Fresh Air Fuels Global
Because of its history, South Africa has developed technology to create biofuels, as alternatives to diesel.
If you read the Wikipedia entry for South African chemical company; SASOL, you’ll see the things that South African chemists did, to get round the sanctions imposed because of apartheid.
SASOL has advanced the Fischer–Tropsch process and uses it to produce diesel and other fossil fuels.
Note that Velocys have also developed this process to make sustainable aviation fuel in the UK.
Fresh Air Fuels Global have a page on the G-volution web site.
The page is dominated by an infographic, which shows organic waste (animals and plants) going into an anaerobic digester, which produces.
- Biogas, which is used to create heat, electricity, CO2, biomethane, fuel and gas for the grid.
- Digestate, which is used for fertiliser and livestock bedding.
It almost sounds too good to be true.
This is the mission statement below the graphic.
Our mission: To be the most reliable producer of energy secure low carbon fuels.
There is then these paragraphs, which explain the relationship between G-volution and Fresh Air Fuels Global.
Global energy security concerns and climate targets necessitate countries and businesses to transition away from high-cost fossil fuels towards low-carbon alternatives.
Over more than a decade, Cape Advance Engineering South Africa (CAE) have been developing an incredibly cost-effective Anaerobic Digestion (AD) technology, which has proven to generate renewable energy from organic waste in the form of gas, heat and electricity that is cost competitive with fossil fuels.
G-Volution has partnered with CAE to form Fresh Air Fuels Global (FAFG), with aim of introducing the CAE technology to international markets that the G-Volution already have a foothold, constructing AD plants and creating carbon neutral biofuel from waste that can be used in dual fuel engines.
In Grand Central DMU To Be Used For Dual-Fuel Trial, I describe how G-volution’s dual fuel technology has been applied to one of Grand Central’s Class 180 train.
This picture I took after travelling in a Grand Central Class 180 train, shows that G-volution don’t hide their light under a bushel.
Note.
- This train appears to run on diesel and liquified natural gas.
- This G-volution video gives more details.
This clip from the video, shows the possible fuels.
Note.
- Can the dual fuel engine use biodiesel or HVO instead of diesel?
- It looks like the Fresh Air Fuels Global process can produce biomethane, which could be liquified as LNG.
- Hydrogen is the only true zero-carbon secondary fuel.
- There is a Wikipedia entry for ethanol fuel.
- Hydrous ethanol is about 95% ethanol and 5% water and is used as a fuel in Brazil in petrol cars.
- There is a Wikipedia entry for the use of methanol as fuel.
Have G-volution got access to the technology to both reduce the fuel consumption of diesel engines and run them on zero-carbon fuel?
UK Trains That Have Cummins QSK-19 R Diesel Engines
Grand Central’s Class 180 trains have a Cummins QSK-19 R diesel engine.
All these trains have the same engine.
- 14 – Class 180 trains
- 51 – Class 185 trains
- 34 – Class 220 trains
- 44 – Class 221 trains
- 27 – Class 222 trains
In addition, Class 175 trains have a different engine made by Cummins.
Conclusion
If G-volution’s technology can be made to work successfully, it could play a large part in the decarbonisation of UK passenger trains.

