[HN Gopher] Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B...
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       Prometheus Fuels (YC W19) Closes Series B with $1.5B Valuation
        
       Author : alexose
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2021-09-23 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (prometheusfuels.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (prometheusfuels.com)
        
       | kaycebasques wrote:
       | There was a lot of excitement around this business in their
       | Launch HN post [1]. I recall the reception being positive and the
       | technology sounding legit, not snake oil. Pretty cool to see that
       | they've been plugging away and must have got the interest of some
       | big players.
       | 
       | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240
        
       | endisneigh wrote:
       | I admire the attempt to make your site really cool, but jeez it's
       | so unusable. Perhaps the most "form over function" site I've used
       | in years.
       | 
       | Please use a million or so and just make the website a static
       | site.
        
         | jacquesm wrote:
         | But if they had had a static website they wouldn't have had
         | funding.
        
         | destitude wrote:
         | Doesn't work properly for me in Safari version I am using
         | (13.1.3).. I see no text or images.. just some logo.
        
         | lancesells wrote:
         | I think you could have both. Static home page with a link to
         | "Experience Prometheus".
        
       | tedmcory77 wrote:
       | I really enjoyed Prometheus's launch discussion here on HN. I've
       | followed them on a regular basis because I believe in their
       | vision and mission largely because of Rob's responses here on HN.
       | I'm glad to see they've got funding for the next steps to start
       | scaling.
        
       | aww_dang wrote:
       | Feasibility aside, this is exactly what people want to hear
       | today. Eliminate CO2 from the atmosphere and sell gasoline. You
       | have to give them credit for the pitch, regardless of what is or
       | isn't delivered.
        
         | jacquesm wrote:
         | I have this great idea about doing blood assays for all of the
         | common tests out there out of a little pinprick worth of blood
         | from your fingertip. It's exactly what people want to hear
         | today. How about some funding?
        
           | aww_dang wrote:
           | Yes, Theranos raised money. If Prometheus goes that way the
           | failure mode may be different.
           | 
           | "Our process works, but it isn't profitable."
           | 
           | "It isn't profitable, but we deserve subsidies..."
           | 
           | "It isn't profitable _now_ , but with carbon trading right
           | around the corner we will be wildly profitable _in the near
           | future_ "
        
         | alexose wrote:
         | It definitely passes the Mr. Burns test:
         | https://twitter.com/sethbannon/status/1214215295969030148
        
       | ttobbaybbob wrote:
       | 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.
       | 
       | Thin articles touching on the technology:
       | https://prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/meet-our-v3-faraday-...
       | https://prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/worlds-1st-machine-t...
       | 
       | 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.
        
         | mbesto wrote:
         | And how a physical good/energy company that is worth $1.5B only
         | has 20 employees...
        
           | splistud wrote:
           | Definitely better valuations on Canadian companies in the
           | carbon-neutral 'area', and better ideas in my opinion
        
             | ttul wrote:
             | You're missing the link: https://carbonengineering.com/
        
           | sayonaraman wrote:
           | most of that funding must have paid for the animations
        
           | kolbe wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | femiagbabiaka wrote:
             | Oh yeah. Added to $ARKK and the whole nine yards.
        
           | whymauri wrote:
           | non equity baring contractors. is my guess, at least.
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | Its nothing like Nikola, its Faraday!
        
         | alexose wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | trhway wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | uranium wrote:
             | 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.]
        
               | alexose wrote:
               | How were you able to invest, if you don't mind me asking?
        
               | trhway wrote:
               | >Distillation is pretty expensive, energy-wise,
               | 
               | 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.
        
               | corpdronejuly wrote:
               | Well that answers my question about crypto waste heat and
               | useful work.
        
             | corpdronejuly wrote:
             | 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.
        
               | uranium wrote:
               | Heat your house?
               | 
               | https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530072-800-the-
               | comp...
        
