Obrist Anticipates a Pivotal Shift Towards "Liquid Solar Energy" in 2025
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Obrist Anticipates a Pivotal Shift Towards "Liquid Solar Energy" in 2025
Frank Obrist, inventor, entrepreneur and visionary: "Green methanol is a renewable energy source that can replace all fossil fuels worldwide. As hard to imagine today as the iPhone was before its launch in 2007, green methanol will be as commonplace in 15 years as smartphones are today."
Lindau/Germany, Lustenau/Austria – December 18 2024 – Renewable energy derived from air and sunlight, transportable and storable with the same ease as fossil fuels – this is no longer a utopian vision but a fully developed technical concept ready for large-scale industrial implementation. With these words, Frank Obrist, founder and CEO of the German-Austrian Obrist Group, advocates for his company’s plan to produce green methanol as a universal energy solution.
Frank Obrist states: “The world faces a dilemma: the escalating threat of global warming from continued fossil fuel use and the uncertainties of relying solely on wind and solar power for energy. The solution lies in solar energy – not as electricity, which is challenging to store and transport, but in the form of green methanol.”
CO2-Negative Equals Climate-Positive
In simple terms, the process involves extracting water from the air and using solar energy to convert it into hydrogen, which is then transformed into methanol. Methanol, a liquid at room temperature, can be stored for long periods in standard containers and easily transported via conventional methods such as pipelines, tankers, trains, or trucks. The key innovation: more CO2 is captured from the atmosphere during methanol production than is released during its combustion.
This Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology, developed and patented by Obrist, functions like a “CO2 vacuum,” removing carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere over decades of industrial activity. Obrist refers to this product as aMethanol (Atmospheric Methanol) and describes the process as “sub-zero.” Unlike achieving net-zero emissions, this method goes further by actively reducing atmospheric CO2 levels, making the process CO2-negative and therefore climate-positive.
Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Frank Obrist: “In order to leave an intact climate for future generations, we need to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by the extensive use of fossil fuels, i.e. remove it from the atmosphere.” Obrist holds over 252 registered and 128 granted patents worldwide that are designed to do just that. The United Nations supports the concept.
“Many people can only envision possibilities once they’ve become reality,” says Frank Obrist, offering examples: “Twenty years ago, the smartphone was unimaginable until Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in 2007. Similarly, Elon Musk’s idea of a battery-powered electric car was met with skepticism around 15 years ago—yet today, the European car industry is no longer laughing. In the same way, the concept of liquid solar energy may seem utopian to many, even though its implementation is already within reach.”
Green Methanol: A Cost-Effective Alternative to Fossil Fuels
Inventor and entrepreneur Frank Obrist refutes the occasional counter-argument that green methanol production is uneconomical. "Solar energy is almost free in the earth's sun belt. If we set up methanol factories there, the cost of this renewable energy source, at just under 6 cents per kilowatt hour, will be significantly lower than all fossil fuels, even when transport costs are included," he says.
The German-Austrian industrial group is planning to build so-called Gigaplants, a type of giant solar park that will not supply electricity, but green methanol. Almost four million tons of methanol are to be produced per year on an area of around 280 square kilometers. At today's energy prices, this corresponds to a sales volume of around 4.3 billion US dollars per year. The annual operating costs are estimated at around 340 million dollars, leaving a gross profit of almost four billion dollars a year. The construction costs for a Gigaplant, calculated at 18.6 billion dollars, would therefore be recouped in less than five years, which corresponds to an annual return on capital cost of over 21 per cent.
“The high profitability is key to attracting investors,” explains Frank Obrist. “Every investor should recognize that entering the Gigaplant business today is comparable to investing in Apple 20 years ago or Tesla 15 years ago in terms of financial potential.” Beyond the impressive return on investment, the climate impact is even more significant: a single Gigaplant is projected to remove over 6.2 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere annually. According to estimates, 2,700 Gigaplants could entirely replace the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
Obrist Group: The Obrist Group, founded by inventor and entrepreneur Frank Obrist, focuses on innovations for global, sustainable and CO2-reducing energy concepts. The spectrum ranges from the global supply of renewable energies to atmospheric fuels (aFuels) and innovative CO2-negative (i.e. climate-positive!) drive concepts for the automotive industry. With around 380 key patents, the Obrist Group is one of the world's most important innovators in the field of sustainable energy concepts.
Weitere Informationen: www.obrist.at
Ansprechpartner für die Presse: Prokurist Thorsten Rixmann, Chief Marketing Officer, Tel. +43 660 5642275, E-Mail: t.rixmann@obrist.at
Presseagentur: euromarcom public relations, team@euromarcom.de, www.euromarcom.de
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