Lotus gets on the meths

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Forgive us for a bit of patriotic pride - it is St George's Day after all - but God bless Lotus.

From their quiet shed in Hethel, the boys from Lotus might just be saving the world. The dinky British manufacturer has revealed its Trifuel Exige 270E, a methanol-powered concept that, aside from being the most powerful road-going Exige ever, previews some seriously impressive green technology.

The 270E uses the Exige's standard supercharged Toyota engine, but has been modified to run on three different fuels: methanol, ethanol or petrol. Unlike other multifuel engines, the 270E can run on any combination of the three, so it only needs a single tank.

Methanol is the exciting bit here. Unlike hydrogen, it's liquid at room temperature, so doesn't need expensive high pressure tanks - and it combusts more efficiently than diesel.

Best of all, it can be synthesised from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. That's carbon dioxide, one of the nasty gases that cause global warming. Beginning to see why this is all good?

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to recover CO2 from the atmosphere yet, but Lotus says that when technology catches up, methanol-fuelled cars could be environmentally neutral.

You won't be able to buy the 270E, which is simply being used to show how easily an engine can be converted to run on methanol. Lotus says it can convert a standard car for about £40. Sounds like a bargain.

Even more so when you consider that you get extra power for free. Because methanol has a higher octane rating than petrol, the output of the Toyota engine jumps from 237bhp to 267bhp, allowing the Exige to hit 60mph in 3.88 seconds.

We're beginning to rather like the sound of this green revolution.