Fischer-Tropsch Fuels Production and Demonstration Project. Annual Report for Period July 20, 2001 to July 19, 2002

摘要

This project has two primary purposes: 1. Build a small-footprint (SFP) fuel production plant to prove the feasibility of this relatively transportable technology on an intermediate scale (i.e. between laboratory-bench and commercial capacity) and produce as much as 150,000 gallons of hydrogen-saturated Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel fuel; and 2. Use the virtually sulfur-free fuel produced to demonstrate (over a period of at least six months) that it can not only be used in existing diesel engines, but that it also can enable significantly increased effectiveness and life of the next-generation exhaust-aftertreatment emission control systems that are currently under development and that will be required for future diesel engines. Furthermore, a well-to-wheels economic analysis will be performed to characterize the overall costs and benefits that would be associated with the actual commercial production, distribution and use of such FT diesel fuel made by the process under consideration, from the currently underutilized (or entirely un-used) energy resources targeted, primarily natural gas that is stranded, sub-quality, off-shore, etc.