
A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC W19) - swibbler
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/in-silicon-valley-the-quest-to-make-gasoline-out-of-thin-air?
======
rayiner
This is really, fundamentally important technology. Emissions reduction will
not work: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nations-are-
not-r...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nations-are-not-reducing-
emissions-quickly-enough-to-meet-2c-target)

> The authors of the report stated in a press release that the kind of
> drastic, large-scale action the planet desperately needs has yet to be seen,
> even though global emissions have reached record levels at 53.5 billion
> metric tons in 2017, with no signs of peaking.

> Cities, states, the private sector and other nonfederal entities may be best
> placed to take bold actions on climate change. According to the report, the
> globe may need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 19 billion metric tons
> by 2030 to close the 2 C gap.

That's a 35% reduction in global CO2 emissions over the next decade. It's not
going to happen. CO2 emissions are growing like this:
[http://folk.uio.no/roberan/img/GCB2018/PNG/s11_2018_Projecti...](http://folk.uio.no/roberan/img/GCB2018/PNG/s11_2018_Projections.png).
The U.S. and EU could go back to 1960 levels of emissions and it would cut
only about 3 gigatons. China alone increased its usage 3 gigatons in the last
10 years. The rest of the world increased its emissions by that much in the
last 15. Bringing Indian emissions up to Chinese per-capita levels would add
7.5 gigatons.

A 30% reduction is taking the world back to 1990. The U.S. has added maybe
half a gigaton since 1990, and the EU actually dropped about a gigaton since
then. (The difference is largely due to the fact that the EU28 countries grew
only 8.5% since 1990, while the US grew 30%.) But the rest of the world has
added 15 gigatons since 1990. That 15 gigatons represents a shift from
desperate poverty in Africa, India, and China to lower income status (though
still many gigatons away from the standard of living enjoyed in the US and
EU). That cannot be undone.

The only serious solution to climate change is carbon recapture.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
How much do today's "carbon recapture" methods need to grow? What's the
timeline on them looking like?

P.S. The first Google result for carbon recapture is titled "“Direct air
capture” of carbon dioxide won't solve climate change"

P.P.S From Wikipedia with a cited source:

capturing and compressing CO2 and other system costs are estimated to increase
the cost per watt-hour energy produced by 21–91% for fossil fuel power plants;

~~~
rayiner
The author of the article (who does not appear to be an expert in anything)
overlooks that renewables only address part of the emissions picture. Even if
the U.S. switched tomorrow to 100% renewables and 100% electric vehicles
(including trains, cars, planes, and ships), and you ignore the CO2 emissions
of making all those new power plants and vehicles, U.S. usage would only go
down by 3.5 gigaton: [https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-
indica...](https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-
us-greenhouse-gas-emissions). It won't change the CO2 emissions created by
home and commercial heating, agriculture, and industrial uses, which add up to
another 3.5 or so gigatons.

And even the U.S. and EU going to 0 carbon emissions wouldn't offset the
growth in India, China, and Africa. And those places are a long ways away from
electric cars and solar power plants. (Also, where would you put them in say
India or Bangladesh?) Carbon recapture can do a very important thing
renweables cannot--allow the developed world to suck out the developing
world's CO2.

The current cost of carbon capture is about $120 per ton. If it follows the
same trend as improvements on solar panel cost, that could be $40 per ton in a
decade. At that price it would cost $300 billion annually to remove the extra
carbon India will be adding to the atmosphere by then. That will be just 5% of
India’s GDP by then.

~~~
natch
>It won't change the CO2 emissions created by home and commercial heating,
agriculture, and industrial uses, which add up to another 3.5 or so gigatons.

So address each one in turn, or in parallel. You give no reason not to.

~~~
Gibbon1
Lot of people use the 'golden hammer or nothing argument'

Meaning if a proposed solution is partial then we shouldn't do anything. It
flies in the face of the reality that most solutions to complex problems
involve chipping away at them.

Currently there is a host of technologies which emit to much CO2. Personal
transportation is just one of them.

------
Hasz
Soooooo many questions.

Gasoline is a distillate made up of several hydrocarbons -- is he synthesizing
all of them, or just octane? What about additives, like anti-knock agents?
Plans for diesel?

No amount of fancy CNTs gets around thermodynamics. CO2 and H20 are far more
stable, thermodynamically, than octane, it's partially why octane is a good
fuel. Where does the extra energy come from? What is the efficiency of the
conversion? What kind of thoroughput are we talking about?

How scalable - is the CNT manufacturing mature enough to support large scale
rollout?

Who is on his team? Research chemists, or experienced chem Es, both hopefully?

I'm sure he knows these answers (man has a PhD is chem), would have loved to
sit through that pitch.

The Bloomberg piece is very light on details; the secrecy is frustrating but
understandable.

~~~
rmcginnis
Hi, this is Rob, founder of Prometheus. The conversion of CO2 and water to
gasoline is not a super efficient process, likely 50-60% at best in the near
term, but that's ok, if the electricity is from a zero carbon source like
solar or wind, and the cost of the electricity is low (which these days it
is).

The CNT membranes are being made at full commercial scale now by my previous
startup, Mattershift. Ready to go!

We've got scientists and engineers from national labs and previous efforts
like Project Foghorn at Google. Hope to share some new hires soon.

There was a podcast that was associated with the article, that runs 21 minutes
and goes into more details:
[https://megaphone.link/BLM3585271197](https://megaphone.link/BLM3585271197)

~~~
Hasz
Hey, thanks, and best of luck, what a cool company.

It seems like you're on the cusp of breaking even from yongjik's back of the
envelope math, at least for the US commercial market. Is this a refinement of
Fischer-Tropsch?

However, I think you're barking up the wrong tree. The US military pays
$hundreds of dollars to get fuel into a warzone. If you can make diesel (which
I think you can), you don't have to go after a $3 a gallon target, you go
after a $300 target. You can perfect it on sweet sweet DARPA money at a price
point that will make you rich and save the military a shitload of money.

