They seem to be heavy on vision, marketing and zero-net-carbon partnerships with huge brands, light on technical detail (i wouldn't hate some links to papers or a PoC of their reactor or something), all of which feels a little Nikola-y.
Hopefully someone can chime in with an explanation of why the technology is viable now (and not in the past) or why Prometheus is equipped to execute on this vision.
I've done a decent amount of research on Prometheus Fuels, and I'm a believer.
They've licensed a couple of key technologies out of Oak Ridge. First is a catalyst that converts CO2 + H2O + electricity directly into ethanol. The other is a membrane with parallel carbon nanotubes that are just the right size to filter that ethanol. The rest of the business involves the chemical conversion of pure ethanol into other types of hydrocarbons.
The result is the ability to efficiently create carbon-netural fuel, effectively capturing a percentage of the electricity as gasoline (or jet fuel, etc).
Of course, this is less energy efficient than simply burning fuel that you found in the ground. The advantage is that they can bypass the expensive drilling, refining, and transportation steps and use cheap renewable energy to create fuel literally anywhere they can stick a shipping container.
That's the goal, anyway. I really hope they succeed.
I myself don't like much how my brain sees Musk everywhere, yet I think similar methanol production will first come from SpaceX for Mars.
Also i wonder whether moonshine style distillation is worse than the carbon nanotubes membrane filtration, especially if you have a source of cheap waste heat.
Distillation is pretty expensive, energy-wise, and if you can't run continuously [e.g. if you're trying to use cheap intermittent renewables] you lose energy in the cooling-and-reheating cycles.
I have yet to see a significant source of usable "waste" heat that's not already being used for something else. Low-grade heat isn't helpful--you generally need reasonably high temperature differentials in order to power large-scale industrial processes.
[Disclosure: I've invested in Prometheus Fuels, but don't speak for them.]
Moonshining is less than 400 KJ per kg of source, i.e. about 1.5 KWh per kg of ethanol produced from 15% ethanol/water source. Given that one can use waste heat from almost any other industrial process the real monetary cost is way less than the cost of electrical 1.5 KWh.
>I have yet to see a significant source of usable "waste" heat that's not already being used for something else. Low-grade heat isn't helpful--you generally need reasonably high temperature differentials in order to power large-scale industrial processes.
Moonshining is 78 C degree - such cheap waste heat sources are plentiful exactly because it is hard to use for almost anything else.
>you lose energy in the cooling-and-reheating cycles.
not an issue for a 78 C process - basically like your water boiler, takes minimum of thermal isolation.
I've often wondered if I could justify a crypto mining rig if I used the waste heat for something, literally anything, useful. The tech is interesting and I want to for the sake of "doing something cool" but the environmental cost has me iffy on ever trying.
I think it's fair to assume that this technology is feasible at this point. McGinnis' other company, Mattershift, specializes in these kinds of membranes. IIRC they started in the desalination world, but have since found other applications.
Welcome to 2021. In a few years, Chase Coleman will pick up large stake in this company, take it public and financially engineer it enough to stuff it into the S&P at a $500bn valuation.
They've licensed a couple of key technologies out of Oak Ridge. First is a catalyst that converts CO2 + H2O + electricity directly into ethanol. The other is a membrane with parallel carbon nanotubes that are just the right size to filter that ethanol. The rest of the business involves the chemical conversion of pure ethanol into other types of hydrocarbons.
The result is the ability to efficiently create carbon-netural fuel, effectively capturing a percentage of the electricity as gasoline (or jet fuel, etc).
Of course, this is less energy efficient than simply burning fuel that you found in the ground. The advantage is that they can bypass the expensive drilling, refining, and transportation steps and use cheap renewable energy to create fuel literally anywhere they can stick a shipping container.
That's the goal, anyway. I really hope they succeed.