The best of both worlds

Climate change has highlighted the need for new ideas relating to mobility, particularly in an era of globalization. Based on fundamental research, Volkswagen Group scientists are developing concepts that are ready for application and are testing biological energy alternatives. The innovative engine technologies developed in this way help to reduce the level of CO₂ in the environment.

When Wolfgang Steiger, head of the Drivetrain Research Department, talks about hemp, his eyes light up. “This cash crop”, he explains animatedly to a slightly bemused audience, “is what we use to generate fuel for the cars of the future.” Steiger, who has a doctorate in engineering and has been awarded the “Professor Ferdinand Porsche Prize”, has no time for drugs of any kind. Neither is he hallucinating, because his kind of hemp has no narcotic properties at all. Rather, this plant-based raw material – along with pampas grass and elephant grass – is ushering in a new era of biogenic fuels.

OVER 80 PERCENT LESS CO₂

“SunFuel” is the name given to the second generation of biofuels, the development of which experts such as Steiger have been pursuing with scientific curiosity, meticulousness and drive, and which will help to facilitate mobility, safeguard energy and protect the environment. Although this may sound like magic, it is in fact an attempt to harness the cycles of nature: the only CO₂ particles that escape from the biomass during the combustion process in the engine are those that were originally bound in the plants. In other words: using these natural raw materials as a biofuel makes a significant contribution to stabilizing the ecosystem. This is because it curbs the rise of CO₂ emissions – the greenhouse gas that is partially responsible for global warming, with all its dangerous consequences for the Earth’s climate and life forms. In this way, over 80 percent of CO₂ emissions attributable to automobiles can be reduced. 

200,000 TONNES FACILITY BEING PLANNED

In the development of innovative BTL fuels (BTL = Biomass to Liquid), the Volkswagen Group has long progressed from the experimental stage. Together with Daimler, it is a partner of Choren Industries GmbH, a biofuel company based in Freiberg, Saxony. Here, a BTL facility is under construction with a planned production capacity of 15,000 tonnes per year – enough to meet the annual requirements of almost 15,000 cars. At the same time, a facility is already being planned that will produce as much as 200,000 tonnes of BTL fuel every year. This fuel is not produced at the expense of food or fodder, because it also makes use of parts of the plant that are not utilizable in any other way.

However, given its responsibility for the future, a global player such as the Volkswagen Group must view the fuel question in other contexts. Fuel pioneer Wolfgang Steiger, whose advice is sought from the White House to the Chinese Department of Commerce, is well aware of this. “We must bear in mind that demand for energy worldwide is going to increase – one reason being the emerging economic might of China and India – and that reserves of fossil fuels, i. e. crude oil and natural gas, will dwindle in the foreseeable future and that it will be increasingly difficult and expensive to tap new fields.”

PUTTING RESIDUE TO GOOD USE

This assessment is confirmed by the latest forecasts from the World Energy Council (WEC), which predicts an increase of between 70 and 100 percent in demand for oil and gas by 2050. It is clear for Volkswagen that there is no long-term alternative to using renewable fuels based on sustainable raw materials. Needless to say, crops originally cultivated to produce food cannot be harvested for fuel. However, residue from the production and consumption of organic goods can still be converted into biofuel.

Although conventional petrol and diesel will continue to hold sway in years to come, these will gradually be joined – and eventually replaced – by new and traditional types of fuel. For example, the wholly biogenic SunFuel substances can be mixed readily with conventional fuels. Natural gas is already being refined into synthetic SynFuel – a step towards the economically and ecologically sound designer fuels of the future.

Nevertheless, part of this strategy is also to continue the systematic and innovative development of engine technology, helping to enhance fuel efficiency, safeguard resources and increase performance potential. With its TDI and TSI technologies and its eight brands, the Wolfsburg-based automotive group has set quality standards in forward-looking drive technology. As a realistic futurist, Steiger sees parallel developments here, as is the case in the fuel sector. Series production of combined petrol and diesel engines (CCS) is expected to begin by 2015. Thanks to sophisticated hybrid technology, energy recovery is coupled with electric and combustion engine drives – these technologies are already being combined to great effect.

German engineers, according to Steiger, are especially thorough. By this he means that the development team in Wolfsburg is determined to optimize the charge capacity of the batteries for the electric modules before Volkswagen begins series production of hybrid cars. After all, the models should win over buyers right from the start. The road to the future is already being mapped out, with a number of different mobility scenarios playing a decisive role. On short trips – for example in city traffic – the electric drive will take more and more of a front seat. Over longer distances, however, the combustion engine will retain the upper hand, since only liquid hydrocarbons can be stored and transported in sufficient quantities in the fuel tank. “We must”, concludes Steiger, “combine the best of both worlds.”

A visionary with his feet firmly on the ground

For some people, the future is already part of the present: Dr. Wolfgang Steiger, head of the Drivetrain Research Department, talks about the ecological responsibility of the Volkswagen Group, new biofuels and the engine technologies of tomorrow.

Dr. Steiger, at the latest since the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its reports last year, everyone has been talking about this issue. In connection with climate change, the German automotive industry is repeatedly accused of failing to do its homework in time. Can this be said of the Volkswagen Group? 

DR. STEIGER: No, that isn’t the case at all. If it were, I cannot imagine what I am supposed to have been doing in this company over the past ten years. In the Drivetrain department, we conduct fundamental research for the entire Volkswagen Group – research that centers on a single question: which technologies and fuels will help vehicles to use less energy and reduce pollution?

What’s the outlook for the future?

In order to stem the tide of global warming, the main priority is to bring about a sustainable reduction in CO₂ emissions. In the EU, passenger car traffic is responsible for generating 12 percent of these greenhouse gas emissions. We are pur­suing a development strategy that combines innovative fuels and intelligent engine technology.

Moving away from oil and towards electric engines?

We must make a distinction here: on the one hand, finite fossil fuel sources must be gradually replaced by renewable fuels made from biomass. This synthetic substance, which we call SunFuel, fits into the cycle of nature in a way that is simply revolutionary. When it is combusted, it releases no more CO₂ than was originally absorbed from the atmosphere by the plant that provided the energy in the first place. On the other hand, the proportion of electrically produced motive power in the engines will increase, extending all the way to the use of hydrogen-based zero-emission fuel cells to charge batteries.

Is it possible that another revolution will happen before this vision becomes reality – after all, it is not expected for another 20 years or so?

I would be more inclined to call it an evolution, but there is one development that will bring about a significant leap in quality in the near future: the use of SunFuel in a new generation of engines that combine the outstanding attributes of diesel and petrol powertrains.