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by adultSwim 1514 days ago
Can someone explain how this is carbon neutral? It sounds like it produces regular gas, but using electricity instead of extracting petroleum. Wouldn't burning the gas produced still be a problem?
3 comments

They catch CO2 from air. They make fuel only from this and electricity. Then once someone burns the fuel, it produces the same or less CO2.
Thanks. I understood the pieces of getting CO2 from air, getting electricity from solar/wind, using those plus water to somehow make fuel (magic?); but didn't connect the dots on it all being the same carbon throughout the process.

They're going to really need to knock people over the head with the part that what goes out is only what goes in, and also why that's better than extracting oil from the ground.

They acquire the carbon using direct air capture[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Fuels#:~:text=The%2....

It only emits the CO2 that it captures in the first place to make the fuel. As long as the electricity used to make the fuel is itself carbon neutral, than the entire process is. It would be seriously exciting if and when this works.