         | cfgghsj wrote:
         | I found this article written by the CEO in a journal outlining
         | some technical details.
         | https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(20)30002-7.pdf
         | 
         | His breakthrough technology is supposed to be the carbon
         | nanotube membrane as explained here.
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240
         | 
         | But, the two papers he cited in the Joule article don't go as
         | far as actually separating water and ethanol. It's questionable
         | whether this is possible or has been done successfully yet.
         | https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-0068/25/04/4...
         | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1700938
        
           | lowercase1 wrote:
           | Yeah the tech seems feasible but I'm skeptical of controlling
           | capital costs when you need carbon nanotubes membranes as a
           | core piece.
           | 
           | Air capture is also quite expensive and I'm not sure how much
           | the "only need small concentrations of CO2" trick does.
        
           | alexose wrote:
           | 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.
           | 
           | https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/03/20180310-mattershif.
           | ..
        
         | beambot wrote:
         | Some of the technical details:
         | 
         | https://www.science.org/news/2019/07/former-playwright-aims-...
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | tlogan wrote:
         | I hope they will do it. I see Rob McGinnis (their CEO) has a
         | PhD. Did he publish some papers on this topic before?
        
           | rmcginnis wrote:
           | If you'd like to see some of my publications (including old
           | desalination stuff), check out my Google Scholar page:
           | https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t4ZIFUoAAAAJ&hl=en
        
         | sschueller wrote:
         | Another Elizabeth Holmes?
        
       | outside1234 wrote:
       | What's the catch? Does the fuel cost $10 a gallon?
        
         | jack_riminton wrote:
         | I can't point you to where because the scrolling but mid-page
         | it said it costs the same as regular fuel
        
         | rmcginnis wrote:
         | One cent per gallon less than the fossil jet fuel spot price -
         | in California (we will use LCFS credits to start)
        
         | rasz wrote:
         | The catch is there is no fuel.
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | Here's the relevant text, since the website makes it hard to get
       | to.
       | 
       |  _We're excited to announce the close of our Series B funding
       | round, with investment by Maersk, Metaplanet, and BMW. As a
       | result of the round, we've achieved a $1.5 Billion valuation,
       | making us the world's first electrofuels unicorn._
       | 
       |  _This month, we received strong support from the White House, as
       | well as some of world's largest, most iconic brands that have
       | been nothing short of bold in backing innovative tech to
       | decarbonize their industries -- American Airlines, Maersk, and
       | BMW. Their support marks a rising recognition of the incredible
       | promise that our zero net carbon electrofuels hold in getting the
       | planet to Net Zero by 2050._
       | 
       |  _On September 9, the Biden administration included Prometheus
       | and our zero net carbon electro-Sustainable Aviation Fuel, or
       | electro-SAF, in its plan to phase out fossil jet fuel and make
       | aviation carbon neutral by 2050._
       | 
       |  _American Airlines, responding to the White House's goal, cited
       | our zero net carbon electro-SAF as key to decarbonizing its
       | fleet, which, at over 880 aircraft, is the world's largest. The
       | airline's support came on the heels of its recent agreement to
       | buy 10 million gallons of our fuel._
       | 
       |  _Said Doug Parker, American Airlines Chairman and CEO: "We're
       | excited to partner with Prometheus to scale up the production of
       | zero net carbon electrofuels. Their ability to produce 100%
       | carbon neutral SAF at a price lower than fossil jet fuel and to
       | not be limited in the scale of future production is the strongest
       | indicator we've seen that a 100% carbon neutral aviation future
       | can be achieved in time."_
       | 
       |  _Maersk Growth, the venture arm of A.P. Moller - Maersk, led our
       | Series B round. Maersk, the world's largest container logistics
       | company, responsible for moving nearly 17% of the world's
       | container capacity, has been a take-no-prisoners, accept-no-half-
       | measures trailblazer in decarbonizing its operations and the
       | maritime shipping industry at large._
       | 
       |  _So we were honored when Maersk's Head of Decarbonization,
       | Morten Bo Christiansen, had this to say: "Prometheus Fuels is
       | developing a very exciting and innovative technology to produce
       | carbon based electrofuels from direct air capture of CO2.
       | Electrofuels are expected to play a key role for the
       | decarbonisation of shipping and, if scaled successfully,
       | Prometheus Fuels' technology will address a key constraint for
       | carbon based electrofuels -- namely the cost competitiveness of
       | direct air capture."_
       | 
       |  _BMW i Ventures, who led our Series A round last year, doubled-
       | down to join our Series B as well._
        
         | quadrature wrote:
         | Thanks!, their website is completely unusable so this helps a
         | ton.
        
