Prometheus Fuels unveiled one of the first demonstrations: powering artificial intelligence entirely with fuel made from air and renewable electricity. In the demo video, which can be viewed on the company’s website, the team used e-fuel made at its pilot facility from air and solar electricity to power locally installed AI, fully off-grid and carbon-neutral.
For the first time in history, AI has been powered by a liquid e-fuel, a fuel made entirely from the air and electricity from the sun.
AI is now the fastest-growing power demand in the world. According to the International Energy Agency, electricity demand from data centres is projected to more than double by 2030, with consumption rising at approximately 15% annually, more than four times the pace of overall electricity demand growth globally. Data centres are waiting years for new grid interconnections, utilities are warning of rising electricity costs, and the gap between supply and demand is widening every quarter.
“We’re offering a new source of power for AI,” said Rob McGinnis, founder and CEO of Prometheus. “We can turn the cheapest electricity in the world – solar power in the best locations – into 24/7 low-cost baseload power anywhere it’s needed.”
The solutions to meet AI’s massive power demand, being most widely discussed, including new nuclear plants, renewables plus massive transmission build-outs, or long-duration batteries, will not solve this problem. Nuclear takes decades. Transmission projects face long permitting and construction delays. Batteries can store only a few hours of power, and so can’t operate 24/7. None of these solutions can meet the scale or speed AI requires. Increasingly, fossil fuels like natural gas are being offered, but require expensive infrastructure build-outs like new pipelines and storage facilities. These build-outs face costs and delays similar to grid expansion, while locking in fossil fuel use for decades to come.
Prometheus’s approach bypasses these bottlenecks entirely. By combining low-cost solar electricity with CO2 captured directly from air, Prometheus produces liquid e-fuels that can be transported anywhere, stored on-site, and used in existing turbines and generators for high reliability, 24/7, carbon-neutral power, without the need for a grid connection. Prometheus e-fuels cost less than fossil fuels, an important consideration for such energy-intensive facilities. Companies looking to build new data centres can plan on this new low-cost source of 24/7 carbon-neutral power. Meanwhile, existing data centres that currently run on natural gas can switch to Prometheus e-fuels and continue to operate with the same standards of reliability and independence. In addition, they’ll be protected from increasing and volatile gas prices. As the only source of new power that can scale in lockstep with AI, Prometheus e-fuels can relieve the strain on residential and commercial consumers, who are already seeing their electricity and gas bills increase as data centres compete with utilities for a dwindling supply of power.
“We can offer data centres a new option that frees them from the grid, and doesn’t require them to commit to decades of fossil fuel use,” added McGinnis. “We’re the best choice for new power as our fuels are low-cost, carbon-neutral, and quick to deploy. The speed at which we can build out production and start delivering fuel for power is faster than any other new option at scale.”
Prometheus’s fuel production is in operation today. The company’s commercial pilot facility is currently making solar e-methanol with full-scale components. Unlike grid-based solutions, Prometheus projects can be built and running at the gigawatt scale in less than two years, as they don’t need a grid connection and can be sited in remote locations with streamlined permits.
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