Audi is continuing on the path towards carbon neutrality by announcing a new strategic partnership with Joule, to commercialise its sustainable transport fuels.
Joule will now be Audi’s exclusive partner in the development of biologically derived ethanol and diesel – and it is hoped the relationship can help push forward the development of both Joule Sunflow-E and Sunflow-D, which will include lifecycle analysis, validation and fuel testing.
The fuels are derived directly from waste CO2 and sunlight and fit in with Audi’s vision for carbon neutral mobility. It is believed they could achieve the scale needed for global adoption without the need to deplete any arable land or crops as is often the case with most biofuels.
Joule uses a helioculture platform that uses micro-organisms directly and converts sunlight and waste CO2 into infrastructure-ready fuels, including both ethanol and hydrocarbons. It uses its own Solar Converter system (pictured) to manage the process with productivity said to be as much as 100 times greater than those of biomass-dependent methods.
As part of the partnership, Joule will benefit from Audi’s expertise and global reach; while Audi will have a first mover advantage as Joule’s exclusive partner in the automotive sector.
According to Reiner Mangold, the head of environmental products at Audi AG, the agreement meets the company’s objective of becoming a carbon neutral transportation provider and will allow it to explore a host of innovations that could reduce the impact of premium mobility.
Paul is a freelance writer with a background in everything from motoring to finance; and holidays to women's undergarments he just writes about them, honestly! He has now sadly crept into his early 30s and seems to have forgotten everything learned at school Still, he's a green car fanatic and isn't that what counts?
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