(Source: CBS, LA Times, SF Chronicle)

California took aim today at the oil industry and its effect on global warming, adopting the world’s first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks.

Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli via CBS

The regulation requires producers, refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by 10% over the next decade. And it launches the state on an ambitious path toward ratcheting down its overall heat-trapping emissions by 80% by mid-century — a level that scientists deem necessary to avoid drastic disruption to the global climate.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the regulation immediately after the vote.

“California’s first-in-the-world low carbon fuel standard will not only reduce global warming pollution – it will reward innovation, expand consumer choice and encourage the private investment we need to transform our energy infrastructure,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

At the all-day public hearing prior to the vote, backers of corn-based ethanol criticized the regulation because it counts – as part of the carbon intensity – the indirect effects of manufacturing the fuel. With corn-based ethanol, that means counting the impact of creating new crop land when existing land is converted to growing corn for fuel instead of food.

Backers of the regulation applauded in the auditorium after the vote.

(Source: SF Gate)

Some mayors tool around in Priuses and hybrid Civics. But Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates has taken green transit a step further.  

Image: Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

No more cars for him, at all.

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

As the state moves to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel, an engineer hopes to build a plant in Lancaster that will convert garbage into an alcohol-based mixture.

California’s proposal “is the first time anyone has attempted, for environmental purposes, to change the content of what goes into cars and trucks,” says Mary D. Nichols, state Air Resources Board chairwoman. “It would revolutionize transportation fuel.”
 
President Obama has also called for a low-carbon standard for the nation’s $400-billion transportation fuel market. A version similar to California’s is incorporated in climate legislation pending before Congress.

But by measuring the “cradle-to-grave” effect of various fuels, the new rule would favor ethanol such as Klann’s, made from non-food sources. Even “low-carbon” corn ethanol — such as the kind produced in California using gas-fired electricity and efficient machinery — has a far higher carbon footprint than so-called cellulosic fuel from landfill waste, trees, switchgrass or sugar cane.

“This is fantastic for us,” said Klann, who uses recycled sulfuric acid to transform paper, construction debris and grass clippings into ethanol. “The paradigm is changing from oil to sustainable fuels. The ones with the lowest carbon footprint will be the winners.”

By 2020, the air board estimates, new-technology fuels along with electricity to power hybrid and electric cars would replace a quarter of the gasoline supply. And that is a critical element of the state’s sweeping plan to reduce its global warming emissions. 

Battered corn ethanol investors have mounted an intense lobbying effort against California’s proposal. Several, including Pacific Ethanol, California’s biggest, had planned to diversify from corn into cellulosic ethanol. They argue that by diminishing the value of their existing plants, the new rule also would cripple their advanced biofuel efforts. 

At issue is the Air Resources Board’s complex modeling, which would calculate each fuel’s carbon footprint not only by its “direct” emissions from drilling or planting to refining to burning, but also “indirect” emissions caused by clearing forests or fields to compensate for food crops such as corn or soy that are diverted to fuel. Opponents say the science behind the indirect modeling is inaccurate. 

Among entrepreneurs like Klann, the mood has never been more hopeful. In an Anaheim lab, the 57-year-old electrical engineer guides a visitor through a maze of pipes, filters, heat exchangers, fermentation tanks and vats of acid like a small boy showing off a chemistry set. “We’re in the forefront of this industry,” he said of his patented “concentrated acid hydrolysis” process. “We expect to have the first plant to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale.”  

Financing for his Lancaster plant, which recently obtained its final permits, has been delayed by the credit crunch. But if it comes through, the facility will process 170 tons of garbage a day to produce 3.7 million gallons of ethanol a year. Estimated cost per gallon: about $2, Klann says.  

He already has plans for 20 more facilities across the country. Next on the block: a plant outside Palm Springs, partly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, that would produce 19 million gallons annually. 

Click here to read th entire article.  For interested readers, here is a TransportGooru article on California’s ambitious new fuel regulation standards. 

