CO₂-to-Fuels Platform

Anatomy of a Joule Plant: Heading to Scale. about

Joule has pioneered a CO₂-to-fuel production platform, effectively reversing combustion through the use of solar energy. Free of feedstock constraints and complex processing, this platform can achieve unrivaled scalability, volumes and costs without the use of any agricultural land, fresh water or crops. website

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Somehow I had always imagined that the moss on my roof would be engineered to convert rainwater to gasoline that I'd just collect in a cistern. Joule suggests their product will still cost 1.20 a gallon.

They boast 30 patents with a hundred more on the way.

I suppose this will be safer than puddles of gasoline collecting throughout the neighborhood when my strain of moss starts to spread.

Joule's material mentions a genetic switch that redirects their medium from growth to production. I hadn't thought of that. Smart people.

Xcel Energy's Cunningham Station provides high concentration CO₂ to the Joule pilot plant in Hobbs, NM. page maps

Joule is proud that their feedstock is CO₂, not agricultural biomass. Their engineered bacterium will need high concentrations such as that recovered from a fossil fueled power plant.

Joule's pilot plant is located in Hobbs, NM, adjacent to Xcel Energy's Cunningham Station drawing on the natural gas reserves of the Permian Basin. wikipedia doe.gov

Fracking ⇒ Electricity ⇒ Bacteria ⇒ Gasoline ⇒ CO₂.

See Life Begat Continents for a sense of the power made available by chlorophyll.