Gasoline Out of Thin Air? It's a Reality! - Slashdot

Gasoline Out of Thin Air? It's a Reality! - Slashdot
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Can Aircela's machine "create gasoline using little more than electricity and the air that we breathe"?
Jalopnik
reports
...
The Aircela machine works through a three-step process. It captures carbon dioxide directly from the air... The machine also traps water vapor, and uses electrolysis to break water down into hydrogen and oxygen... The oxygen is released, leaving hydrogen and carbon dioxide, the building blocks of hydrocarbons. This mixture then undergoes a process known as direct hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to methanol, as documented in scientific papers.
Methanol is a useful, though dangerous, racing fuel, but the engine under your hood won't run on it, so it must be converted to gasoline. ExxonMobil has been studying the process of doing exactly that since at least the 1970s. It's another well-established process, and the final step the Aircela machine performs before dispensing it through a built-in ordinary gas pump. So while creating gasoline out of thin air sounds like something only a wizard alchemist in Dungeons & Dragons can do, each step of this process is grounded in science, and combining the steps in this manner means it can, and does, really work.
Aircela does not, however, promise free gasoline for all. There are some limitations to this process. A machine the size of Aircela's produces just one gallon of gas per day... The machine can store up to 17 gallons,
according to
Popular Science
, so if you don't drive very much, you can fill up your tank, eventually... While the Aircela website does not list a price for the machine,
The Autopian
reports
it's targeting a price between $15,000 and $20,000, with hopes of dropping the price once mass production begins. While certainly less expensive than a traditional gas station, it's still a bit of an investment to begin producing your own fuel. If you live or work out in the middle of nowhere, however, it could be close to or less than the cost of bringing gas to you, or driving all your vehicles into a distant town to fill up. You're also not limited to buying just one machine, as the system is designed to scale up to produce as much fuel as you need.
The main reason why this process isn't "something for nothing" is that it takes twice as much electrical energy to produce energy in the form of gasoline. As Aircela told
The Autopian
" Aircela is targeting >50% end to end power efficiency. Since there is about 37kWh of energy in a gallon of gasoline we will require about 75kWh to make it. When we power our machines with standalone, off-grid, photovoltaic panels this will correspond to less than $1.50/gallon in energy cost."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader
Quasar1999
for sharing the news.
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Submission: Gasoline out of thin air? It's a reality!
Google Discover Replaces News Headlines With Sometimes Inaccurate AI-Generated Alternatives
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Should all gas stations have an array of these?
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by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
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gameboyrmh@NOspaM.gmail.com
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:08PM (
#65948604
Journal
At $1.50/gal ready to go in a car with just energy as an input, even with those huge up-front costs for the machine it could make sense for gas stations to have an array of these constantly filling their Regular or Economy tanks. Especially in places with more expensive gas like basically everywhere a random person walking around with an assault rifle would be cause for alarm and not just Tuesday.
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Re:Should all gas stations have an array of these?
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, Informative)
by
Sique
( 173459 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:24PM (
#65948632
Homepage
No. With 75 kWh, you can power an electric vehicle to go 250 miles. And at current prices for public chargers in the U.S., you can sell the 75 kWh for about $30. With the one gallon you can get from the same 75 kWh, your car will go 35 miles, and you can sell it for $3. It simply makes no sense.
Parent
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Re:
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by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
writes:
So it's not as profitable (or sensible, but that's beside the point) as charging an EV, sure. But it looks like it could still be profitable in a lot of jurisdictions, perhaps moreso than the dinosaur juice the stations are currently selling.
Re:
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by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
At 1 gallon/day it doesn't seem like it would justify itself much of anywhere. Perhaps the same principles could be applied to a different design, This looks like a lab curiosity.
Re:
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by
backslashdot
( 95548 )
writes:
A gallon a day is what? 25 miles? That's many people's daily commute. If you have a gasoline powered car at home, spending $15K on this may save you money in the long run even if you don't power it with solar panels. If solar powered, it would enable you to go off-grid and not be subject to electricity companies price increases.
Also, what's the capital expenditure needed to have a bunch of these producing 1000 gallons a day? $15 million? That should pay for itself in a year or two.
Re:
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
75kWh to make 1 gallon = $7.50@ $0.10/kWh per gallon, just electricity cost.
Even commercial solar is closer to 5-10 cents a kWh.
Only way this really makes sense would be for somebody living in a remote area, like a farm or ranch, where the gallon a day enables them to do farm stuff without needing to import fuel. IE they get diesel for the planting and harvest with the tractors, but keep any gasoline vehicles filled.
Looking, their assumption of $0.02 kWh electricity is extremely optimistic.
Re:
Score:
by
molarmass192
( 608071 )
writes:
Math-adept version:
Thank you for pointing out the obvious for the math-challenged. It's only free if electricity is free, and electricity is currently not free. Even if you are given the machine and maintenance for free, it still costs at least $7.50/gallon to produce. Using solar? OK, are they giving solar panels for free too? Nothing adds up, this is a party trick looking for a buyer.