~~~
kaennar
That sounds like a particularly interesting answer, but I wonder what the
power and factory requirements would be to have something like this at a FOB
or base?

Surely most operating bases use gas powered generators to run and not solar
right?

------
js2
There's no way this is a net energy producer right? So it only makes sense if
it's powered by carbon-free sources?

Basically this has two uses then:

\- As a stop gap till batteries and electric vehicles take over from ICE.
Although if it generates carbon-neutral jet fuel that would be very useful.

\- Maybe as a carbon capture device, except that gasoline doesn't seem like a
great way to store excess carbon. Although the article indicates the carbon
could be converted into other materials. That part isn't very clear.

~~~
tathougies
Batteries have the disadvantage that they require heavy resource extraction
and wear out. The advantage of hydrocarbon fuel is that it is basically
instantly fillable (no charging), doesn't decrease in capacity (or minimally I
suppose), and energy density.

The use here is that we could use a renewable energy source, like solar, and
then use the hydrocarbon generated as an energy transfer medium rather than
fuel itself. Actually, this is what we do today, since the hydrocarbon in the
earth is actually just naturally captured solar energy.

~~~
jessriedel
> The advantage of hydrocarbon fuel is that it is basically instantly fillable
> (no charging), doesn't decrease in capacity (or minimally I suppose), and
> energy density.

That first property can be mimicked by batteries without too much trouble.
Just standardize them and make them swappable at the fill-up station, like
propane tanks. There are financing complications with this (who owns the
batteries, etc.), but it's do-able and it's already been tested by at least
one now-failed start-up.

~~~
rad_gruchalski
NIO does battery swapping in China.

------
hn_throwaway_99
After reading this article, all I can say is ... ugh. What I really wanted to
know was "Where does the energy come from?", and the article didn't answer
that at all.

The world doesn't really have a "carbon" problem, it has an energy problem,
and right now carbon fuels are the cheapest, most abundant source of energy.
Even if you somehow got carbon capture to work, you're still going to have to
power it - with solar, or wind, nuclear, geothermal, whatever. At that point,
then the question just becomes whether using the storage medium of gas is
better than the storage medium of something else, like batteries. But the
article doesn't go into the core question of where the energy is coming from
to turn CO2 into gas.

~~~
paulsutter
I would bet photovoltaic. Lowest cost per watt, the process can likely be
designed to tolerate day/night variations, and the plant can be located where
the sun shines.

~~~
amluto
Or nuclear. A big nuclear plant could be built somewhere with cheap land, no
earthquakes, and minimal weather. You don’t even need electric transmission
infrastructure.

If the capital costs are low enough, cheap or free spot electricity could be
used, too. California regularly has excess production.

~~~
m463
That would be ironic.

We would gradually go from coal and (natural gas) powered electric cars, to
nuclear powered ICE cars.

~~~
gridspy
I think the point is that we

1\. Keep making more electric cars 2\. Rather than throwing away ICE cars, we
give them better fuel to use.

~~~
amluto
There are also ICE farm and construction vehicles, airplanes, generators in
rural areas, pumps, etc. Gasoline is an extremely convenient fuel.

------
Animats
Carbon Engineering, in Canada, is already doing this on a pilot plant
scale.[1] Converting CO2 to a fuel is chemically uphill, so you have to put
energy in. This can work if you have cheap hydropower, which parts of Canada
do. It's only feasible financially if there's a big subsidy for removing CO2
from the atmosphere.

[1] [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/carbon-
engineeri...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/carbon-engineering-
liquid-fuel-carbon-capture-neutral-science/)

------
rmcginnis
Hi HN! I'm Rob, founder of Prometheus. Just saw this, catching up now and will
try to answer any questions.

~~~
D_Alex
Hi Rob. Why bother trying to extract CO2 out of "thin air" when there are far
more concentrated sources available, for example exhaust of existing power
plants (100,000 ppm CO2, instead of 400 ppm)?

There are even streams of pure CO2 being vented to the atmosphere, eg:
[https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/woodsides-browse-
lng-...](https://thewest.com.au/business/energy/woodsides-browse-lng-project-
tipped-to-be-among-nations-biggest-polluters-ng-b881025569z)

~~~
rmcginnis
Point sources won't scale to the size of the problem. Easier initially, but to
replace fossil fuels for transportation and heating, will need to get the CO2
from the air.

~~~
D_Alex
>Easier initially...

Then start with point sources initially.

Considering a good portion of transportation and basically all of the heating
can be replaced by electricity directly, you will not need to go beyond point
sources anyway.

~~~
credit_guy
There is a much more efficient way to deal with point sources, if you have a
clean energy source in their neighborhood: just shut them down and replace the
energy they provide with the clean energy you would use to scrub the CO2 from
the air.

~~~
D_Alex
Yes, sometimes this is practicable. But many locations do not have sufficient
renewable energy available, and nuclear has become unpalatable for a variety
of reasons.

Scrubbing CO2 from boiler or turbine exhaust takes a small fraction (5%-ish)
of the energy needed to convert it into fuel. If the source is a power plant,
the CO2 can be captured at a cost of efficiency penalty of around 10%.

Once it is captured, storing and transporting CO2 to a location with abundant
clean energy is also relatively simple.

------
whatever1
The main question that I do not see addressed, is how many Joules of energy
does the process need to make 1 Joule worth of liquid fuel.

If we need for example 2J of energy to make 1J worth of gasoline, then it
means that we need to double the installation rate of renewable production
facilities (wind, solar, biofuels), while the global energy demand increases.
This makes it completely infeasible (and I did not consider cost at all in my
analysis yet).

Edit: I just saw that the founder mentioned in the comments that they expect
50% efficiency at best. This unfortunately means that the liquid fuel product
of this process will have at least double the cost of renewable energy.

