Audi has Successfully Made a Renewable Diesel source

In the current race for an oil alternative, focus has moved from making a renewable source to moving to a new source altogether. Audi however, has made a diesel alternative out of water and carbon-dioxide.

So let’s step back a little. Our current oil source is gathered from millions of years of decomposition of animal and dinosaur fossils. This has been a pretty reliable source, but with our boom of using this oil for pretty much our sole source of energy; levels are dwindling. We then moved onto solar powered cars, a good idea in principle; yet not practical due to the price and vulnerability of the solar panels. We’ve seen sources from Hyundai of hydrogen powered cars, again a good idea, but really heavy. Today, we have Electric Vehicles; we like EV’s here at eTeknix, all of the power all the way through the ‘rev’ range.

Audi has made some EV’s, but secretly deep down they have been sourcing a way to produce a renewable source of fuel for current production cars.

Let’s take a look through their current three step method of producing this “e-Diesel”.

Step one: It begins with air collection, gathering carbon dioxide from the air from a partner “Climeworks”. This is then fed through to an Audi conversion reactor and creates carbon monoxide from that process.

Step two: During that process, they are chemically breaking down water into its base elements; water and hydrogen. The hydrogen is then added to the carbon monoxide at high temperatures and under immense pressure; this creates a long-chain hydrocarbon that results in “blue crude”.

Step three: The hydrogen is then added to the carbon monoxide at high temperatures and under immense pressure; this creates a long-chain hydrocarbon that results in “blue crude”. This is then sent off for refinement.

Once refined, the e-Diesel can be used on its own or added to our current diesel fuel stock to bulk it out. This will be produced in approximately 160 litres a day for the foreseeable future.

Audi has given the operations to a German based company, Sunfire. they state that the fuel has an overall efficiency of 70% compared to naturally sourced diesel. Audi and Sunfire are in talks to build a large production plant to boost the output levels; in hope that this will compete with electricity. They plan to sell it within the 1EURO – 1.50EURO per litre.