Math-challenged version:
You can totally hook this up in a loop to perpetually fill a gasoline generator and generate endles
Re:
Score:
by
backslashdot
( 95548 )
writes:
Economically-challenged version: Solar power is already at 3 cents a kilowatt and dropping. Redo your math that's $2.25 per gallon (independent of capex amortization).
Re:
Score:
by
ukoda
( 537183 )
writes:
Interestingly I do often have free power as often the rural grid can't handle the surplus solar power I have and the inverters simply go into a power output limiting mode so the house voltage does not get to high. The catch is I sold my last thing that I routinely used that ran on gas, so I have no use for gas anymore. That last thing was a ride on mower which didn't cost much in gas but was always needing something fixed, typically belts, which my new electric ride on doesn't have. Shortly after I sold
Re:
Score:
by
flink
( 18449 )
writes:
Only way this really makes sense would be for somebody living in a remote area, like a farm or ranch, where the gallon a day enables them to do farm stuff without needing to import fuel. IE they get diesel for the planting and harvest with the tractors, but keep any gasoline vehicles filled.
If a gallon of gas a day is all you use, and you are out in the middle of nowhere with no access to fueling stations, covert the target vehicle you are putting that gas into electric and charge it with the power you would use to power the air gas machine. No one is running a tractor for a full day on a gallon of diesel. This would be good to top off a truck to drive to the nearest town but that about it. And again, if that's all you are driving for, just use the electricity to directly power the vehicle.
Re:
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by
Firethorn
( 177587 )
writes:
I didn't get around to it, but since I was picturing the gallon a day being mostly tooling around the farm, as one can fill up on trips into town, I was also thinking that an electric UTV would be a much cheaper and better solution.
Still import diesel for the tractors and such, but for daily running around a UTV would be handy.
75 kWh would be around 30 miles as gasoline, but 225 miles as EV. Even more for a relatively small and slow UTV.
Re:
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
A gallon a day is what? 25 miles? That's many people's daily commute. If you have a gasoline powered car at home, spending $15K on this may save you money in the long run even if you don't power it with solar panels.
The benefit of filling up at home is to do something cheaply. This can save you money in the long run, if your energy is completely free (solar panels will cost a lot more for this). But if that's the case your payback period would be orders of magnitude faster if you just threw out your car and bought an EV.
This makes no sense for anyone.
Re:
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by
Sique
( 173459 )
writes:
You can do it if you really have free energy to spend, and no one else is taking it. But even then, it makes more sense to run a power cable to the next development in the neighborhood and sell the electricity.
Re:
Score:
by
immel
( 699491 )
writes:
The energy would really have to be free for this process to make economic sense. At 75 kWh per gallon, even bargain-basement commercial and industrial electricity ($0.05/kWh) makes synthetic gas cost $3.75 per gallon, and that's JUST the energy used to make it. Sure, you could theoretically make electricity for less, but then it makes more sense to just sell the electricity to the grid. After you take into account distribution costs and taxes, that holds true even in places with dirt-cheap electricity and e
Re:
Score:
by
Bumbul
( 7920730 )
writes:
The energy would really have to be free for this process to make economic sense.
In many markets (not just neighborhoods), there is nowadays so much wind power on a windy day, electricity IS free. That's why they are coming up with ideas, how to use that cheap energy.
The solution presented in TFA converts Hydrogen to Methanol and that is converted to gasoline. It is wiser to build the infrastructure to use that hydrogen directly. In fact, they already are doing exactly that, here in Finland at least:
[gasgrid.fi] And not just in Finland, but extending to Baltics and
Re: Should all gas stations have an array of these
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by
paul_engr
( 6280294 )
writes:
Would you pay $39 for one gallon of gas? No. Shut up.
Re:
Score:
by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
writes:
Where'd you get that number from? Immel calculated that at commercial electricity rates, it would cost $3.75/gal in electricity to produce, your suggested retail price is over 10x that.
Re:
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by
BranMan
( 29917 )
writes:
The cost of the machine itself is $15K. Assume it lasts 10 years - which is REALLY generous. Assume it only needs $5K in maintenance over 10 years. That is also REALLY generous. It produces 1 gallon of gas / day. That's 3650 gallons over the LIFETIME of the machine.
Do the math. Assuming electricity costs absolutely zero, and you have NO better use for it at all, your cost / gallon of gas is still $5.48
And that is JUST the cost of the machine, alone. Add the electricity costs and it's likely over $1
Re:
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by
backslashdot
( 95548 )
writes:
Except there aren't enough EV customers of that (yet). There are people buying gasoline today. So you can offer the direct electricity for the occasional EV while selling cheap gasoline too.
Re: Should all gas stations have an array of these
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by
paul_engr
( 6280294 )
writes:
You're not going to buy $39 a gallon gas
In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics
Score:
by
Cyberax
( 705495 )
writes:
At $1.50/gal ready to go in a car with just energy as an input, even with those huge up-front costs for the machine it could make sense for gas stations to have an array of these constantly filling their Regular or Economy tanks.
There's one small problem: you need a lot of electricity to run this process. About 10x more than just using it for EV charging. And this is not something that can be improved with mass production, it's a fundamental limitation imposed by thermodynamics.