~~~
snowmaker
That's a smart argument, but I think what it's missing is that the cost of
gasoline is much higher than the cost of its energy equivalent on the
electricity market. I.e, the cost of 1 Joule of energy != the cost of 1 joule
of gasoline.

Because gasoline is a premium energy source, if we can produce it from
photovoltaic sources, we can effectively mark-up photovoltaic electricity. In
the long-term, that would make it economical to greatly expand our
photovoltaic capacity. The cost equivalence Prometheus is aiming for is:
Market price of 1 gallon of gasoline > cost to produce 1 gallon of gasoline
using renewable energy.

Another factor is that Prometheus production works in remote areas where
transmission losses for electricity are high (i.e., remote hydroelectric
plants).

------
dflock
So, you spend a load of energy to reform atmospheric CO2 back into hydrocarbon
fuel - and then just burn it again, turning it back into CO2 and putting it
back into the atmosphere?

The end state of the atmosphere is, at best, the same as the starting state,
but you've expended a load more energy for nothing. If the energy to run this
process isn't zero-carbon, then this is going to be a big net emitter when
done at scale.

This is just creating green-washed gasoline.

~~~
jsonne
You don't have to burn it. In theory governments or environmental groups could
simple buy and store it.

~~~
dflock
If you're not going to burn it, you should turn it into something else -
carbonate rock, ideally.

------
wmf
I saw this paper [http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-
content/uploads/EWG_LUT_100RE...](http://energywatchgroup.org/wp-
content/uploads/EWG_LUT_100RE_All_Sectors_Global_Report_2019.pdf) on HN
recently which claims that it shouldn't be too expensive to convert to 100%
renewable energy by 2050 (but you have to actually start on it of course).
Liquid fuel would still be used for ships, jets, rockets, and some trucks and
to be net zero carbon that fuel needs to be produced either by plants
(biofuel) or by Prometheus-style direct capture. In this case the fuel is not
a source of energy but a denser storage medium for renewable electricity.

------
bit_logic
I really hope this is successful because this would make a difference for
climate change much quicker than transitioning to BEV cars. BEV cars are
better overall, but there just isn't enough time with the rate climate change
is happening.

This combined with a strong push for PHEV and hybrid cars could help climate
change much faster. It makes sense on many levels:

* PHEV cars with 40+ miles EV range are great for those who can charge at home. It's enough to make most of the miles electric (such as commuting or getting groceries). And it's a much better use of limited lithium battery capacity. The battery in one Tesla could be used to build 10 PHEV cars.

* Many people still live in places with no overnight charging such as apartments and dense urban areas. The hybrid tech (perfected by Toyota) is the right solution here. Keep working on getting the mpg even higher.

* Government can really boost this by requiring X% of all gas to be carbon neutral and increasing that over time. They do this with 10% ethanol, but that was the wrong fuel. Start with 5% must be carbon neutral and increase 5% every year from there.

* Carbon tax, enough to make synthetic fuel like this competitive with fossil fuels from the ground.

BEV cars is a case of perfect being the enemy of good. When excluding external
factors, BEV is clearly superior to ICE. But we don't have time to transition
to BEV. We need to make progress on climate change now and this will get there
faster.

------
RenRav
There is a water plant called Azolla that actually captured so much co2 long
ago that many think it triggered an ice age. Why not incentivize natural
carbon sequestration and just produce huge fields of this stuff everywhere? I
would hope we find a fish that likes eating it, or find a way to convert it
into other animal feed, if nothing else. I don't think carbon tax credits or
whatever they are called are enough for someone to justify making an actual
sequestration-only operation.

~~~
mazlix
If an animal eats it, wouldn't it be combusting the captured carbon to produce
CO2/H20/energy? I don't think you'd want to feed it to anything, but just let
it be buried or be pushed under the earth's crust.

~~~
RenRav
Yes, they don't even need to eat it, just from decomposing versus growing corn
you can measure the rising and falling cycles of co2 at different times of the
year for north america. I think Azolla is still less effort to grow than most
plants, which might still help out if it ends up being used for animal feed.

------
D_Alex
I wrote the comment below in response to another article, but it is applicable
here. I should note that the technology to convert CO2 to say hydrocarbons is
well known (and my current work is on making it economically interesting), my
issue is with trying to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, which is very
inefficient.

\-----

This is actually a very bad idea and a complete waste of money which should
have been used for other projects. It reminds me of another bad idea, which
just will not die - extracting water from air by cooling it. Right now, we
have several technologies ready to go. Starting with the most cost-effective,
and omitting the "use less" scenarios:

1\. Replacement of fossil fuel power plants with carbon free electricity such
as wind and solar power (also geothermal, where possible and nuclear, where
palatable). Cost per tonne of CO2 saved: less than zero for about 30% of
current generation, and "very low" for a good portion of the remainder.

2\. Sequestration of concentrated CO2 streams, such as those produced in
natural gas processing. Cost: $20-$40 per tonne.

3\. Biosequestration, ie tree planting. Cost varies greatly, maybe $15-$50 per
tonne.

