Difficult to replace the gasoline of cars becoming more and more expensive… Prince Charles, for his part, found the solution : his car runs with white wine !
Once upon a time there was a Prince Charming. He was no longer so young and had protruding ears. Like any prince, he was accompanied by his faithful destrier. But it was not a car like any other since it uses wine to drive !
Originally, an Aston Martin DB5
A little bit of context, The Aston Martin DB5 is an automobile from British manufacturer Aston Martin, produced from 1963 to 1965 and created by Italian car body designer Carrozzeria Touring. DB comes from the initials of David Brown, an industrialist who bought Aston Martin in 1947. For those crazy about cars, note that the DB5 performs the 0 to 100 km / h in 8,1 s.
You necessarily know - maybe without knowing it - the DB5 since it is James Bond's favorite car. It is a great success in the world thanks to its presence in the movie Goldfinger in 1964.
The brand's popularity benefits enormously from the film, indeed, this "large-scale" promotion overshadows the victory of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1959, as well as the title of world champion of the manufacturers conquered the same year.
The DB5 can be found in many James Bond films thereafter: Operation Thunder (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow never dies (1997), and more recently Casino Royal (2006), Skyfall (2012) and finally Spectre (2015).
The version of our Prince Charles, DB6
Prince Charles blew out his candles on 14 November 2015 to celebrate his 67 years. For his 21 years, the Queen had given him the Aston Martin DB6 - after having hesitated with a "Cheese of the month" membership card… true story ! —. It's in 2008 that the Prince of Wales decided to convert this vehicle to run almost entirely on ethanol derived from wine.
Apparently, the use of bioethanol derived from wine is more than just a gimmick, but something even bigger. It's actually very convenient. The European Union has strict rules about wine : a rule defines a production quota and surplus wine is not allowed to be sold on the market. The EU accounts for almost two-thirds of the world's wine production.
Rather than throwing away that surplus, scientists have been able to turn it into bioethanol, capable of propelling a vehicle. And the manufacturing method is quite simple : distillation. The Green Fuels Group used an excess of 8.000 litres of white wine that they distilled into almost pure ethanol (99,8 %). Add to that, a little extra alcohol collected from local cheese makers — alcohol can be extracted from fermented whey — and the fuel is ready. The white wine comes from a vineyard in Wiltshire.
The car doesn't just work with cheese and wine, but with a mixture of 85 % bioethanol and 15 % of gasoline. It's always better than 100 % of gasoline.
The prince's assistant-chief, Sir Michael Peat recalled that "Charles travels only two or three hundred miles a year in the Aston, but he wanted it to be environmentally friendly. As it happens, our bioethanol supplier creates fuel from surplus English wine.". This means that the Prince is driving 320 to 420 km behind the wheel of his vehicle which consumes 4,5 bottles of white wine per mile - 1,6 km — . At 1.10 £ per liter, bioethanol is only slightly cheaper than conventional gasoline, but produced up to 85 % less carbon dioxide.
Going further to set a good example, the Prince had wood chip boilers installed in his Scottish residence. He even tries to feed the cows — princely — with grass rather than grains to reduce flatulence and minimize methane emissions, a greenhouse gas.
Drinking or driving, the Prince has chosen. I'm going to start thinking about equipping my Twingo so I don't waste any more corked wine !
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