Re:Should all gas stations have an array of these?
Score:
, Insightful)
by
hey!
( 33014 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @07:32PM (
#65948746
Homepage
Journal
No, unless and until they can produce a gallon of gasoline chaper than pumping oil out of the ground, refininging it, and shipping it to the gas station -- an economic miracle if you think about it
This makes sense for remote, off-the-grid locations where you have access to renewable power like solar that you don't pay for by the kilowatt hour. You could make enough gas from a modest setup to meet an inidvidual's needs.
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Re:
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by
Sique
( 173459 )
writes:
Because solar panels are cheap, and farms have large roofs to cover in solar panels, farmers are asking for electrical solutions. Electric tractors, electric combines, mobile battery swap stations etc. will replace the need for gasoline in remote areas.
Re:
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by
chas.williams
( 6256556 )
writes:
It doesn't have to be cheaper. Some people elect to pay more for electricity to avoid contributing to fossil fuel dependency. However, the alternative options can't be ludicrously expensive either.
Re:
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by
snowshovelboy
( 242280 )
writes:
No, at $1.50/gal it would take like 40 years for this machine to pay for itself.
Re:
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by
GaryQuick
( 10503284 )
writes:
Burning fossil fuel makes a great deal of energy as it produces CO2, and only a small part of that is useful work. Running the reaction backward is energy inefficient as well, so you take an energy loss twice, to say nothing about the capital cost and scaling problems associated with making gasoline out of air.

It is literally a no brainer to find a place where you can use the electricity directly to replace burning fossil fuel. Examples include furnaces for making glass and steel, making aluminum, and h
additives?
Score:
, Interesting)
by
trelanexiph
( 605826 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:08PM (
#65948606
Homepage
Gasoline isn't just short chain hydrocarbons. There are detergents, and other chemicals added to keep engines clean and keep exhaust clean. I assume having read the article that this doesn't come from thin air. What will the legislative or regulatory impacts on generating gasoline from thin air going to be? As someone with a PHEV this would probably completely serve my gasoline needs.
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Re:
Score:
by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
Actually, gasoline *is* just the short chain hydrocarbons. But you need the other stuff to make it a fuel for modern cars. (The "s" is on "hydrocarbons" because it's a mix of different molecules.)
Re:additives?
Score:
, Informative)
by
tlhIngan
( 30335 )
writes:
slashdot@worf.UUUnet minus threevowels
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @11:48PM (
#65949098
Yes, which is why gasoline pipelines exist. There will be days when the pipeline carries say, 87 octane gas, and basically all the refineries move their 87 octane on that day, regardless of if it's Esso, Chevron, Shell, BP, etc. It's all pushed on the pipeline and they grab it at the other end. It's basically all mixed up in the end.
Then the gasoline is prepared into fuel and that's where all the detergents and other additives are added to the gasoline. The minimum amount is actually dictated by law - so all those "Max Octane with cleaning keeps your car performing its best" ads aren't lying per se, but even the 87 octane has a minimum package of detergents, additives and stabilizers required by law.
(I actually simplified the gasoline description - it's not actually 87 octane because octane is just knock resistance and many fuels use octane boosters. It's why you can get beyond 100 octane gas. It's actually just "gasoline" and octane boosters are added at the end like ethanol. Yes, that's why you have E10 and other blends - they are used to improve octane rating. Other octane boosters you have heard of is "lead" (tetraethyl lead, which is why you also hear it called "ethyl") which was banned in almost all gasolines in the mid-00s worldwide. The only leaded gasoline is avgas, and even that's being phased out by 2030, it's just a really hard problem when you have engines spanning nearly a century).
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And every region has different formulas
Score:
by
ebunga
( 95613 )
writes:
Because who doesn't love a gas shortage.
Re:
Score:
by
Valgrus Thunderaxe
( 8769977 )
writes:
I can see this for something like a remote water pump with a 2-cycle engine.
Re:
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by
chas.williams
( 6256556 )
writes:
According to AI, additives are around 3 ounces per gallon. That's not really very much. You could have a little additive tank on the side for "detergents."
Donâ(TM)t fear the batteries!
Score:
by
superposed
( 308216 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:09PM (
#65948608
Iâ(TM)m so tired of tech people coming up with new, unnecessary, overpriced solutions to renewable power variability or car range anxiety. Just stick in some batteries! This thing costs $15,000-$20,000, which means a $300/mo payment to get 30 gals of gasoline. Thatâ(TM)s $10/gal just for the equipment. Then theyâ(TM)re using 75 kWh of electricity per gallon, which costs around $30 retail or $10 from a home solar system. All to get you about 9 kWh of propulsion (after the 75% losses in the car engine). You could replace all of this for $1.35-$4.00/gal equivalent with an EV.
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Re:
Score:
by
Jeremi
( 14640 )
writes:
Just stick in some batteries!
If only it were that easy! What you really mean is, "just throw away every one of the billions of ICE-powered vehicles in the world and replace it with the closest battery-powered equivalent"
... which, yes, that's a reasonable long-term goal, but not one that is realistically going to happen for a number of decades.