           | rmcginnis wrote:
           | Working on it!
        
       | uxcolumbo wrote:
       | What does everyone think of the website?
       | 
       | Heavy on animation, can't select text, uses the canvas element
       | which isn't great for accessibility.
       | 
       | If this would be a 'normal' html website with those videos
       | embedded - would this make a difference how you perceive the
       | company and their tech?
       | 
       | Great tech though - hope they can scale it. Need to throw
       | everything we got at this climate crisis.
        
       | truthwhisperer wrote:
       | hope your technology works better than your website
        
       | BLanen wrote:
       | Using organic fuels as a battery(which this essentially proposes)
       | with internal combustion engines is extremely inefficient.
       | 
       | This seems more like a device to capture subsidies.
        
       | rmcginnis wrote:
       | Hi everybody, I'm the founder of Prometheus. Happy to answer any
       | questions!
        
         | rmcginnis wrote:
         | Sorry to all about the drop in website performance. Working on
         | it!
        
         | alexose wrote:
         | I'm curious if Prometheus has considered any options for
         | permanent sequestration. Perhaps buying an old oil rig and
         | pumping electro fuel back into it.
         | 
         | It's obviously hard to find an economic incentive to do this,
         | but maybe carbon credits would make it possible.
        
           | Voloskaya wrote:
           | How would that be better for the environment though?
           | 
           | Unless we have a way to electrify all planes (we don't
           | currently), this is the next best thing. I think the key is
           | to ensure biofuel never gets cheaper than regular fuel, to
           | avoid incentivizing flying more.
           | 
           | If you sequester what you pull out in some old oil well,
           | while American Airlines is pumping out from the next oil
           | well, it has to be less effective (and thus release more CO2
           | in the process), than just you sending your oil from captured
           | carbon directly to them.
        
       | pkrein wrote:
       | If the founders are around... trying to understand their
       | economics. They claim to sell Jet A at the market clearing price.
       | Jet A goes for $0.45/L. The lowest industrial electricity rates
       | in the US are $0.05/kWh (double that in California where they are
       | selling today.) With 100% efficiency, no capital costs and no
       | other opex, you get $0.05/kWh * 9.5 kWh/L = $0.47/L electrofuel
       | Jet A. How can that work?
        
         | sacred_numbers wrote:
         | Their system is designed to easily start and stop to take
         | advantage of wholesale wind and solar electricity rates, which
         | are more like $0.02/kWh during certain parts of the day and
         | times of the year. They sacrifice uptime for even cheaper
         | electricity. If their capital costs and fixed opex are low
         | enough this is a good strategy.
         | 
         | Here's an article about this strategy form the CEO:
         | https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(20)30002-7.pdf
        
         | skeeter2020 wrote:
         | make it up on volume?
        
         | rmcginnis wrote:
         | In order to make electrofuels cost competitive, you've got to
         | use new utility scale solar, which is now less than $0.02/kWh :
         | https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/08/saudi-arabias-second-...
         | 
         | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/07/01/new-sola...
         | 
         | Assume an overall efficiency of approx. 40% to be conservative.
        
           | pkrein wrote:
           | Ok so the 40% efficiency and 2.5x reduction in electricity
           | prices cancel each other out... we're still at electricity
           | costs == energy in the jet fuel. No room for electrofuel
           | plant capex or any other electrofuel plant opex. And to get
           | those low electricity prices you have to only run your plant
           | at 30% duty cycle when the sun is shining (3x capex).
           | 
           | How does capex and other opex fit in?
        
