Audi takes the environment seriously, and in a statement of corporate responsibility, shows that doing good for clean air can help the company do well in the competitive car market. “The Company is establishing a portfolio of sustainable sources of energy as part of its Audi e-gas project. Renewably generated electricity from wind or solar power, water and carbon dioxide are used to produce hydrogen and synthetic methane, the Audi e-gas. The plant that Audi has built in Werlte, Germany is now in the commissioning phase. It produces the fuel for the first CNG model from Audi, the new A3 Sportback g-tron, which will be launched before the end of the year.” Opening the Werlte e-gas plant will help Audi develop a chain of sustainable energy carriers, producing and distributing liquid fuels for which their cars will be specifically designed. According to Green Car Congress.com, the plant can convert six megawatts of input power, using renewable electricity for electrolysis to …
Audi, Joule and SolarFuel Announce e-Fuel Production
Biofuels have issues – and like a sulky mate, hit us repeatedly with contradictory demands or unanswerable questions. If we plant fuel crops everywhere, their growth leaches the soil and their use as an oil/fuel substitute deprives the starving billions of food. This intractable reality seems to leave us nowhere to go. Audi, and its partner Joule (in America) are promoting a non-fossil compressed natural gas made by a process that mimics photosynthesis, and that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere as part of its makeup. Audi has a clever plan, as presented at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2013 Government/Industry Meeting. In Europe, SolarFuel will provide motive power for the first Audi g-tron compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. Joule explains its process: “Unlike fuels produced from agricultural or algal biomass, Joule produces fuels directly and continuously from sunlight and waste CO2 – avoiding costly raw materials, pretreatment and downstream processing. The company’s Helioculture™ platform uses photosynthetic microorganisms as living catalysts to produce fuel, not …