The approaches above are the only ones that are actually used in the industry
today, but there is plenty of room to do more. The approaches below are
considered to be economically prohibitive, and AFAIK are not in use:

4\. Post-combustion carbon capture: Scrubbing the CO2 from exhaust gases of
power plants etc, where the CO2 concentration is 10-20%. Cost: $50-100/tonne,
PLUS the cost of sequestration, as above.

5\. Pre-combustion carbon capture: here, the carbon is removed from the fuel
and sequestered, and only the hydrogen is burned. Cost: $80-150/tonne, but
sequestration cost is low.

and then we have:

6\. Removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. The article says the cost may be
"under $100/tonne", but the serious estimates I have seen are circa
$500/tonne. Consider that the CO2 concentration in air is around 0.04%, cf
post combustion concentrations of 10-20%. Regardless of the advances in
technology, this will never be as cheap as post-combustion carbon capture,
which is essentially the same process but with 250 times less throughput.

~~~
jillesvangurp
You are missing the point; this is a fuel production system that effectively
removes the need to capture carbon: i.e. the notion of turning air into
something you put in the ground too offset the carbon we are removing from it
to burn. I agree that is not a valid economical proposition other than making
people feel slightly less guilty about burning fossil fuels. It's actually a
rather dumb idea since you are taking something that is expensive and wasteful
and spend yet more to offset somewhat just how wasteful it is.

Producing fuel from the captured carbon, sidesteps the whole problem of
needing fossil fuels at all. So, you are not offsetting anything; you are
simply producing the fuel that you need in a way that is clean.

You seem to be arguing that it can't be done because 'numbers'. 1) those
numbers lack citations 2) they are not set in stone. The question you should
be asking yourself is how badly wrong your numbers are and what it would take
to make the numbers right.

Turns out that this whole game of producing fuels from thin air is mostly a
function of clean energy cost per kwh. Simply put, this is not constant. It
varies wildly geographically. And it's also not constant over time. It's been
dropping for decades at a rather impressive pace and projected to continue to
do so. So, the only question is when will it become completely uneconomical to
mine fossil fuels as opposed to simply converting co2 into whatever
carbohydrates we need.

I'm guessing the persons behind Prometheus might be a bit optimistic here
(i.e. suggesting it could be economical right now) but I wouldn't see that as
a fundamental issue. If the answer is that those cost lines cross anywhere in
the next decades, this would be still be an extremely lucrative investment.
The mere possibility that this could be economical right now or in the very
near term, makes this quite exciting.

~~~
D_Alex
>You are missing the point; this is a fuel production system that effectively
removes the need to capture carbon

No... the first step in the proposed process is to capture the CO2 from the
air, what I describe in point 6 of my comment.

>You seem to be arguing that it can't be done because 'numbers'

No... It can be done. But it should not be done. Because 'numbers' tell you
there are other things that should be done instead. Right now.

>those numbers lack citations... you should be asking yourself is how badly
wrong your numbers are...

I work in this field. I have literally hundreds of possible citations. Pick a
number you most disagree with, and I will provide you a citation.
Alternatively, provide me a counter-citation and I will review and comment on
it for you.

> The mere possibility that this could be economical right now or in the very
> near term...

Here is what I am trying to tell you: this _cannot_ be economical until all
the other, much more economical options which I have listed are pretty much
fully used up. Considering that we have barely made a dent in the first of
these, this will certainly not be economical in the near term, or in the
medium term (and in my opinion, never, because biosequestration is so much
cheaper).

~~~
jillesvangurp
Eh no. You are talking about carbon capture as a way to offset fossil fuel
consumption. I'm talking about reducing fossil fuel consumption by instead
producing non fossil fuels. Apples and oranges. The point of that is not to
capture the carbon but to utilize it as fuel. With this technology, that is
neither impossible nor prohibitively expensive/unecomincal. Unlike the six
schemes you outline that are about not producing any fuel whatsoever so we can
continue to produce it the old way while hopefully removing some of the CO2
that we are thus putting there (hence the need to capture it).

You're using numbers to categorically dismiss what seems to be a pretty well
reasoned case for doing this as "impossible" because 'numbers' for various
carbon capturing schemes.

If you are capturing carbon, you might as well do it in a form where you can
actually utilize it for fuel. That's a pretty nice proposition. Prometheus
seems to be one of several startups with some plans for making this happen.

You're saying they are wasting time. I'm saying that layering the cost that
you outline on top of the existing fossil fuel production cost only makes
their value proposition even more attractive than it already is without doing
that. Bottom line is anything that reduces the amount of oil we pump up and
burn is a good thing. Carbon capture schemes seem more like an excuse to drag
our heels doing that than something that is actually likely to produce results
on a timescale that isn't measured in centuries.

~~~
D_Alex
>The point of that is not to capture the carbon but to utilize it as fuel. >If
you are capturing carbon, you might as well do it in a form where you can
actually utilize it for fuel.

Do you understand that the Prometheus proposes to first capture the carbon and
then convert it to fuel?

I have no objection to the "convert it to fuel" part. Just to the capture from
atmosphere, which is the most inefficient way.

~~~
jillesvangurp
I understand you perfectly. I just don't agree with a single sentence of it.
The semantics of carbon capture for you seem to mean to capture some (tiny)
percentage of the absolutely epic levels of fossil carbon we put into it
today.

The point of Prometeus is to take no fossil carbon whatsoever (0%) and create
the fuel directly from the CO2 already in the air and indeed put it back there
when it is burned. It's not capturing so much as reusing what is already
there. It's by definition the most efficient way. It's 100% efficient.

None of the things you listed actually produce fuel. So they are 0% efficient.
At best they offset some meaningless percentage of fossil fuels. Actually
raising the cost of those fossil fuels to pay for more meaningful percentages
(like more than 1 digit?), just strengthens the business case for Prometheus.
The more costly fossil fuel gets, the more attractive Prometheus gets. As it
is, they seem to be claiming to be cost effective as is.

