The promise is that they could provide a missing piece in the climate puzzle: a carbon-neutral energy source for the entire transportation sector. Prometheus, and some other startups working to produce fuels from captured carbon, describe the end product as “ electrofuels,” since the process would effectively transform the energy in electricity into liquid fuels. Most outside observers that MIT Technology Review spoke with still believe it could take decades before carbon-capturing factories can spit out fuels as cheaply as we can dig them up. His bold claims have likely helped the company strike deals, observers say, but it’s made it harder to decipher the reality from the hype. Instead, two years later, the company has yet to piece together an integrated device that generates fuels that could power standard vehicles today.Īll of this has created a perception among some that McGinnis, a theater major and playwright before he earned a doctorate in environmental engineering from Yale, is a bit of a showman. McGinnis originally said that Prometheus would sell its alternative gas for $3 a gallon by sometime in 2020, undercutting fuel sold at the pump. The fact that the company widely missed its own targets for delivering synthetic fuels to the market has raised further doubts. They note that the company hasn’t publicly demonstrated a fully working system, submitted the process to peer review, or provided more detailed information on how it works, even to some potential investors. Others are skeptical that a small startup has quietly integrated leading-edge chemistry, novel catalysts, and a breakthrough membrane into a single cost-effective package that will easily scale to commercial levels. “People are putting money into lots of things that ultimately won’t ever work, and this is one of them.” “It’s the tech bubble again,” he added later.
“It’s laughable,” says Eric McFarland, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Several experts who have reviewed an investor presentation obtained by MIT Technology Review are dubious that the company can achieve the claimed costs. And it would reduce the pressure to continue extracting fossil fuels and building oil refineries, easing the grip of petrostates and the world’s addiction to petroleum.īut Prometheus’s assertions have raised eyebrows among researchers, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. It would offer a simple way to neutralize the emissions of the cars and trucks already on the road, as well as the world’s fleets of ships and planes. If these fuels could be produced at the costs and on the scales claimed, Prometheus might well overhaul the global energy marketplace.
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