         | caust1c wrote:
         | Subsidies, closed grid electric sources, could be anything!
         | 
         | (Not claiming it's feasible, but playing devils advocate
         | because of course I'm hopeful)
        
         | yumraj wrote:
         | > How can that work?
         | 
         | Theranos 2.0 ?
        
         | qqqwerty wrote:
         | There is probably a fair bit of wishful thinking going on, but
         | that is essentially a perquisite for starting a company like
         | this. The pessimists don't get very far.
         | 
         | But something worth considering, in academic circles the "old"
         | school of thought was that we could get a high penetration of
         | renewable energy by building sufficient transmission capacity
         | (i.e. send electricity from sunny/windy areas to places where
         | it is not). The "new" school of thought is that instead of
         | investing in transmission, invest in significantly overbuilding
         | capacity. Think 3-4x the peak demand vs peak supply (i.e. in
         | the summer months, if you have 100MW peak demand, build
         | 300-400MW solar/wind). The rough idea is that renewables are so
         | cheap and long term storage and transmission are so expensive,
         | that it is better to just massively overbuild renewables and
         | rely on shorter term storage to fill in the gaps.
         | 
         | And one major side affect of a strategy like this is that we
         | will have a ton of extra electricity that we don't know what to
         | do with during certain periods of time. This would be a great
         | time to spin up carbon capture devices (among other industrial
         | uses). There are still a lot of things that need to fall into
         | place for a future like this to happen, but if you are trying
         | to "skate to where the puck is going to be" it is not a bad
         | target to aim for. There are plenty of well funded energy
         | focused startups/companies that operating on worse future
         | assumptions.
        
       | tbojanin wrote:
       | This website gave safari a heart attack
        
       | jonny_eh wrote:
       | This site is so hard to navigate/scroll, it's a shame because
       | this seems like interesting tech.
        
       | Invictus0 wrote:
       | Not surprised to see all the criticism of the website, as of
       | course this is HN. But for me it loaded instantly and I
       | absolutely loved the experience.
       | 
       | That said, the technology seems suspect. Carbon nanotubes are
       | just as hard to use today as they were twenty years ago.
        
       | moneywoes wrote:
       | This seems to good to be true. What's the catch?
        
       | setgree wrote:
       | Trying to click this on my phone in a low-service area (I waited
       | 10 seconds and got nowhere besides a loading screen) is a great
       | reminder of why companies should strive to have at least some of
       | their materials -- anything related to fundraising is a good
       | candidate -- in plaintext.
        
         | caymanjim wrote:
         | I'm on high speed Internet and the loading animation was slowly
         | spinning long enough for me to close the tab without seeing
         | anything else.
        
           | dr_orpheus wrote:
           | Same for me.
        
       | dukecitypal wrote:
       | Why convert methanol to gasoline when you can directly convert it
       | into electricity using a reformer and HT-PEM fuelcell?
       | 
       | https://www.advent.energy/advent-power-stacks/
        
         | splistud wrote:
         | Because gasoline is also an extremely useful product
        
       | jmpman wrote:
       | If Norway took their entire sovereign wealth fund from the
       | extraction of oil, and spent it on carbon capture, what
       | percentage of carbon they extracted through their oil industry,
       | could they recover? 0.1% 1% 100% ?
        
       | whirlwin wrote:
       | Judging by the name, I thought it was something else. They can
       | still make a fuel_exporter though!
        
       | sethbannon wrote:
       | I'm confused about how this is on the front page. The title says
       | they've raised a Series B at a big valuation but the link is just
       | their marketing page, with no mention whatsoever of a raise.
        
         | alexose wrote:
         | Sorry, I'm not sure what happened there. The actual release is
         | tucked away on their blog:
         | 
         | https://prometheusfuels.com/on-the-road/prometheus-is-first-...
        
           | contravariant wrote:
           | Dear god, it's just text but somehow they've managed to make
           | it equally unusable as their overdesigned homepage.
        