~~~
D_Alex
>I understand you perfectly.

I don't think so.

>I just don't agree with a single sentence of it.... The more costly fossil
fuel gets, the more attractive Prometheus gets. As it is, they seem to be
claiming to be cost effective as is.

Okay. Invest in Prometheus. I think the net result will be an increase in CO2
emissions, because all the activity will fail to deliver any viable
atmospheric CO2 capture plants, ever. Let's check on this say 20 years from
now. If I'm right, buy me a beer.

------
yongjik
OK, I was curious so just did some math.

Gasoline has energy density of 34.2 MJ/L, or 9.5 kWh/L[1]. Its retail price is
about $3/gallon, or $0.8/L.

So, assuming 100% efficiency, the energy source for making gasoline should be
~$0.084/kWh to break even.

Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates 2022's solar/wind generation
cost at $73.7 and $55.8 per MWh [2], or $0.0737 and $0.0558 per kWh.

Assuming wind power, gasoline generation has to be ~66% efficient to break
even, which is (I guess) not physically impossible, but an incredible
engineering challenge.

...and that's assuming retail price. I'm not an energy expert, but [3] seems
to say that gasoline's current bulk price is ~$1.5/gallon, which pushes the
technology firmly on the side of losing money.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Energy_Information_Administration)

[3]
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=e...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=ema_epm0_pwg_nus_dpg&f=m)

~~~
ajross
If there were realistic competitors for fossil fuels, we wouldn't be worrying
about a climate crisis in the first place. Nothing is going to compete with
pumping fuel out of the ground, and it never will.

Any realistic scenario _starts_ with some kind of regulation on carbon
extraction and _then_ worries about the economics of replacements. And
technologies like this one that claim to be within a factor of two seem very
worth investigating.

Whether it works or not, who knows.

~~~
yongjik
But all these renewable energy sources are already competing with fossil fuels
and sometimes even winning! And even with these sources you can't make
synthetic gasoline economically viable.

That leads to the question: if one can sell synthetic gasoline at profit, they
must have a really cheap source of energy, in which case why go through the
trouble of gasoline instead of selling the energy directly?

~~~
slfnflctd
Imagine a remote military outpost-- the only supply chain access is limited &
expensive.

Having vehicles that can go from empty to full in seconds by fuel you pulled
out of the air yourself with solar panels last week could be much more
valuable than using those same solar panels to charge an electric vehicle (or
a battery bank and then later a vehicle).

Certain types of municipal or commercial fleets also have quick-refuel
requirements. There are likely a few other limitations to current electrics
that ICE engines don't have, as well.

------
macawfish
The carbon costs of manufacturing a replacement fleet of cars is surely vast.

Meanwhile, the internal combustion engine is perfectly capable of running on a
whole slew of renewable fuels, including but not limited to hydrogen gas,
methanol, etc.

It's not the most efficient in the long run, but it's a piece of the puzzle,
especially when you consider the baseline energetic/carbon costs of building
new vehicles from scratch.

P.s. lithium is a conflict mineral now.

~~~
ajross
The point about the desirability of a direct liquid fuel replacement for
transportation is valid, but this logic doesn't work:

> The carbon costs of manufacturing a replacement fleet of cars is surely
> vast.

Cars have finite lifetimes. You don't replace the ones on the road, you
replace the ones we'll buy in the future.

And this one... well...

> P.s. lithium is a conflict mineral now

citation REALLY needed

~~~
macawfish
> Cars have finite lifetimes. You don't replace the ones on the road, you
> replace the ones we'll buy in the future.

Apologies... I realize upon rereading what I wrote that it was all a little
hyperbolic.

My point is that renewable hydrocarbon fuels could extend the use of already
manufactured cars in a way that saves energy on the supply end, much in the
same way that thrift stores extend the lives of worn clothing and satisfy a
lot of demand that might otherwise go toward pressuring suppliers to make new
clothes. It pays, energetically, to reuse and recycle (two out of the three
R's right there!) Renewable hydrocarbon fuels would effectively "recycle"
existing cars. I don't have any hard numbers but my hunch is that economically
this could be quite a significant effect.

Combined with hybrid conversion kits, renewable hydrocarbon fuels could make
existing vehicles into a viable piece of the sustainable transportation
puzzle.

> citation REALLY needed

[http://gppreview.com/2018/02/07/motivations-unearthed-re-
con...](http://gppreview.com/2018/02/07/motivations-unearthed-re-
contextualizing-war-afghanistan/)

[https://www.globalresearch.ca/more-american-troops-to-
afghan...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/more-american-troops-to-afghanistan-
to-keep-the-chinese-out-lithium-and-the-battle-for-afghanistans-mineral-
riches-2/5605456)

[http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/the-united-
st...](http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publication/the-united-states-in-
south-asia-the-afghanistan-factor/)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.htm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html)

From the mouth of the beast itself: [https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-
trump-mining-lithium/3...](https://www.voanews.com/a/afghanistan-trump-mining-
lithium/3798585.html)

~~~
ajross
Those links all just say that there's Li in Afghanistan. Calling it a
"conflict mineral" is a particular term of social justice that implies that
its extraction is directly related to the exploitation of some local
population, not just that there's a putative "conflict" nearby! You just seem
to be using the term to argue that people near wars should be economic pariahs
who we never trade with. That's harmful, not helpful.

