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by Jackie Helling on Apr 21, 2009ARB voting on carbon rule Thursday
The California Air Resources Board is voting on a proposed rule Thursday that would limit the carbon content of transportation fuels. For the first time, carbon emissions would be determined by every step of the process, not just the production of fuel itself.
If ARB voted the rule into law, it would discourage investment in the ethanol industry, effectively undermining the important role renewable fuels can and should play in our energy plan.
According to the San Diego Tribune:
“To put this burden on biofuels threatens to slow down or even preclude development of the biofuels industry precisely at the time we need to make the transition to the next generation of fuels,” said John Howe, a spokesman for Verenium, a Massachusetts-based company that operates San Diego-area labs exploring new sources of biofuels other than crops.
Land-use change science is faulty at best, and probably shouldn’t be the basis of a new rule like this. It would be a setback of the ethanol industry and the country at large.
We’ll report here ARB’s ruling as soon as we know. Keep tuned here for new information.
The notion that only biofuels cause indirect effects in the world marketplace, and that other energy sources—including petroleum—do not, is uninformed and irresponsible. And yet, that is exactly what the CA Air Resources Board is proposing in the LCFS. The establishment of an impartial regulation demands that all participating fuels be measured equally. If ARB wants to focus the lens on any particular fuel pathway, then it must require the same analysis for all other energy types.
Also, the argument that advanced biofuels are somehow helped by this skewed metric proposed by ARB is pure fiction. The indirect effects requirement for only biofuels increases the carbon score of cellulosic ethanol by about 80 percent. This penalty occurs in isolation, as no other type of fuel has been analyzed for price-induced carbon effects. This additional hurdle drags down the score of advanced biofuels close to natural gas, which may end up being its primary competitor and is not paying for indirect effects.
ARB is to be commended for many things, however the LCFS as drafted is not among them.
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Andrew Schuyler Says:
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 am