Porsche strives to make 'e-gas' carbon-neutral or direct - a kind of gasoline without petroleum
Porsche has no plans to make an electric version of its iconic sports cars, but instead aims to develop a new gasoline without the need for oil.
Read also
What to do when countries start banning cars powered by petroleum-based gasoline?
Porsche's response: carbon-neutral "synthetic" gasoline, meaning no petroleum in its composition that could fuel gas engines in any car, not just Porsches.
Through a new pilot project that the German high-performance car maker announced on Wednesday, windmills in Chile would supply electricity to turn water into hydrogen fuel and oxygen. As part of the same process, carbon dioxide would be filtered out of the air. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide would combine to form methane, to be reformulated as a substitute for petroleum-based gasoline. Since the carbon dioxide was already in the air, the resulting tailpipe emissions would not add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Porsche aims for big future goals with its new gasoline
Porsche's aim with its new petroleum-free gasoline is "to show what is technically possible", says Michael Steiner, Porsche's head of research and development, so that the so-called e-gas can be sampled by drivers and evaluated. by regulators as governments clamp down on greenhouse gases to tackle climate change. The Chile site was chosen because it offers very stable and reliable wind.
The technologies underlying Porsche's design are already proven and well understood. Water has been transformed into hydrogen and oxygen for decades through the process of electrolysis. Engineers have decades of experience turning methane into a gasoline-like fuel, too. The increased capacity of solar and wind power makes a carbon neutral process possible.