An of course, the overwhelming majority of Lithium production and reserves in
the world are in Australia and Chile, which are notably conflict-free.

~~~
macawfish
That's a disingenuous reading of "all those links". In the very first link,
for example, we have this quote:

> _The existence of this historical data suggests minerals may have been an
> underlining factor in the administration’s decision-making long before their
> official entanglement in the Afghan conflict. That would explain why, mere
> weeks after 9 /11, and weeks before the official declaration of war, the
> Pentagon was already commissioning geologists to study caves throughout the
> country._ ...

> ... _The process began almost immediately. From 2004 to 2006, the USGS
> conducted airborne geophysical surveys of the country. This was supplemented
> by efforts between 2005 and 2007 to consolidate existing information about
> the deposits in tandem with the AGS. What they found shocked even seasoned
> geologists, with an internal Pentagon memo from 2007 referring to
> Afghanistan as a “Saudi Arabia of Lithium.” With peaked interest,
> experimental hyperspectral imaging surveys began in 2007. But by the time
> Bush’s tenure as president was over, those surveys were not yet complete._

~~~
ajross
I'm sorry, where in that quote is someone making the case that we shouldn't
trade in Lithium because it's bad for Afghanis? Again, you're making a _very
specific_ claim about social justice here and seem to be justifying it with
bland pronouncements about Afghanistan. That doesn't fly. Find me someone
credible demanding divestment from Afghani Lithium or battery boycotts or
something and we'll talk.

But no, I'm not going to just take the word of some rando HN poster that
somehow Lithium is to be avoided. Like I said: citation needed.

~~~
macawfish
That quote is implying that mineral prospects, notably lithium, were a key
consideration in the U.S. decision to _go to war in Afghanistan_. Stick your
head in the sand if you'd like. This is an ongoing war that has cost hundreds
of thousands of lives. If that's not conflict, I don't know what is.

I didn't say "lithium is to be avoided". I didn't make any prescriptions. My
point is that lithium is not renewable and has been of key interest to
geopolitical strategists for decades. And yes, it has motivated deadly
conflicts. This is only going to heat up as time goes on.

I'm not advocating that anyone "avoid lithium". It's just not a renewable
resource and people have fought over it. They will continue to fight over it.

(Afghanistan isn't the only place where people have fought over lithium:
[https://www.freetibet.org/lithium-tibet](https://www.freetibet.org/lithium-
tibet) )

------
shawndrost
If I wanted to assess my carbon footprint, and the cost to offset, and then
pay to actually fund mitigation, how would I do that?

Eg this doesn't seem fully credible, but is responsive
[https://www.terrapass.com/product/productindividuals-
familie...](https://www.terrapass.com/product/productindividuals-families)

~~~
maccard
I believe you're looking at this the wrong way around. The consensus is that
buying carbon offsets only works as the last resort, only after you've taken
all of the steps to reduce your output in the first place - fly less, drive
less, eat less meat, eat local produce, reduce the amount of products you buy.
If you're buying a carbon offset to feel better about your lifestyle, you
probably shouldn't bother.

After that, you still need to look into the actual product you're buying into
directly and ensure that they're doing what they say they're doing, and that
the programs are managed correctly (which is very difficult to do).

In terms of calculating your CO2,
[https://www.carbonindependent.org/](https://www.carbonindependent.org/) is
pretty good for the UK. I'm not aware of an equivalent for the US though
(sorry)

\- [http://theconversation.com/carbon-offsets-can-do-more-
enviro...](http://theconversation.com/carbon-offsets-can-do-more-
environmental-harm-than-good-26593) \-
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/16/carbon-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/16/carbon-
offset-projects-carbon-emissions) \- [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-
style/motoring/is-carbon-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-
style/motoring/is-carbon-offset-an-effective-addition-to-your-green-
lifestyle-a7501226.html) \- [https://www.nrdc.org/stories/should-you-buy-
carbon-offsets](https://www.nrdc.org/stories/should-you-buy-carbon-offsets) \-
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-04-11/carbon-
offset...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-04-11/carbon-offsets-
worth-buying-air-travel-tourism-emissions/9638466) \-
[https://theenergymix.com/2017/04/25/carbon-offsets-dont-
redu...](https://theenergymix.com/2017/04/25/carbon-offsets-dont-reduce-
greenhouse-gas-emissions/)

------
anovikov
This is one of the very few areas where SV traditional 'startup' thing could
actually work and make big difference in the energy as well as environmental
field. Other might be battery tech but there are too many serious big
competitors there with 100 years of experience, and ample self-funding... But
CO2 removal producing fuel from electricity is one such field - it's not taken
seriously enough by big players who more pretend to be working on it than they
are actually working, it's really overlooked, and there are absolutely zero
fundamental reasons why it can't work. And it goes hand in hand with renewable
energy, to make perfect use of energy overproduced by intermittent sources,
straight on site. Solar cells cost almost nothing, but there is lack of
transmission capacity, grid is imbalanced, and corrupt permissioning process
is hard to navigate through? Just put that thing straight on site and collect
the gasoline once a week using a truck.

------
aoner
An important point that people are missing is that by capturing carbon
directly from the air with electricity we can combine two very important
energy systems: electrical and chemical. Going 100% renawable at an
accelerated pace is within reach and if we could use all excess power due to
intermittency to transform the carbon dioxide and synthesised hydrogen into
hydrocarbons we can solve some other problems that are currently unsolvable
before 2050 (jet fuels, chemical industry).

Also if we've improved this technology so that the costs are reduced (50$ per
ton) we can do proper negative emissions in a scalable way without many
downsides (can be used in non-arable land, no water consumption with low
temperature direct air capture actually has water as a co-product which we can
use for electrolysis). We could then sequester the carbon dioxide underground
or even create carbonates out of them so we can store them safely in concrete
or asphalt in the form of aggregates.

