BY DANIEL KORN
I don’t have to explain to you why gasoline is a crappy way to power cars, right? We can all just agree that a new fuel method is important to the future of our planet? Okay, great. Moving on.
The oil companies will retain their stranglehold for the near future, but public perception is turning in such a way that economic forces will hopefully force car companies to invest in renewable energy. Assuming this is the case, it becomes a question of which energy source we’ll be using for vehicles. Elon Musk would like you to believe that it’s electricity, which could be true. But German car company Audi has a different idea—a diesel fuel source designed in-house under the moniker “e-diesel.”
E-diesel comes courtesy of the company’s research facility operated by Sunfire, a German startup based in Dresden. The fuel is made of a combination of water and carbon dioxide (CO2). Hydrogen is extracted from steam by way of hydrolysis, and mixes with CO2 that’s been either supplied by a biogas plant or captured directly from the air. The two substances react with each other under high temperature and pressure, forming a liquid known as “blue crude.” The liquid is then refined into e-diesel.
Since the e-diesel is, of course, a form of diesel fuel, it’s got several advantages over traditional gasoline—most notably by being more powerful while using less fuel. E-diesel will have the added benefit of being carbon neutral and made of renewable energy sources.
Audi is set to produce about 3,000 litres of e-diesel in the next few months, which Sunfire predicts will cost 1 to 1.5 Euros (USD $1.10-1.60) per litre, though they’re aware this may fluctuate based on the price of electricity. This puts it roughly at cost with the current price of diesel fuel. E-diesel can be used with any car that already accepts diesel fuel.
Keep in mind that this all comes from a press release from Audi, and we’ll see how the e-diesel functions when it actually comes to market (which is unknown at this time). For now, it’s a really intriguing possibility—here’s hoping it works as advertised.