallon of petro-product? Thanks, sounds awsome.

There is no waste. The only inputs are water, CO2, and electricity. The only outputs are fuel and oxygen.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#46

Post by mrfusion »

Damorian wrote: post #19

How could the math possibly work out on this? If a gallon of gas holds 33.70 kWh of energy, and you can get cheap electricity for $0.1/kWh, you're looking at $3.37/gallon if you have a magical process that converts with 100% efficiency. Even if you hit your efficiency goal, which would be impressive, who is paying $7/gallon for gas? Just buy an electric car. This can only possibly be useful when all of the oil is gon…

I believe they’re looking for very cheap electric rates. Excess wind or solar power the grid doesn’t want could certainly be cheap. Or college dorms.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#47

Post by solarkraft »

> turns out that doesn’t matter as long as the electricity is zero carbon and low cost. If the cost of our equipment is also low, then we believe we can not only make zero carbon fuel, but actually compete on price with fossil fuel.

That's a lot of "if". How close are you to that?

If you plan to sell to car users, how do you plan to compete with electric cars, that can get about 8x the use out of the electricity (and don't have most of the many issues of combustion engines).

Am I missing something really obvious? Is transport through cable for direct consumption prohibitively expensive from the energy sources you're planning to use? Do fuel cells change the calculation? What's the advantage? Potentially take over a rapidly dying market?

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#48

Post by bencollier49 »

rmcginnis wrote: post #45
ineedasername wrote: post #17

Can you talk a bit about the waste-water left over? Assuming it's non-potable, what does the disposal path look like? How much of such water is there at scale, e.g., water-per gallon of petro-product? Thanks, sounds awsome.

There is no waste. The only inputs are water, CO2, and electricity. The only outputs are fuel and oxygen.

What about the device itself, its lifetime, and the resources used to build it?

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#49

Post by rmcginnis »

Damorian wrote: post #19

How could the math possibly work out on this? If a gallon of gas holds 33.70 kWh of energy, and you can get cheap electricity for $0.1/kWh, you're looking at $3.37/gallon if you have a magical process that converts with 100% efficiency. Even if you hit your efficiency goal, which would be impressive, who is paying $7/gallon for gas? Just buy an electric car. This can only possibly be useful when all of the oil is gon…

We expect a gallon of gasoline to require approx. 60 kWh of electrical energy. If the price of that electricity is below 5 cents, the economics work. If the price is lower, the efficiency of the conversion could also be lower if that optimized other costs (like capital). Electricity is routinely below 5 cents now at utility scale (wholesale), which is where we will want to be.

Re: Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline

#50

Post by rmcginnis »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #31
rmcginnis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! We are also going to make carbon negative building materials to remove CO2 that has already been emitted. Really anything now made from petroleum is potentially replaceable with air mined CO2 and renewable electricity. Will start with gasoline.

Automatic factory on Mars?

You could make a lot of stuff from the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere, for sure!
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