------
apo
Converting carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons consumes energy. If the product is
simply burned for fuel, I can see no benefit to this effort at all. Energy
will have been consumed and carbon will be re-released.

What am I missing here? All I can see is a battery in the form of gasoline.
And its efficiency remains to be seen - assuming the process actually works
and can scale.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
That's exactly the point, we could keep using existing planes, trains, cars,
ships, trucks, etc. without releasing new carbon.

Electric cars are just now practical and available for most people, but
without radically improved battery tech we can't make practical electric
airlines for example.

Plus, it makes carbon capture tech cheaper.

~~~
apo
In that case, carbon capture to produce organic chemical feedstocks makes a
lot more sense than burning for fuel. Given that there's no information about
what the process entails, it's hard to draw many conclusions.

------
dredmorbius
I'm curious as to why Prometheus are pursuing air-based carbon sequestration
rather than seawater, which apears far more efficient based on USNRL research.

The concept itself of fuel synthesis is exciting and well-established, if
publicly obscure, dating to the early 1960s, and being based on even older
industrial-scale WWII technology.

[http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA539765](http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-
doc/pdf?AD=ADA539765)

Robin Paul Bushore, "Synthetic Fuel Generation Capabilities of Nuclear Power
Plants with Applications to Naval Ship Technology", 1977

[https://calhoun.nps.edu/public/bitstream/handle/10945/18307/...](https://calhoun.nps.edu/public/bitstream/handle/10945/18307/syntheticfuelgen00bush.pdf?sequence=1)

John Michael Galle-Bishop, "Nuclear Tanker Producing Liquid Fuels From Air and
Water", 2011

[http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76359/82393200...](http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76359/823932001.pdf?sequence=1)

Steinberg, M., and Beller, M., "Liquid Fuel Synthesis Using Nuclear Power in a
Mobile Energy Depot System," Transactions of the American Nuclear Society,
Vol. 8, pg 159, June 1965.

Additional references:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electri...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28nqoz/electrical_fuel_synthesis_from_seawater_older/)

Discussion of Heather Willauer, et al, US Navy Research Lab studies:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_electricitytofuel_synthesis_papers_and/)

And a number of further past mentions:

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer-
tropsc...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q=fischer-
tropsch+fuel+synthesis&restrict_sr=on)

------
ThrustVectoring
I strongly suspect that manufacturing hydrocarbon fuel out of air, water, and
electricity is going to be a pretty significant part of the fight against
climate change.

The reason is fundamentally political. Newly industrialized countries have a
lot of vital economic activity dependent on internal combustion engines, and
cannot afford the luxury of replacing them with alternatives. The West does
not have the political will and power to worsen starvation in India in order
to lower the CO2 emissions caused by engines manufactured and used in India.
It's a lot more feasible to subsidize carbon-neutral fuel generation schemes
until it's cost competitive for Indian consumers.

In other words, this kind of scheme can be used to essentially ship CO2
emission reductions from one country to another. It replaces a wicked problem
with complex political and social components to a mere application of
staggering sums of money and resources.

~~~
natch
>I strongly suspect that manufacturing hydrocarbon fuel out of air, water, and
electricity

If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need. There is no
need to use it to produce a toxic, polluting fuel that is used in highly
inefficient internal combustion engines. Simply use electric motors, which are
way more efficient.

~~~
peteretep
> If you already have electricity, that is all the energy you need

If you can store and transport it better than gasoline can be stored and
transported, which ... so far you can’t.

~~~
fallingfrog
Why not just build electric trains?

~~~
dredmorbius
That is problematic in areas, including much of North America.

[http://energyskeptic.com/2016/electrification-of-freight-
rai...](http://energyskeptic.com/2016/electrification-of-freight-rail/)

------
thereisnospork
The $3.00/gallon price doesn't pass the sniff test, please tell me what I'm
missing:

1 gallon of gas is 33kwh of energy

1 kwh of electricity, wholesale in the US, is approx 3-8 cents or higher, so
1.65-4.4$/GEG of electricity

CO2 to gas process efficiency electrochemical would be optimistic at 60%

CO2 sequestration from air costs 40-120$/tonne, optimistically estimated from
not-yet industrially available technology. That scales by approximately 44/14
or 3x (weight CO2 to CH2) so 120-360$/tonne gasoline. At approx 2.8kg/gal (350
gal/tonne) that is an additional 0.34-1.02$/gal.

So before research amortization, capital, operations, maintenance, transport,
and profit I'm seeing an optimistic best-case of a >2$/GEG production cost.

This is of course assuming they can actually do what they are claiming. And
that they can do it at scale, at meaningful throughput, and with process
stability.

------
gnud
Prometheus, who made humans from clay, and them gave humans fire because he
felt compassion for them.

So, named after nothing less than the creator of humans and origin of
civilization.

PS: As a punishment for giving fire to humans, Prometheus was chained to a
mountain and had his liver picked out by an eagle every day, until Heracles
rescued him.

------
cagenut
that entire article can be reduced to "nanotubes"

since its a YC company though maybe we could get the underlying story?

