Your editor spent much of his time at AirVenture 2013 in or around the Innovation Pavilion, the Experimental Aircraft Association’s nod to experimentation on a grand scale. Flanking the doors into the pavilion were two approaches to making flight more efficient, the LAM Ailerons on a Cessna Corvallis and a dual-fuel system on an Aviat A1-C Husky CNG; “CNG” standing for “compressed natural gas.” Stu Horn, President of Aviat Aircraft, is proud of the all-American nature of the airplane, most components other than avionics having their origin in this country. Even the fuel for this proof-of-concept Husky is a domestic product, and a possible reflection of its back-country home. Afton, Wyoming, where Aviat makes Huskies, has resurrected the Pitts Special, …
Audi Opens e-Gas Plant in Germany
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 …
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 …