Partner Profile: Susan Fancy | |
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It will take decades for us to transition off of fossil fuels. In the meantime, we can capture that carbon and do something with it.
In honor of International Women in Engineering Day later this month, both June issues of the newsletter will feature women in engineering. This issue features Susan Fancy, mechanical engineer, GCI Program Manager, launcher of University of Michigan's (U-M's) first solar car team, and former drag racer.
How did you become interested in the environment?
When I was growing up, both of my parents were profoundly influential. My mom was deeply attuned to the natural world. We lived in a really natural environment, basically a forest, and my mom had a deep care for its creatures. My father was a publisher. So our household was one of a lot of deep conversations and a lot of exploration of ideas: “What makes for a better society?” “What makes for a better planet?” They weren't environmentalists, per se, but somehow the combination ultimately molded me into an environmentalist.
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How did you become interested in engineering?
When I was young, I had a deep fascination with cars. I used to be a quarter mile drag racer, and I could not afford to pay mechanics to do my work. So, if I wanted to improve the performance of my vehicle, my only option was to do it myself. Luckily, I have mechanical tendencies and I was blessedly not afraid. It just wouldn't occur to me that it wasn't okay to open the hood of a car and start taking an engine apart.
Eventually, I decided I wanted to study engineering and worked my way into a spot at U-M College of Engineering. I found an opportunity to participate on a student team that was working to convert a car to run on methanol. Unfortunately, our car didn’t do very well in that race - we came in second to last. It was a disaster. I did everything wrong. I was really disappointed with our performance. However, I learned a lot from that experience.
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As we were pulling back to the U-M auto lab, fresh from the field of defeat, another student approached me and asked me to be the leader of a U-M Engineering team that would be building a solar race car for another competition.
My first thought was ”I'm going to put together the best team ever! I'm going to make sure we get all the right skill sets. And I'm going to make sure that whatever solar car we build, it will be durable and last the race!” I did not want to have another poor showing for U or myself. And that team went on to do very well. Out of 32 teams across the United States, our car was the only one to finish the race with solar power alone!
Because we did so well, General Motors paid for us to go to the World Solar Challenge, which was driving across the Australian outback. And I'm very proud to say that we came in third! We were the top student team.
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How did the Global CO2 Initiative come into the picture?
After my racing success, I transitioned from hot rods and “let's burn up gallons of fossil fuel” to a more environmental approach which was more in alignment with my values. After working on fuel cell electric vehicles for Ford for a number of years, I began working as a program manager at the U-M Energy Institute, which was looking to put together a large, multidisciplinary program around the general framework of going beyond carbon neutral.
Bernard David, who had started a non-profit effort around carbon capture and utilization noticed what we were doing. He was also looking to facilitate the scaling up of technologies that could be used to help mitigate climate change using carbon capture and utilization. Utilizing the captured carbon makes more sense than storing it because utilization provides an economic benefit. Also, there are a lot of areas in the world where carbon capture and sequestration just isn't geologically possible.
We decided that it would make sense to combine our efforts and the new organization became the Global CO2 Initiative, with Bernard as the chairman of our advisory board and Volker Sick as the Director. And it has just been a fantastic journey of scaling this into the world!
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What makes you excited about the work that you do?
I am excited about carbon capture and utilization because I see it as a powerful tool for us to mitigate climate change in a way that, at the same time, provides positive benefit to society. So many of the products that we use everyday contain CO2. It is essential that we transition away from fossil carbon as a source for those products.
Here at the Global CO2 Initiative we facilitate capturing carbon dioxide from a flue stack or from the air and then using that carbon dioxide in products. That makes so much sense to me, especially given that CO2 can be used in fertilizers, food, chemicals, concrete, polymers, etc. There are really such a broad number of places that this can be used and I'm excited about that. It will take decades for us to transition off of fossil fuels. In the meantime, we can capture that carbon and do something with it.
The process of translating technology from a laboratory into the world is really fun and exciting for me. Stuff inevitably goes wrong and then you have to fix the problems. The procedure needs a lot of creativity and a lot of teamwork. I just love the whole process!
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BMBF funding measure status conference: "CO2 as a sustainable source of carbon - Pathways to industrial applications - CO2-WIN". This virtual conference will be in English and is free.
June 8-9, 2021
For more information, please click here.
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Live Q&A Session with imi
June 8
Jeff McPherson (VP Customer Development, imi) and Darrin Litteral (QC Manager, imi) are back with an update in this live session covering how imi took proactive sustainability steps to create a competitive advantage.For more information about this Carbon Cure event, please click here.
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Technologies, Markets and Trends for “CO2 -based Polymers”
June 9
The webinar discusses the main results of the report “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as Chemical Feedstock for Polymers – Technologies, Polymers, Developers and Producers”. he nova report addresses the polymer industry, brands, technology scouts, investors, and policy makers.For more information, please click here.
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Decarbonizing Cement, Concrete, & Steel
June 10
While excitement and momentum build behind the clean energy transition and as new net-zero targets emerge, the question of how to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors remains. For more information about this Women in Cleantech & Sustainability webinar, please click here.
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VERGE Net Zero Event: Accelerating The Transition To A Climate-positive Future
July 27-28
Join more than 5,000 professionals working on sustainability, supply chains, facilities, fleets, manufacturing and other key areas to learn from leaders behind the private sector’s most ambitious carbon targets. For more information, please click here.
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