California's New Low Carbon Fuel Standard Rleased

California's New Low Carbon Fuel Standard Rleased



Aug. 2007  - Drivers will be able to keep 
their gasoline-powered cars for many years, as fuel providers lower the 
global warming effects of gasoline, according to the first detailed 
outline of California's new Low Carbon Fuel Standard released Thursday by 
University of California transportation energy experts. 
The Low Carbon Fuel Standard was commissioned in January by Governor 
Arnold Schwarzenegger. He asked the specialists to design a standard that 
would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fuels by 10 percent by 2020. 
Professor Alex Farrell, director of the Transportation Sustainability 
Research Center at UC Berkeley, and Professor Daniel Sperling, director of 
the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis spelled out in detail 
how the standard will work in the second part of a two-part report.
 
"This new policy is hugely important, and has never been done before," 
said Sperling. "It will likely transform the energy industries. And the 10 
percent reduction is just the beginning. We anticipate much greater 
reductions after 2020." 
The Low Carbon Fuel Standard, designed to stimulate improvements in 
transportation fuel technologies, is expected to become the foundation for 
similar initiatives in other states, as well as national and international 
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
In Part 1 of the report, completed in May, Farrell and Sperling evaluated 
the technical feasibility of achieving the 10 percent cut by 2020. 
Based on six scenarios using different technologies, they concluded that 
the goal is ambitious but attainable. 
At the end of June, the California Air Resources Board voted to start 
working toward that goal. The new standard is set to take effect by 
January 2010. 
Now, the authors detail specific policies that together can achieve the 
Low Carbon Fuel Standard. 
They recommend that the new standard require only modest reductions in 
carbon intensity in the early years, and greater reductions later, as 
innovations reach the market

Passenger vehicle owners will find that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard 
brings a greater variety of fuels to the market, they say. 
"Stabilizing the climate will require major changes in the coming years, 
and the new fuels that will come on the market in response to the low 
carbon fuel standard will be an important part of that change," said 
Farrell. 
"One of the key roles for the state agencies will be ensuring that the 
competition among the different fuels results in real carbon emission 
reductions, more consumer choice, and minimal costs," he said. 
Fueling infrastructure will evolve to include E85 filling stations for the 
ethanol blend, dedicated electric vehicle charging stations and meters in 
residences, and hydrogen delivery systems. 
The menu of fuel choices might vary regionally, depending on availability, 
so that in some areas of the state, there would be more electric vehicles, 
in others more hydrogen, and elsewhere more biofuel. 
The report suggests that petrofuel providers would reduce their greenhouse 
gas emissions in a variety of ways. 
They can blend more biofuel with gasoline and diesel; they can buy 
low-carbon fuels and emissions credits from other producers; they can make 
refineries more efficient, and use lower carbon sources of energy to run 
refineries.

Non-liquid fuel providers, who offer natural gas, propane and hydrogen, 
should have the option to participate in the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, 
most likely by selling emissions credits to petrofuel providers, said the 
experts. 
Revenue from selling emissions credits also would help low-carbon biofuel 
providers, who deal in fuels from plant and animal sources, such as corn, 
switchgrass and food waste, recoup investments made in innovation and 
learning. 
Under Farrell and Sperling's plan, trucking, construction and farming 
vehicle owners will switch to the new standard. They say the standard 
should apply to all gasoline and diesel used in transportation, including 
freight trucks and trains, and off-road machinery such as construction and 
agriculture equipment. 
"There are opportunities for double benefits here, such as switching to 
electricity for freight handling or for overnight truck use, which reduces 
carbon emissions, air pollution and noise," the authors said. 
Growing more crops as biofuel feedstocks will have "mixed effects on 
greenhouse-gas emissions," they predict. 
If biofuels are to be cleaner than fossil fuels, they must use advanced 
production methods, only some of which are available now, they must be 
derived from feedstocks grown on degraded land, or they must be produced 
from solid wastes or agricultural residues. 
Sperling and Farrell call on the state to ensure that sensitive lands are 
protected from conversion to biofuel crop production. 
The California Air Resources Board will require more financial resources 
to develop and enforce the new standard, Sperling and Farrell emphasize.

"It is imperative that neither the state administration nor the 
Legislature expect Low Carbon Fuel Standard administration to be a 
peripheral set of duties shoehorned into current operations without 
explicit funding," they say. 
The California Board of Equalization may play a role. The California 
Energy Commission will play a role - it already manages the Petroleum 
Industry Information Reporting Act program, which requires firms that 
ship, receive, store, process and sell crude oil and petroleum products in 
California to submit detailed, frequent reports on their activities. 
And the California Public Utility Commission will have to tackle "tricky 
questions" of how regulated local electricity providers should compete 
with the unfettered global oil industry. 
The report identifies many questions that require further study, and 
recommends periodic reviews and assessments of protocol and methods - but 
not of the actual emissions targets. 
Further study of the sustainability impacts and lifecycle emissions of 
existing and new fuels will be necessary. And the authors recommend a cost 
analysis of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard following the cost-effectiveness 
approach used in evaluating the Clean Air Act. 
In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the report recommends that fuel 
providers report on the sustainability and environmental justice 
implications of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. 
This research was supported by the Energy Foundation and conducted by a 
team of researchers at UC Davis and UC Berkeley, who coordinated and 
consulted extensively with the staffs of the California Air Resources 
Board and the California Energy Commission, and the representatives of 
many stakeholder organizations. 

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