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February 2021 Technical Talk

Tuesday February 16, 2021 via Zoom 
7:00 - 8:30 pm PST

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A Life Cycle Assessment of Producing Synthetic Fuel via the FischerTropsch Power-to-Liquid Process 

by

Greg Magone

Speaker Bio

Greg Magone is a Boeing Flight Test Engineer by day, and a University of Southern California college student by evening. At Boeing, he is assigned to the 777X flight test program on the second test airplane. At USC, he is currently pursuing two master's degrees in Aerospace Engineering and Product Development Engineering. He also holds a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Washington and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Montana State University.

Talk Abstract

A life cycle assessment is a method for evaluating the total life impacts of a product on the environment. This paper conducts a comparative life cycle assessment that compares the environmental impacts for a traditional aviation fuel refining process to a novel power-to-liquid fuel manufacturing process. The paper covers the manufacturing methods for both types of aviation fuel mentioned above. It chronicles the boundaries and assumptions made; the technical data acquisition and interpretation on the resource inputs and outputs for the two manufacturing methods; and a comparison showing how each system compares to the other based on environmental consequences. The analysis concludes that both the power to liquid process and the traditional crude oil refining process are similar in resource depletion based on usage of the US National Power Grid’s current sourcing of electrical energy. However, we also see that a shift to greater reliance on renewable resources makes the power-to-liquid manufacturing process a more attractive alternative.

 

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