       | earksiinni wrote:
       | Serious question for all atmospheric carbon capture companies:
       | 
       | What happens once you're super successful and atmospheric carbon
       | densities are dramatically lower? Is there a point at which the
       | density is too low for the economics to work?
       | 
       | Would be an awesome problem to have.
        
         | achenatx wrote:
         | we burn the generated fuel and cycle the carbon again. The fuel
         | essentially acts like a battery. You would have to use
         | renewable energy to power the capture.
        
           | earksiinni wrote:
           | Duh! Obviously ( _headdesk_ :-)
           | 
           | I guess I was thinking more of CCS, but for fuel it makes
           | total sense.
        
         | alexose wrote:
         | I can't wait for that to be a problem :)
         | 
         | Most carbon capture schemes like this tend to have some sort of
         | concentration step, often using amine sorbents or other
         | chemical equivalents. The atmospheric concentration doesn't
         | tend to be the bottleneck here, from what I can tell.
         | 
         | There is the question of "what happens when we're at pre-
         | industrial carbon levels", which yeah, means that we'll have to
         | stop getting our carbon straight from the atmosphere :)
        
       | betaby wrote:
       | Looks like Theranos to me.
        
       | hsavit1 wrote:
       | Why should anyone be excited about reusing captured C02 as fuel
       | for gasoline? The climate crisis is incredibly dire, do not
       | forget. We are rapidly sleepwaliking into a catastrophic 2
       | degrees C of warming.
        
         | rhinoceraptor wrote:
         | EV passenger cars are feasible for the average person today.
         | But without an order of magnitude leap in battery tech, it's
         | never going to be feasible to electrify planes, cargo ships,
         | farm equipment, etc.
         | 
         | Other carbon capture tech doesn't have a useful end product, so
         | the only incentive for it to exist is to offset other carbon
         | emissions in some sort of larger cap and trade or carbon tax
         | scheme. So it would be great if this also drives down the price
         | of carbon capture in general.
        
       | jpm_sd wrote:
       | Didn't Google X try out something similar, and then decided it
       | was uneconomical?
       | 
       | https://x.company/projects/foghorn/
        
         | rmcginnis wrote:
         | Project Foghorn was technically successful but couldn't hit the
         | economics. The tech lead on that project is now a scientific
         | advisor for Prometheus - Matt Eisaman
        
         | nradov wrote:
         | The US Navy continues to research similar technology for
         | manufacturing synthetic kerosene out of sea water onboard
         | aircraft carriers. They aren't too concerned about economics.
         | Their goal is to reduce the amount of jet fuel they have to
         | haul around.
        
           | TeMPOraL wrote:
           | It helps having more power onboard than they know what to do
           | with, thanks to a handy nuclear reactor.
        
           | mbesto wrote:
           | > Their goal is to reduce the amount of jet fuel they have to
           | haul around.
           | 
           | Which has economic consequences :)
        
             | nradov wrote:
             | No it's more about survivability. Tankers are a vulnerable
             | part of the logistic train. And storing large amounts of
             | fuel is a fire risk.
        
               | mbesto wrote:
               | Ok let's get pedantic.
               | 
               | Not having to store fuel means:
               | 
               | - I have to spend less money on logistics because I don't
               | have to put out fires, I don't have to train people to
               | put out fires, I don't have to hire people, etc. etc.
               | 
               | - Less fuel needed to be held means more working capital
               | needed for energy consumption, less time to fuel up.
               | 
               | - Less fire risk means I have to allocate less money for
               | risk based allocations (insurance, hospitalization for
               | people getting burnt, emergency planning and services
               | required to deal with fires, etc.)
               | 
               | - Less fuel means the cost to create an aircraft carrier
               | is much less
               | 
               | - A smaller fuel tank required means a smaller overall
               | aircraft carrier, which means I spend less
               | 
               | - etc etc.
               | 
               | This is by all means an economic decision.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | No that's nonsense. The ships will still have all the
               | same fire fighting equipment and they will continue the
               | same damage control training for crews. If this fuel
               | synthesis technology is built into future aircraft
               | carriers then they won't be any smaller or cheaper. The
               | large size is a requirement to maintain high sortie rates
               | and handle rough seas, and reducing the size wouldn't
               | significantly reduce costs (steel is cheap). If anything
               | they will be _more_ expensive due to the complex
               | machinery and increased power generation requirements.
        