In the meantime, what can we do about all of those ICE-powered vehicles that are (and will be) in daily use? If we can figure out how to run them without continuing to transfer underground CO2
Re: Don't fear the batteries!
Score:
by
superposed
( 308216 )
writes:
what can we do about all of those ICE-powered vehicles that are (and will be) in daily use?
I love the idea of e-fuels. But it would be cheaper to replace most of those cars with new EVs than to fill them with e-gasoline at $0.60 (extra) per mile, i.e., $600/mo. for the average car.
At the quoted costs, e-gasoline is about $1600/tCO2 avoided (say $15 extra per gallon of gasoline, which avoids 9 kg of CO2 emissions). Unfortunately, thatâ(TM)s around 8 times higher than the harm done by CO2, so even serious environmental economists would say itâ(TM)s not worth using unless costs can be brou
Re:
Score:
by
shilly
( 142940 )
writes:
I understand that CO2 is the strategic threat. But tailpipe pollution is a massive tactical threat, and synthetic fuels do not tackle this at all. NOx, SOx, and particulate matter are really awful.
Re:
Score:
by
Sique
( 173459 )
writes:
Lets put it like this: The whole announced capacity for e-fuels right now is somewhat close to 40 TWh per year, of which only about 5% are backed by investments. The fuel consumption of the world right now is more than 100,000 TWh per year. Norway has already finished its conversion to BEVs as of 2025, and gasoline cars, given an average live span of 20 years, will be a thing of the past in 2045. Most of Europe is at 20% BEVs right now, and given the example of Norway, will not sell many gasoline cars after
Re:
Score:
by
OwnedByTwoCats
( 124103 )
writes:
So the question is whether to spend the capital dollars on a plant to turn electricity into fuel, or spend those same capital dollars converting or replace the internal combustion engine with batteries and an electric motor. They have a long way to go to make the economics of this air+electricity to fuel machine a better choice than converting to batteries and electric.
EVs are nice and all
Score:
by
caseih
( 160668 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:11PM (
#65948612
But nothing beats the energy density of a hydrocarbon. Combine this with solar power generation and you have carbon-neutral green energy storage that works with existing infrastructure. Obviously there are losses in this method of storing energy (making fuel). But if there's enough solar input to make it happen, and if it can be scaled to a level that is meaningful, the efficiency doesn't matter as much.
I've long maintained that in order to get off of fossil fuels we have to find a way of replacing those fossil fuels with renewable fuels (biofuels, whatever) for most applications including trucks, tractors, airplanes, ships, etc. There are a whole host of mainstream operations that run on fossil fuels that aren't likely to be replaced by battery-electric any time soon.
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Re:EVs are nice and all
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, Informative)
by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
writes:
gameboyrmh@NOspaM.gmail.com
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:23PM (
#65948626
Journal
The problem with hydrocarbons (apart from all the climate/war stuff) is that no use of hydrocarbons comes close to the efficiency of an electric powertrain - your typical ICE car turns around 66% of the energy in the fuel into waste heat for example, and the most efficient possible uses with either super-exotic million-dollar engines or giant turbines are in the 50~60% ballpark. An EV powertrain can turn well over 90% of the electricity that goes into the charge plug into power at the wheels. And if you're getting your hydrocarbons from e-fuels, those are fuels that are highly energy-inefficient to make. I saw a study that came out around the pandemic estimating that replacing all fossil fuels with e-fuels around that time would require world electricity generation to be tripled to quadroupled.
But there are some relatively niche roles where the energy density is critical such as in aircraft where this could make sense. The high combustion temperatures of fossil fuels are also needed for some industrial processes. The sheer inefficiency of the whole supply chain from renewable power to kinetic energy at the wheels/prop makes it useless as a mainstream transportation solution though.
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Re:
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by
angel'o'sphere
( 80593 )
writes:
your typical ICE car turns around 66% of the energy
No, it is less than 25%.
And the theoretical maximum of a heat engine/ICE on earth is 42%. There only very few tricks, used in race cars, to get a little bit above that.
The rest of your post is correct.
Re:
Score:
by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
writes:
No there are plenty of ordinary street engines over 30% (which I think is the norm these days). There is a Mazda Skyactiv that gets closer to 40%:
[automotive...tional.com]
An F1 engine with TERS could get over 50%:
[motorauthority.com]
Large turbines can now exceed 60% it turns out:
[parker.com]
Re:
Score:
by
Sique
( 173459 )
writes:
This is only true at optimal conditions (e.g. constant speed at high gear and low speed). Trucks running long distances at constant speed come close to the theoretical maximum. But usually, a gasoline car is not driven under optimal conditions, and the efficiency is lower.
Re:
Score:
by
newcastlejon
( 1483695 )
writes:
your typical ICE car turns around
66%
of the energy in the fuel
into waste heat
for example,
Didn't you learn from the other day?
Re:
Score:
by
_merlin
( 160982 )
writes:
He'll never learn. He's always confidently wrong. Dunning-Kruger in action. And as he's a German (although he's claimed he now lives in Thailand, so maybe a sexpat), he's a good reminder that not only Americans or English speakers have these tendencies.
