Month: March 2021

Enlarge / Porsche is working on synthetic fuels and will begin testing them in racing as early as next year. (credit: Porsche)

In the grand scheme of things, the fuel used by racing cars on track amounts to a mere rounding error compared to the carbon dioxide emitted by all the spectators driving to watch each race. But optics are still important, and electric racing cars aren't really suitable for use in endurance racing or Formula 1, so the industry is looking at lower-carbon (or even carbon-neutral) fuels as a way to keep using internal combustion engines.

Formula 1 has announced its plan to become carbon-neutral by 2030, and sustainable fuels are going to be part of that, but they're not the only game in town. On Tuesday, Porsche revealed that the 2021 and 2022 seasons of Porsche Supercup—a race series for identical Porsche 911 racing cars—will be powered by Esso renewable racing fuel, "a blend of primarily advanced biofuels," according to the press release.

But this biofuel blend is just the first version of Esso's renewable racing fuel. Starting next year, Porsche will start testing the second-generation Esso renewable fuel. And that one will incorporate synthetic fuel, made from hydrogen and carbon dioxide at a plant in Chile that Porsche is developing with Siemens. By 2022, Porsche and Siemens are targeting 34,000 gallons (130,000 L) of synthetic fuel production, increasing to 14.5 million gallons (55 million L) by 2024 and 145 million gallons (550 million L) by 2026.

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  SN11 nears apogee on March 30, 2021 over SpaceX's South Texas launch site. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

Despite a thickly fogged launch site in South Texas, SpaceX let its SN11 Starship prototype fly on Tuesday morning at 8 am local time.

An onboard camera showed the vehicle making a nominal ascent to about 10 km, shutting off its three Raptor rocket engines in turn. As the vehicle ascended, it cleared the low cloud deck into blue skies. Starship then hovered before beginning its return to Earth.

The camera attached to the Starship vehicle's exterior provided imagery during the descent, which appeared to be fairly smooth as the vehicle "flopped" over and oriented itself to come back through the thickening atmosphere. During three previous high-altitude flights, Starship prototypes have performed this graceful maneuver without much apparent difficulty.