Prometheus Just Changed Energy and Fuels Forever

---

In 2018, I founded Prometheus Fuels to prove it was possible to turn renewable electricity and air into gasoline-, jet-, and diesel-range fuels that cost less than fossil fuels. These new “electro-fuels” would cost less because the energy in them would come from solar electricity, which was already cheaper than fossil energy at the time and has continued to drop in cost at an astonishing rate. The goal was huge. But so was the reward for achieving it — a brand new source of liquid fuels that was limitless and low-cost. These fuels could be made anywhere at anytime. They would work in all existing engines and infrastructure. And their energy inputs would be mined, not from the ground, but from the fusion power of the sun, turning the world’s cheapest, most plentiful electrons into 24/7, baseload, dispatchable power for the first time. Today, I’m proud to report that we’ve done it. We now have the technology to revolutionize how energy is used and fuel is made in a way that supercharges human potential without warming the planet’s atmosphere.

To make this breakthrough, we had to achieve a number of difficult technical goals. Here are just the biggest ones. We had to figure out how to:

• capture CO₂ from the air at a low cost, since the chemical bonds between carbon and hydrogen are what hold the energy of hydrocarbon fuels
• turn the CO₂, electricity, and water into hydrocarbon molecules that have carbon chains of the right lengths to be the kinds of fuels we use in our engines and turbines
• operate our systems during the day and idle them at night so that they work natively with solar power’s intermittency
• do all this at room temperature and atmospheric pressure so that the equipment is inexpensive enough to run only 8 hours a day and still pay for itself with a low fuel price
• operate in remote regions without a grid connection in order to capture the cheapest solar electrons
• automate our systems to keep labor costs low
• make hydrocarbons that don’t require refining or other expensive post-processing

We have achieved all of these technical goals and some we didn’t even know were possible. What does this mean? It means that, starting now, we are poised to enter a time of unprecedented prosperity, enabled by an extraordinary energy surplus and low prices that can stimulate the global economy and free people from high energy bills, at the gas station, at the grocery store, and at home. And we don’t have to add new CO₂ to the atmosphere to do it. All of the CO₂ in our fuels comes from the air and returns to the air when the fuel is used, so we no longer have to heat the planet to get energy.

In the past six years, we’ve done all the necessary development and scaling of our fuel technology platform to reach full commercial readiness (TRL 9). We’ve built our commercial pilot system, Titan Forge Alpha, using off-grid solar power to make fuel from air. We’ve been demonstrating the current version of the technology for over a year at our HQ in California. We drive our guests along the Pacific Coast in the Promethean Stang, our 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback that runs on our fuel. We have over three years of pilot-scale operation of our novel Direct Air Capture system, proving that we’ve innovated the lowest-cost DAC in the world. Our cost to capture a ton of CO₂ is less than $50 per ton. That’s more than 10X lower than any previous DAC technology and half of most estimates for an ideal target cost. We’ve brought in an outside engineering firm to review our technology and cost estimates. The low prices we claim come from their reports.

Now that we’ve achieved our technical goals, we’re pursuing our commercial goals. We’re in the process of site selection for our first large commercial project — Project Lodestone, a 100,000 ton-per-year e-methanol plant. Our second project, Project Lodestar, is a million ton-per-year e-methanol plant. Both projects are sold out for 10 years.

We’ll continue to expand our e-methanol production, but will also begin offering gasoline, jet, and diesel fuels. The main difference between these fuels is the length of the carbon chains in the hydrocarbon molecules they’re made of. Methanol has one carbon. Gasoline typically has between 4 and 12 carbons, which can be abbreviated to “C4 – C12”. Jet fuel is typically between C8 – C16, and diesel between C8 – C20. Heavier fuels like fuel oils can have more than 50 carbons per molecule.

We’ve demonstrated the ability to make fuels with carbon chain lengths of between C1 – C30+ in water at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. We don’t use hydrogen to make these fuels. We don’t need hot, pressurized reactors for upgrading or other processes you’d expect to see in a refinery. We can also make syngas from DAC, a commonly used gas fuel which can be dropped into existing industrial processes to make carbon negative polymers, adhesives, building materials, green steel, pure component chemicals, and much more.

