Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Audis LeMans win powered by Shell BTL (biomass to liquid)

The Audi R10 TDI runs on diesel, but not just any old diesel. It used Shell’s BTL biodiesel (BTL stands for biomass to liquid). The other good thing is that it isn’t based on corn or anything else edible. It uses things like wood scraps instead. Compared to traditional diesel, this fuel can emit almost 90 percent less carbon dioxide. For the race, Audi used a combination of BTL and GTL (gas to liquid) -- which is a synthetic fuel made from natural gas. The racing industry has been using Biofuels since mid 2004, which used Bioderived fuels and spread into the British Touring Car Championship, WRC and had been used in privateer LeMans team pre-07.