~~~
rmcginnis
Hi, this is Rob, Founder of Prometheus. There is more info on the podcast that
accompanied the print piece here:
[https://megaphone.link/BLM3585271197](https://megaphone.link/BLM3585271197)

I'm also working on a HN launch summary that will fill in more details.

~~~
cagenut
hi rob, thanks for responding.

unfortunately i sat through that 20 minute podcast and the only thing i
learned was $3/gal is your estimate and that the machine has not yet worked.
nothing about nanotubes or any attempt at a claim at what the innovation is
here.

looking forward to that launch summary

------
maerF0x0
To me the main lack is why put these machines where the carbon is scarce vs
abundant? Eg: My back yard has something like 411PPM [1] but a coal plan flue,
i assume, has a very much larger PPM.

IMO it's analogous to solar panels in Canada where the sun is 1/2 the strength
of other parts of the planet [2]

[1]: [https://www.co2.earth/](https://www.co2.earth/) [2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:G...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#/media/File:Global_Map_of_Global_Horizontal_Radiation.png)

------
breakyerself
This will be nice for legacy cars, but I would prefer my Tesla to pretty much
any ICE car. Even if it was running on solar powered gasoline. The quiet, the
torque, the instantaneous acceleration.

~~~
whenchamenia
Bragging about your luxury car that costs more than my home wins you no
friends, and is not even on topic.

~~~
breakyerself
My car cost 45,000 and it's not off topic. My point is that even if you make
gasoline carbon neutral internal combustion cars are going to become obsolete.
Electric is going to take over.

------
kumarvvr
Any carbon capture technology, will require infrastructure and components
(which release carbon during manufacture), and use energy (no emissions if
using renewable fuel). Any analysis ought to take the cumulative total of all
the emissions produced during the lifetime of the product vs. the carbon
captured.

Nature has already given us the most efficient, cheap form of carbon capture.
Trees.

I hope there will be startups that extract and make fuel / energy from plants.

~~~
dredmorbius
Moreso than trees: marshes, swamps, and bogs. Wetlands.

------
hairytrog
Is this more efficient and different compared to biofuel production using
corn?

Both convert carbon in the air to carbon in a liquid fuel. Biofuels require
the production of fertilizers etc. This membrane would require some energy
source. The membrane would have to consume less energy than corn fertilizer /
unit fuel produced to be effective.

I wonder how this is less a gimmick compared to biofuel.

~~~
dredmorbius
Vastly, and more scalable to boot.

------
anthony_doan
I think the most cost effective non dream pipe one we have is that one lady is
doing, genetically altering plants to suck in more carbon.

This and the combination of planting more trees seems much more feasible,
assuming you use fertilizer that doesn't harm the environment even more.

------
skaminskiy
The only serious solution to climate change is leaving carbon fossil in the
ground. You are trying to create an incentive to have even more CO2 in the air
just for the sake of profit.

------
amelius
Wouldn't it make more sense to pull the CO2 directly out of the exhaust pipe,
because the concentration is higher there?

~~~
thedrbrian
Because you’d need additional tanks and pipe work. And you’d add additional
back pressure to the engine which would decrease the efficiency of the engine
and only get worse as the tank filled.

------
xmly
Curious. Why not focusing on extracting more gas from low-quality crude oil?
This would save much more.

~~~
dredmorbius
Net zero carbon emissions.

------
exabrial
Anyone explain how this works in regards to the laws of thermodynamics?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Use energy to assembly long complex molecules.

Rapidly oxidize said molecules releasing most of that energy.

Capture some of the energy released and turn it into mechanical power.

It's no different than any other carbon based energy source. The real question
comes down to the efficiency and economics of each of the various steps.

------
summersuki
As if the world doesn't have enough pollution

------
Abimelex
What is the difference to what a tree would do?

~~~
lucb1e
Did you mean to ask this in the currently #1 thread that links here?

------
bayareanative
Thunderf00t will debunk it. ;)

------
skookumchuck
To remove CO2 from the air, plant trees. Use the result as building materials.
Develop hardier trees that can grow in areas now inhospitable to trees.

Besides, trees are nice. They're solar-powered, too.

------
binichgross
Maybe y'all try to make lectrity outta thin air.

~~~
PaulAJ
You mean like wind turbines do?

------
graycat
Likely a lot easier to make gasoline out of:

(1) Crude oil.

(2) Coal, water, and electric power.

(3) Some biological reactions.

To address the _hidden agenda_ here, see

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg)

~~~
rmcginnis
Hi Graycat, it actually may be easier to make fuel by mining air. We used to
make fertilizer by mining guano and collecting animal droppings, but once
Haber and Bosch figured out how to make ammonia from atmospheric N2, it just
make more economic and practical sense. It's hard to mine oil, transport it,
refine it, etc. Compare that to making it where and when you need it with no
waste. I think it will be better.

~~~
jessaustin
As soon as PV is cheap enough, lots of fleets will convert to liquid anhydrous
ammonia. Sure it's different than petrol/diesel, but it's already in wide use
as a fertilizer and no technological breakthroughs are required to get it
burning in ICEs. It's not yet economical but if PV keeps getting cheaper it
will be. So it seems like the effort described in TFA is barking up the wrong
tree?

~~~
graycat
Ammonia? WOW! As at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#Combustion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#Combustion)

4 NH3 + 3 O2 → 2 N2 + 6 H2O

The stuff is darned dangerous, quite challenging to handle, highly regulated
due to the dangers, with lots of potential for toxicity, and likely close to
ammonium nitrate, one heck of an explosive, etc., but a little arithmetic
might show some astounding energy per gallon.

If it has a lot of potential, then I'd wonder why it has not been used in
military piston/jet engines.

I would guess that a little too much O2 would give off nitric acid, etc.

~~~
jessaustin
Sure there are issues but a lot of infrastructure and regulations already
exist for dealing with this fuel. And it completely eliminates the problems
with hydrocarbons: no greenhouse, exhaust is harmless, with cheap enough power
it can be made literally anywhere. A lot of the problems with ammonia are
easily dealt with in a fleet situation. People can be trained to safely
refuel, you can have a centralized solar-NH3 production facility, etc.