Our technology is revolutionary, and it is proprietary as well. I authored the foundational patents and we have expanded our patent portfolio throughout the last 6 years. The technology is truly a new breakthrough in human capability that I believe will seismically alter society as much as the steam engine or electric light bulb did in their respective centuries. Yes, that’s a big statement. But consider just a few of the new capabilities Prometheus technology makes possible.

We don’t have to dig in the ground anymore to find energy for our ships, planes, and cities. Prometheus fuels are made, not found. There are no “dry wells” in our future. Pick any spot of land with good sun, install our Titan Fuel Forges, and you’re guaranteed your own new Spindletop gusher. Except that now you have an energy source that never runs dry.

Fuel logistics are changed forever. Fleets of ships can travel with one support ship that makes fuel. Using its nuclear reactor to power our onboard Titan Fuel Forge, this single support ship can supply liquid fuels to an entire fleet and any aircraft that fly from it. Fuel blockades won’t work any more. All supply lines can now be more secure and fuel supply more reliable, adding a critical advantage to both commerce and defense.

Want to travel to Mars, but also want to come back? All the ingredients for making fuel are on the red planet so long as Prometheus Titan Fuel Forges or our mega installation, the Titan Fuel Foundry, is onsite, turning the sun and Martian CO₂ and water into methane or kerosene and O₂ for the return trip. It helps that our systems are so lightweight. Sorry Sabatier, you can’t stay on top forever.

In our more immediate future, here on Earth, we can meet the massive, exponential energy needs of AI. The pace at which data centers are being built and the extraordinary amount of energy they require demand a new solution to power these new AI tools. Prometheus fuels are of the highest quality. They can be made from the lowest cost solar and shipped to data centers for independent, 24/7, high-reliability, baseload power, on the grid or off. Our e-methanol can run in the gas turbines that are being furiously deployed on hyperscale campuses. Our fuel is 100% carbon neutral, can compete on price in commodity markets without subsidies, and can generate power for less than many data centers are paying for power today. There’s no need to build out decades worth of fossil fuel infrastructure. Our fuel is the better choice.

Because are we really content to watch the world get hotter? Or pay more as supply constraints and inflation in fossil fuel prices drive up the cost of energy? Why give up on the energy transition? Why not instead just insist that it come from the free market? Our fuels are cheaper than fossil fuels, and they’ll keep getting cheaper over time.

E-methanol is the first fuel we’re taking into production. It’s extremely versatile. In addition to powering data centers and cities, it can stabilize electrical grids and power ships. It can be turned into carbon negative materials like polypropylene and polyethylene — imagine your car not just running on our fuel, but actually being made of polymers that we made from air. As an energy-dense liquid fuel, our e-methanol can power long-duration drones, allowing them to operate for hours, even days at a time. And, crucially, our fuel can be made where the drones are needed.

These are just a few ways that Prometheus’ fuels and new tech for converting energy solve what have been some of society’s most intractable problems. And like the breakthrough industrial technologies that came before it, ours can spark an era of radical innovation — enabling new business models, empowering entrepreneurs to develop new products and services, and freeing up capital to grow the economy and raise living standards across the world. This new prosperity and these new opportunities will fuel optimism for a better future. The hope is that they’ll ignite a self-reinforcing cycle that drives more human achievement and further improvements to quality of life.

In the meantime, as we build Prometheus, we’re enjoying the experience that only technological advances of this magnitude create — first-of-a-kind moments that, in time, become larger than life. The first flight at Kitty Hawk, the first time electric lights came on at the 1878 Paris World’s Fair, the first television broadcast, the first time someone used a computer terminal to say “hello world”. At Prometheus, it’s been moments like the first time fuel bubbled up from our Faraday Reactor, creating an oil slick on the surface of the primordial salty water from which it was made. Or the first time we heard the Promethean Stang’s V8 engine roar to life on fuel made from solar electrons and air in our Titan Forge Alpha. It’s a really exciting time. We have more firsts coming. We hope you’ll experience them with us. 

---

Source: Prometheus Fuels, press release, 2025-08-30.

---

---