Car Manufacturer News
Nissan’s New Powertrain is Carbon Neutral, Unless it isn’t
Automakers across the globe are jockeying for position in the world of alternative powertrains. So far, we’ve seen EVs and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles take the lead, but Nissan has a new technology that is a little more outside the box.
This new powertrain technology is known as Solid Oxide Fuel-Cell and it uses an e-bio fuel cell to generate electricity through the SOFC with the aid of bio-ethanol. This system uses the bio-ethanol and atmospheric oxygen to produce hydrogen, which in turn powers the e-bio fuel cell. The resulting electrochemical reaction is what the vehicle uses to power the electric motor.
Unfortunately, using bio-ethanol, which is sourced from sugarcane and corn, does result in CO2 emissions. Nissan claims that this CO2 is neutralized by the additional growth of sugarcane. So, technically, this would be a carbon-neutral mode of transportation, but there are some other details to take into account here.
I am no scientist, so I can’t authoritatively comment on this claim, but it sounds a little fishy to me. Sure, sugarcane does absorb up to 30 tons of CO2 per half-hectare, but what emissions are produced when creating the bio-ethanol? There are the CO2 emissions of the machines harvesting the crops, the emissions created from making the fertilizer, and so on. So, is it truly “carbon-neutral?” Likely not.
Maybe Nissan will elaborate further on this in the future, giving us more details on what emissions are actually neutralized, but I am a skeptic at this point. Stay tuned for more.
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