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Dude, where's my fuel?

prometheusfuels.com

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Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#61

Post by photochemsyn »

ncmncm wrote: post #56

This 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…

Just making ammonia without natural gas to meet the needs of the global fertilizer market would be difficult enough I imagine. Also, the notion that you'd easily burn NH3 + O2 -> H2O + N2 seems questionable, isn't a lot of NOx (a nasty air pollutant leading to PAN and really bad air pollution) also going to be generated?

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#62

Post by namecheapTA »

sien wrote: post #41
rmcginnis wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wow. If you hit that you're sorted in Europe. https://www.tolls.eu/fuel-prices European prices seem to average about ~ EU 1.8 / litre or ~7.2 EU / Gallon or $US 7.6 / gallon. For C02 neutral fuel it would just work at that price.

This isn't what fuel costs in Europe. It's what it is retailed for after taxes to the government.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#63

Post by ncmncm »

toast0 wrote: post #45
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…

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 heat stress). Producing fuel locally is better than selling the power and buying fuel.

                HH XX HH
                HH=XX=HH

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#64

Post by maxerickson »

renewiltord wrote: post #32

No need to make cheap. Deliver 4 of these[0] a month to me in SF (can be all at once) and I'll pay you $200/mo committed to one year ($10/gal equivalent). You can require that the old cans be returned. EDIT: I will pay one-time fee of 4*30 = $120 to get those first 4 cans. EDIT-2: $12/gal if 93-octane equivalent 0: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GBBG5LZ/

That would probably be a cheap price for delivering gasoline that cost ~$0 to put into those containers.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#65

Post by ncmncm »

photochemsyn wrote: post #61
ncmncm wrote: post #56

This 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…

Just making ammonia without natural gas to meet the needs of the global fertilizer market would be difficult enough I imagine. Also, the notion that you'd easily burn NH3 + O2 -> H2O + N2 seems questionable, isn't a lot of NOx (a nasty air pollutant leading to PAN and really bad air pollution) also going to be generated?

Already being done. We just need a great deal more of it.

Natural gas burners inject ammonia to cut their NOx output. Maybe they know something.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#66

Post by perardi »

Hopefully they can provide the cheap, clean fuel we need to power CPUs and GPUs powerful enough to enable smooth scrolling on this website.

Because that scrolling is so bad I’m almost impressed.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#67

Post by renewiltord »

maxerickson wrote: post #64
renewiltord wrote: post #32

No need to make cheap. Deliver 4 of these[0] a month to me in SF (can be all at once) and I'll pay you $200/mo committed to one year ($10/gal equivalent). You can require that the old cans be returned. EDIT: I will pay one-time fee of 4*30 = $120 to get those first 4 cans. EDIT-2: $12/gal if 93-octane equivalent 0: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GBBG5LZ/

That would probably be a cheap price for delivering gasoline that cost ~$0 to put into those containers.

I see. Thank you for acquainting me with the economics at play. I guess it isn’t feasible to go DTC.

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#69

Post by alex_young »

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…

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?

Re: Dude, where's my fuel?

#70

Post by ncmncm »

fswd wrote: post #36
no_wizard wrote: post #33

This 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…

The theranos vibes you're feeling I believe is from a "flaw" they make an assumption solar is 1 or 2 cents a kilowatt-hour. This isn't true (maybe with subsidies IDK) but it costs more to ship solar panels, and the wiring, fuses, breaker box, charge controller, adds a huge significant cost. You can't just take a panel cost and divide it by the watts without this in consideration. And the land cost. And unless you liv…

There is, in fact, plenty of copper. You don't need nickel or silver to make or place solar panels. Prices are still falling fast. Nowadays they don't even bother to tilt them to match latitude, so mounting has got very, very cheap.

The price of electricity is variable, sometimes negative. You would not need to produce at levelized cost, but only when the sun is shining.

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