               | mbesto wrote:
               | The suggestion that there isn't some powerpoint
               | presentation that the US Navy created (or consultants to
               | them) that says "if we invest $X millions/billions to
               | create smaller fuel jet fuel tanks we won't save money"
               | is total nonsense. That's not how capital intensive
               | government projects work.
        
       | adamdusty wrote:
       | The website really glosses over the part where they turn alcohols
       | into gasoline. Is this an existing technology that is already
       | available? I dont know as I'm not really plugged into energy
       | generation technology.
       | 
       | Also, it says that Titan turns 9 millions kilotons of CO2 into 1
       | million gallons of gasoline. Does it actually do this or is that
       | what they expect it to do?
        
         | pfdietz wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Methanol_to_hydrocarb...
        
       | eaenki wrote:
       | They must have spent a million on that landing page
        
       | donsupreme wrote:
       | 1.5B valuation and yet their UX is total shit and basically
       | unusable.
        
         | bpodgursky wrote:
         | Sounds like they have their priorities right, focusing on a
         | hard-tech product and not a consumer web portal.
        
           | kwonkicker wrote:
           | What product?
        
           | norcux wrote:
           | I would argue they focused too much on the website to the
           | point where they over-engineered it.
        
           | kolbe wrote:
           | This is not a cheap/neglected form of "total shit." They put
           | a lot of man hours into this cartoon.
        
         | notyourday wrote:
         | Their product is selling shares. If you are looking at the UX
         | or the tech, you aren't their target market.
        
       | danpalmer wrote:
       | I haven't had a loading screen for that long on a website, or a
       | framerate that low, since I last used Flash in 2007.
       | 
       | This is a shame because I think the company does something
       | interesting? I'm not sure, because the website is getting in the
       | way of understanding what it is, but reading the Wikipedia entry
       | it sounds fascinating:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Fuels
        
       | hannob wrote:
       | Just so people are aware, Prometheus comes up every now and then
       | among people on twitter following the climate tech space, and
       | most think that their claims are bogus and completely
       | unbelievable.
       | 
       | Like they recently claimed that they can capture CO2 from the air
       | with 36$, which is like 20-30 times lower than what current best
       | tech can offer, and also lower than what people believe is
       | generally possible.
       | 
       | See some discussion (while snarky, both people know this space
       | well):
       | https://twitter.com/gnievchenko/status/1385357863191814149#
       | https://mobile.twitter.com/rutherdan/status/1385459168107057...
        
         | YossarianFrPrez wrote:
         | Prometheus's vision is very hard not to like. And, at the same
         | time, there are likely good reasons to be skeptical. (I have
         | very little expertise in this area myself.)
         | 
         | FYI, I didn't find the tweets you've linked to to be
         | convincing. One tweet criticizes prometheus because, at the
         | time of the tweet, they had a P.O. box. The other suggests that
         | 'the secret ingredient may be lies.' Now, maybe both tweet
         | authors' criticisms are well-founded. But, rhetorically
         | speaking, the tweets aren't appeals to logic.
        
         | Voloskaya wrote:
         | > can capture CO2 from the air with 36$, which is like 20-30
         | times lower than what current best tech can offer
         | 
         | 36$ is their cost after reselling the fuel. The 20-30x is the
         | cost to capture and then sequester a ton, with no revenue for
         | this.
        
           | rmcginnis wrote:
           | $36/ton is our cost to capture CO2 from the air. For us it is
           | an input to making things, not a product, so we don't need to
           | purify it to 100% pure CO2, just need to capture it into
           | water (approx. 2% concentration). This requires way less
           | energy and equipment, so much much cheaper.
        
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