Environmental and economic characteristics of electrofuel production pathways

Electrofuels are liquid fuels derived from CO₂ and electricity, which have the potential to store intermittent renewable power and reduce transportation's climate impact. In this work, I assess the economic and environmental characteristics of four technology pathways for electrofuel production, using the methods of life cycle analysis and techno- economic assessment. In addition, the analysis includes a number of scenarios in which the technologies are powered directly from dedicated renewable electricity generation. The results indicate that the hybrid power- and biomass-to-liquids (PBtL) pathway may represent a promising option for electrofuel production in terms of lifecycle emissions reductions and minimum selling price. I further characterize the PBtL pathway by combining spatially-resolved data on biomass cultivation, electricity generation, and cost-optimized solar-hydrogen production in the United States (US). I find that the resulting fuel would have a minimum selling price between $2.10 and $3.81 per liter and lifecycle emissions of 15-27 [subscript g]CO₂[subscript e]/MJ depending on the production location.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Isaacs, Stewart Anthony.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Steven R.H. Barrett.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139711

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/139711