Re:
Score:
by
thegarbz
( 1787294 )
writes:
your typical ICE car turns around 66% of the energy
No, it is less than 25%.
Read the post again slowly. Use the entire sentence this time since your selective reading managed to reverse both the interpretation as well as case you to focus on the wrong losses.
Re:
Score:
by
caseih
( 160668 )
writes:
Niche roles eh? Let's see you live your modern lifestyle without what those "niche" forms of transport provide.
You do realize that solar and other renewables are just a few % efficient right? But it doesn't matter! And similarly if the source of electricity for synthesizing fuel was from solar, wind, hydro, efficiency here does not ultimately matter. Only net carbon emissions matter. We already know how to virtually eliminate nox and particulates.
Re:EVs are nice and all
Score:
, Insightful)
by
swillden
( 191260 )
writes:
shawn-ds@willden.org
on Monday January 26, 2026 @03:15AM (
#65949292
Journal
Niche roles eh? Let's see you live your modern lifestyle without what those "niche" forms of transport provide.
You do realize that solar and other renewables are just a few % efficient right? But it doesn't matter! And similarly if the source of electricity for synthesizing fuel was from solar, wind, hydro, efficiency here does not ultimately matter. Only net carbon emissions matter. We already know how to virtually eliminate nox and particulates.
Efficiency always matters. 75kWh will produce one gallon of gas, which will move a passenger car, say, 40 miles. That same electricity will move an EV about 300 miles. So the gasoline route requires 7.5X as much electricity. If that's coming from solar, sure, the sun is free, but the solar panels, mounting equipment, optimizers, wiring, etc., are not. Ditto with wind and wind turbines, etc. Even if your focus is purely on net carbon emissions (which it isn't, ever, other factors matter, too), there are carbon emissions in the construction, delivery and installation of renewable generation equipment. Sure, it's less than pumping oil and burning it, but non-zero, so needing 7.5X as much renewable generation capacity will increase carbon emissions.
Obviously, there are some cases -- niche roles! -- where EVs don't work. Aviation is a good example (though there are lots of people who believe that short-range aviation could be purely electric). But where batteries can work, using renewably-generated electricity directly will absolutely beat out going through the electricity -> gasoline conversion.
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Re:
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by
shilly
( 142940 )
writes:
We are nowhere near eliminating NOx, SOx and particulates from the actual ICE fleet, including new ICE vehicles, given how vehicles are actually used. Everything form cold starts to aggressive acceleration to variability from lab conditions. Much better than a decade ago is still really, really bad. Fundamentally, an air-breathing flame engine has an inherent mechanism that forms NOx that can be somewhat mitigated but not eliminated.
You're also being blithe about the efficiency point. The costs of producing
Re:Efficiency
Score:
by
0xG
( 712423 )
writes:
An EV powertrain can turn well over 90% of the electricity that goes into the charge plug into power at the wheels.
And how much of that electricity is consumed by...lugging around a giant battery?
Re:
Score:
by
GameboyRMH
( 1153867 )
writes:
It depends how much accelerating and decelerating you're doing. At a constant speed it takes approximately none, and when decelerating an EV powertrain can recapture the energy.
There are ICE pickup trucks and even some luxury cars that weigh more than EVs, and some pickups have engine/trans combos that weigh well over 1000lbs on diesel models, so the weight of an EV's battery pack isn't unprecedented either.
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by
djp2204
( 713741 )
writes:
If you want to migrate away from fossil fuels you will need to replace the plastics/hydrocarbons that are in clothing, shoes, tires, food packaging, medical supplies, roads, aircraft, wind turbines, and utility side electrical equipment. Food packaging is a big one - we spend a ton of energy going after plastic grocery bags yet every food item you buy is in plastic trays (or bottles) covered with plastic wrap.
Re: EVs are nice and all
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by
Tomahawk
( 1343 )
writes:
It's possible to replace those plastics. Compostable plastics made from things like potato starch exist. I use them in my bins. They cost more than plastic, and money is the main driver to pretty much everything.
Re:
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by
psycho12345
( 1134609 )
writes:
No, those usages are minor at best. 80% of all oil is used for fuel., with the vast majority being gasoline. Everything you are describing is minor, and is much more easily managed. Plus its usage as fuel is fundamentally inefficient, thermodynamics sucks that way. Car engines top out around 50% efficiency, maybe 60 in some narrow circumstances. So 80% of oil is used for fuel, and half of it is flat out wasted straight into the atmosphere.
Re: EVs are nice and all
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by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
Some of the feedstock material is good for making either plastics or fuel, some is only good for one or the other. So if you're making plastic you're going to make some fuel, and vice versa.
Re: EVs are nice and all
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by
superposed
( 308216 )
writes:
If you want to migrate away from fossil fuels you will need to replace the plastics/hydrocarbons that are in clothing, shoes, tires, food packaging, medical supplies, roads, aircraft, wind turbines, and utility side electrical equipment
This is a fallacy. To halt climate change, we don't need to move away from extracting hyrdrocarbons, just from burning them. It would be a huge step forward to convert hydrocarbons to plastics using renewable electricity, then eventually recycle or bury those plastics. Using fossil hydrocarbons as a feedstock is potentially a zero-emission process, unlike using them as fuels.
