California-based Prometheus Fuels said on Thursday it has achieved commercial readiness for its carbon-neutral synthetic fuel production system, becoming the first company to generate electrofuel, or e-fuel, from direct air capture and off-grid renewable energy at scale.
E-fuel refers to a type of synthetic fuel produced by combining hydrogen derived from electrolysis using renewable electricity with carbon dioxide captured from either the atmosphere or industrial sources.
The U.S.-based startup announced that its Titan Forge Alpha prototype, featuring a full-scale 50-cell Faraday Reactor, has validated the company’s core technology at Technology Readiness Level 9 — the highest benchmark for commercial deployment.
World’s 1st Operational DAC Fuel Facility
With the milestone, Prometheus said it is the only firm capable of producing low-cost e-fuels without subsidies, hydrogen or connection to the electrical grid.
The Titan Forge Alpha plant is the world’s first operational DAC synthetic fuel facility, already producing e-methanol using air and solar power.
“This milestone marks a turning point, not just for Prometheus, but for the future of energy,” said Rob McGinnis, founder and CEO. “We’ve invented and built an integrated DAC and fuel synthesis system that captures carbon from the air, runs on renewable energy, and produces e-Fuels that cost less than fossil fuel at scale.”
Next: Scaling Up
Prometheus said it will next launch Titan Fuel Forge One, its first commercial-scale production system, using the same modular stack architecture.
The company has pre-sold more than 11 million tons of e-fuel for delivery over the next decade, signaling strong demand and market confidence.
At the core of Prometheus’ technology is the Faraday Reactor — a hydrocarbon electrolyzer that converts captured CO₂ directly into fuel. The reactor is designed to operate on intermittent power, making it suitable for remote locations with abundant solar and wind resources.
Clean Fuel for the AI Era
Prometheus is positioning its e-fuel as a clean, storable energy source that can meet the surging power demand from data centers and artificial intelligence workloads, while bypassing challenges in grid infrastructure and battery storage.
“Solar is the cheapest form of energy in the world, but its potential has been limited by issues in transport and storage,” McGinnis said. “We can turn the lowest-cost solar into liquid fuels deliverable anywhere without new transmission lines.”
The company’s patented system has undergone third-party technical validation in preparation for large-scale rollout, it said.
No Subsidies, No Grid, No Hydrogen
Prometheus emphasized that its system operates independently of typical industry supports, including government subsidies, grid power, or hydrogen infrastructure.
“We knew we had to be able to beat fossil fuels on cost from the beginning, and that’s what we’ve achieved,” McGinnis said.
Founded to transform air and sunlight into cost-competitive fuels, Prometheus now aims to lead a new era of distributed, renewable fuel production.