Re:
Score:
by
swillden
( 191260 )
writes:
If you want to migrate away from fossil fuels you will need to replace the plastics/hydrocarbons that are in clothing, shoes, tires, food packaging, medical supplies, roads, aircraft, wind turbines, and utility side electrical equipment.
No, we just need to not burn all that stuff. The goal isn't to stop using oil, it's to stop emitting carbon dioxide.
Re:
Score:
by
immel
( 699491 )
writes:
At 75 kWh per gallon, it would take over 8 trillion kWh per year to meet US fuel consumption. At that point, we don't have an electrical grid. We have a synthetic fuel grid with a side job supplying electricity to... well, everything else that uses electricity.
I could see this working as a sustainable (if catastrophically expensive) way to fuel some edge cases in a post-petroleum fuel infrastructure, but it would be at most a niche player.
out of thin air and.....
Score:
, Insightful)
by
XaXXon
( 202882 )
writes:
xaxxon@gma i l .com
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:13PM (
#65948616
Homepage
a TON of electricity that doesn't come out of thin air.
Click bait BS.
Share
No comes from Sun, just passes through thin air
Score:
by
drnb
( 2434720 )
writes:
a TON of electricity that doesn't come out of thin air.
The ton of electricity comes from solar which comes out of the Sun, it just passes through the thin air to get to the solar panel.
:-)
Re:
Score:
by
XaXXon
( 202882 )
writes:
You have to build the solar panels which don't come from thin air.
Also, it likely ISN'T being done from solar/wind/hydro. That's the problem with lots of these "green" things is they just hide the problem behind dirty power sources. Hydrogen is a great example.
Re:
Score:
by
Samantha Wright
( 1324923 )
writes:
Which would you rather have: a world where all gasoline comes from these things using solar panels, or the current environmental nightmare of fracking and cracking? Most people don't need to think twice about it.
Carbon neutral. or adding sequestered carbon?
Score:
by
drnb
( 2434720 )
writes:
Which would you rather have: a world where all gasoline comes from these things using solar panels, or the current environmental nightmare of fracking and cracking? Most people don't need to think twice about it.
I'd add a secondary description. A gasoline that is carbon neutral, or a gasoline that adds ancient sequestered carbon to the atmosphere.
Re:
Score:
by
lucifuge31337
( 529072 )
writes:
Yet most people should because this is a painfully naive view. But they don't, and either dig in on your idiotic side or the idiotic other side of rolling coal to "own" you dolts.
Re:
Score:
by
Samantha Wright
( 1324923 )
writes:
We shouldn't pass up opportunities to make things better just because they're not perfect.
Re: No comes from Sun, just passes through thin ai
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by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
I'd rather have option 3 where we burn a lot less fuel so that we don't have all of the attendant emissions. You've posed the question in a way that only allows us all to be losers.
Re:
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by
Samantha Wright
( 1324923 )
writes:
It's not a false dichotomy. Volume is a separate axis. We will always need
some
hydrocarbon source. Better it comes from circulating carbon than fossil deposits.
Re:
Score:
by
drinkypoo
( 153816 )
writes:
We will always need some hydrocarbon source.
There you go again.
Re:
Score:
by
swillden
( 191260 )
writes:
a TON of electricity that doesn't come out of thin air.
The ton of electricity comes from solar which comes out of the Sun, it just passes through the thin air to get to the solar panel.
:-)
But in America, more and more electricity comes from coal
As per US policy of coal first
[whitehouse.gov]
Regardless of Trump's fantasies, coal usage is declining in the US and will continue to decline. It's just not competitive, completely aside from climate change concerns. For climate-change reasons it would be good to make it decline even faster, but it's going away.
The only thing that could revive coal (and that only briefly, and only a little) would be a ban on fracking. Halting fracking would reduce the natural gas supply, making it more expensive and restoring coal's profitability. For a while. R
Re:
Score:
by
HiThere
( 15173 )
writes:
It *could* come out of thin air, using solar cells or wind power. And it's inefficient enough (i.e. 1 gallon/day) that you might as well. It might be useful in a remote cabin with a motor/generator set that you rarely needed.
Re:
Score:
by
swillden
( 191260 )
writes:
It *could* come out of thin air, using solar cells or wind power. And it's inefficient enough (i.e. 1 gallon/day) that you might as well. It might be useful in a remote cabin with a motor/generator set that you rarely needed.
Maybe. 75 kWh/day is a pretty big solar system. Not huge, but significant. I just installed a 19 kW system (in late November), and so far I never get much above 75 kWh. Of course, the days are still short and as they get longer it will go up. Still, 19 kW is a good-sized system, and not cheap.
However, if your remote cabin really rarely needed the motor/generator, maybe you could get by with a 5 kW system that generates, say, 10 kWh per day. 10 kWh per day would mean you'd create about 50 gallons per y
Re:
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by
Holi
( 250190 )
writes:
You can't get electricity from air?
Damn I guess the windfarms were a myth.
Scam
Score:
, Insightful)
by
locater16
( 2326718 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @06:15PM (
#65948620
I've done atmospheric catalysis chemistry, it's utterly trivial to get ethanol or similar out of CO2, in fact it's pretty hard not to. The next to impossible part is making it cost effective, just like this clearly a scam company doesn't do.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
CommunityMember
( 6662188 )
writes:
I've done atmospheric catalysis chemistry, it's utterly trivial to get ethanol or similar out of CO2, in fact it's pretty hard not to. The next to impossible part is making it cost effective, just like this clearly a scam company doesn't do.
And with enough energy, it is possible to convert lead into gold.
Re:
Score:
by
gardyloo
( 512791 )
writes:
With enough *low entropy* energy, and a large enough heat-sink to capture the higher-entropy energy after the process. Energy is a requirement, sure, but it's not all.
Useful to make fuel on Mars
Score:
by
XXongo
( 3986865 )
writes:
This looks like a development that comes out of work done to generate rocket fuel on Mars, basically taking carbon dioxide and water and converting it to hydrocarbons.
[duckduckgo.com]
Organic fouling
Score:
by
RightwingNutjob
( 1302813 )
writes:
The bane of every green wet technology.
Air is full of bacteria and fungal spores, some of which just love to eat some intermediate stage of this process in the nice warm anerobic environment in this chemical reactor.
Expect crazy consumables costs in the form of air filters and membranes on the inside that will need to get changed out frequently.
Maybe this makes sense in a niche application, but at scale it will be cheaper to drill it out of the ground, refine it in a big expensive plant, and transport it to
So...
Score:
by
xlsior
( 524145 )
writes:
...If the converter machine is powered by solar, wind or other renewable source, this would make a gasoline car carbon neutral.
Batteries.
Score:
by
Tomahawk
( 1343 )
writes:
'nough said.
And Now... Some Numbers.
Score:
by
SlashbotAgent
( 6477336 )
writes:
At the low-end price of $15,000 and assuming $4/gallon of gasoline...
That's 10 years to generate enough fuel to pay for the machine. But, that doesn't include the considerable electricity cost and the water cost which then extend the ROI time period even longer.
U.S. Gasoline consumption is approximately 400,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day.
So, we only need 400,000,000 of these machines. One for every man, woman, child, and dog in America. And we need them to work flawlessly for over 10 years.
Total Cost O
$1.50/gallon
Score:
by
Retired Chemist
( 5039029 )
writes:
$1.50 gallon is the price before taxes, overhead, etc. etc. What the actual price be?
Re:
Score:
by
sudonim2
( 2073156 )
writes:
The only price is of the device, which is listed as $15k-$20k. At that price, given gas prices, that's a payback timeline of almost 40 years.
Aliexpress
Score:
by
stinkydog
( 191778 )
writes:
The real test of this will be the clones. A $20,000 machine is $4-5k in parts and $15k in "intellectual property". How long before the clones show up and start whittling away the costs? Once the science is proven, this could be a truly epic way to reduce carbon emissions without retooling equipment.
Such Bullshit
Score:
by
BKX
( 5066 )
writes:
on Sunday January 25, 2026 @11:15PM (
#65949062
Journal
Seriously, this is such BULLSHIT. There isn't really that much CO2 in ordinary air. There's a lot of air, yes, so the total amount adds up, but on a liter per liter basis, air doesn't have much CO2. It has roughly 400 ppm aka 0.04% CO2. This means that for every liter of CO2 you want to collect, you'll need to pump 2500 liters of air, assuming you capture all the CO2. That works out that for every gram of carbon you collect, you'll need to process 4700 liters of air, minimum. If you do the math, it's roughly one Empire State Building's worth of air that needs to be processed to get enough carbon to make a single car-tank's worth of gasoline. The fans that you would need to move this much air, much less extract the carbon from it, would be enormous, and likely cost as much as a tank of gas costs to run. An Empire State Building's worth of air is a lot of air to move. And, of course, you need to do this at scale, which means you'll need many of these giant fans. And you'll need to be pumping the waste air far, far away from your plant before releasing it lest you accidentally pump in your now-carbon-free air for reprocessing, which would be a pure waste of time. The pumping costs alone would eat you alive. And this aside from the fact that we don't really have very good carbon dioxide removing technology. What we do have requires intermediate chemicals like lithium superoxide, which are quite expensive. Yeah, you regenerate it in the end, but some will be lost every cycle, and this will also cost a fortune.
Share
Re:
Score:
by
sudonim2
( 2073156 )
writes:
An average box fan will move around one thousand cubic feet of air a minute. Converting that to metric, that's about thirty-seven cubic meters of air a minute. A cubic meter is one thousand liters; thus an average box fan moves 37,000L/min of air, roughly. You can very easily move enough air to run a simple hydroxide CO2 capture device. It wouldn't be terribly efficient and it would also be a power hog. Given the size of the machine in the pictures in the article, the numbers they give are reasonable. Even
But not for "Air" Cela
Score:
by
burni2
( 1643061 )
writes:
And btw. there are so many sources you failed to mention a single one
;)
Juice Not Worth The Squeeze
Score:
by
sudonim2
( 2073156 )
writes:
This thing generates one gallon of gasoline per day. As this reads like a press release, I assume that would be under ideal circumstances. For the sake of argument, let's just roll with that. Assuming a price per gallon from a gas station of $2.50 USD, at a price of $20,000 this device has a payback timeline just short of 22 years. I somehow doubt this machine will run for that length of time without encountering the need for maintenance and repair. This would extend the payback timeline to closer to 30 yea
This actually could work
Score:
by
nextTimeIsTheLast
( 6188328 )
writes:
All the bleating about the price of selling the electricity is much higher than the value of the fuel ignores the truth that renewable electricity frequently has excess production - some grids are paying suppliers to not supply. I.e. if you can get paid to absorb excess electricity reactive to the dynamic market price, you can make money both ways - paid to absorb excess electricity and sell the fuel.
Re:This actually could work (not really)
Score:
by
LoadLin
( 6193506 )
writes:
It's not that simple.
Infrastructure also cost. In most cases, specially for new tech, it's the most expensive.
That's fixed cost. Energy is variable cost.
If you use the infrastructure costs a lot, like 24x7x365, the fixed costs are divided by a huge amount of hours, so that part becomes small, and the total cost is driven by variable costs so cheap energy is the key.
But if you reduce the number of hours, that it's the case if you want to produce with just sparse excess hours, they the number of hours drops b
Re:
Score:
by
jonbryce
( 703250 )
writes:
Or, you could buy a battery bank, which would be a lot cheaper, and because it is a lot more efficient, you get to sell a lot more of the electricity you capture at the later date when it is wanted.
Of course you can do. That's not the problem.
Score:
by
LoadLin
( 6193506 )
writes:
Every piece is long known.
Co2 capture from air, water from air, hydrocarbon synthesis from CO2+water.
The real problem is EFFICIENCY AND COST.
Extract water from air, except for very specific situations, is one of the most costly sources possible of water.
CO2 from air, is also one of the most expensive sources from CO2.
And hydrocarbon synthesis, while it doesn't have any specific competitor by fuction, depending on the final intention (for example, move a vehicle), just electrification is a lot more efficient
Good with solar?
Score:
by
bradley13
( 1118935 )
writes:
In places with an excess of solar energy in the summer, this could make s lot of sense - basically, a kind of energy storage. The question will be affordability: can this compete with ordinary refineries?
You are better off just using the electricity
Score:
by
jonbryce
( 703250 )
writes:
50% efficiency to convert electricity to methanol, vs about 90% to charge a battery. A combustion engine has an efficiency of about 33%, vs 90% for an electric motor. A battery is also far cheaper than this thing.
Re:
Score:
by
bussdriver
( 620565 )
writes:
YES! but some use cases require the energy density of gas until you can find a better battery. Jet Engines immediately come to mind...
takes twice as much electrical energy to produce
Score:
by
bsdetector101
( 6345122 )
writes:
ExxonMobil has been studying the process of doing exactly that since at least the 1970s. So it takes too much electricity and isn't cost effective. If it ever achieved reducing the cost, an oil company would buy them and would never hear of it again. Just like back in the 1970's, when certain things/methods were bought by oil companies and you never saw them again.
Hmmm....
Score:
by
Holi
( 250190 )
writes:
My tank is 17 gallons and I refill it about it every 2 weeks, maybe more.
Re:
Score:
by
sudonim2
( 2073156 )
writes:
I agree totally. The economics of this device are just fucked, which anyone who ever looked into carbon capture could have told you.
A more interesting use for this technology is to hook it up to a high carbon source. Something like a metal refinery or a cement plant that generates large, concentrated amounts of CO2. It then results in a fuel you can use either in surface transport or in regeneratively running the industrial source itself, significantly shrinking its carbon footprint. Ironically, if you wer
Re:
Score:
by
OrangeTide
( 124937 )
writes:
Wouldn't laws of thermodynamics mean that you'd be turning a coal into gasoline and waste heat? You'd actually have to burn a little more coal than the equivalent energy of gasoline you produce. And you'd still have the electrolysis of water to create enough hydrogen.
I think I'd rather plug the device into a grid that has an excessive amount of wind generation on the free market. I'd buy negatively priced electricity to produce gasoline, get paid going both ways. The scheme works until grid scale batteries
Re:
Score:
by
ceoyoyo
( 59147 )
writes:
Converting air and water into fuel has been studied by navies for quite a while. The US navy in particular would like to be able to use some of their excess nuclear power to fuel their airplanes in the middle of an unfriendly ocean.
There's also a demonstration plant in Squamish, Canada that's been running for a decade. It's a potentially useful process for aviation and maybe some remote places where you have to us fuel for some reason.
It's interesting this company has managed to build a compact unit, but th
Re:
Score:
by
Quasar1999
( 520073 )
writes:
What about biodiesel? How did Europe tackle that taxing problem?
Though I do agree, the additives are critical and could easily be the source of tax, if this ever became cost effective enough to be widespread.
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