Tightening the “Green” Screw! California regulators consider instituting first-in-the nation low-carbon fuel standards

(Source: San Jose Mercury news & Calif. ARB)

SACRAMENTO—California air regulators are taking another step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, considering first-in-the nation standards to require the use of so-called low-carbon fuels.

The California Air Resources Board, which will debate the standards Thursday, considers the regulation a framework for a potential national policy advocated by President Barack Obama on the campaign trail last year. Democrats have included a goal for low-carbon fuels in the latest climate bill they have introduced in Congress.

“We see this as a model for the rest of the country and the world to follow,” said Air Resources Board member Dan Sperling, a transportation expert and professor at the University of California, Davis.

 The proposed regulation calls for reducing the carbon content in California’s transportation fuels 10 percent by 2020, but representatives of the petroleum and ethanol industries are objecting to how the state proposes to achieve that.

California oil producers and refiners are skeptical that cleaner fuels and vehicles powered by hydrogen and natural gas will be available in time to meet the new standards. They are asking the Air Resources Board to delay a decision until next year.

“This is the most transforming fuel regulation we’ve ever done,” said Kathy Rehis-Boyd, executive vice president of the Western States Petroleum Association. “We think there’s still more homework to do on this. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

“We have a long history of what I call ‘fuel du jour’ approaches,” Sperling said. “What we need is a broad policy framework that doesn’t pick winners.”

The Air Resources Board is not just targeting the emissions of the fuel once it is burned in a vehicle. It also wants to account for all carbon emissions related to the production of the fuel.

For example, refineries could choose to stop buying a heavy crude oil extracted from Canadian oil sands, which takes more energy to convert into gasoline. But accounting for emissions during the entire production cycle of a fuel also would discourage certain fuels from being used in California.

Corn-based ethanol, for example, burns cleanly in a car engine. But making it can take a heavy toll on the environment: Massive tracts of land must be cleared, which requires fuel-powered tractors, then coal- or natural gas-fired plants convert the corn into fuel and petroleum is used to transport the end product to distant markets.

 (Source: Virgin America & Tree Hugger)

(Source: Autoblog)

When the next step in the road to 35 mpg by 2020 CAFE standards was announced recently, those in the know made it clear that the Obama administration’s upcoming goal of 27.3 mpg by 2011 would not be hard for automakers to meet. In fact, the 2007 average was already 31.3, so the 2011 goal would not require any change in product lineup (more difficult changes are scheduled to come into effect down the line). The 2011 standards were so light, in fact, that the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) took the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Department of Transportation to court last week, saying that the Obama administration’s standards “ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming.”

“These low standards, which ignore greenhouse gas emissions and the climate crisis, are illogical, illegal, and very disappointing from a president who has promised to make the United States a leader in the fight against global warming,” said Kassie Siegel, who directs the organization’s climate law project.

The group asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to declare that the administration violated a federal law requiring that fuel economy standards be set at the maximum feasible level, in light of current technology, economic impact, and the nation’s need to conserve energy. The same court ruled in a similar lawsuit in 2007 that the Bush administration’s fuel standards for light trucks and SUVs for the 2008 through 2011 model years were invalid.

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

Operators balk at having to comply with a California requirement to install costly nozzles and hoses to capture fumes. The governor calls on the Legislature to delay enforcement by a year.

Battered by competition from cheaper chains such as Thrifty and Arco, the 51-year-old businessman said he was refused credit by banks and equipment lenders. Refitting his eight nozzles and hoses would cost more than $60,000, he said. “Even if I could get the funding, I couldn’t make the payments.”

Single-station owners like Hosmanek aren’t the only ones hurting. David Berri, an Irvine businessman whose family owns 22 stations in Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles counties, said he put a 25% deposit on vapor equipment last year. But his bank has since canceled his credit line. His family has put seven stations up for sale, but so far, there are no buyers.

(Source:  Autobloggreen)

This week, Congress and President Obama have approved a bill that includes a June 30th deadline for the EPA to decide whether or not to allow California the right to enact its own greenhouse gas rules. Earlier this year, President Obama directed the EPA to reconsider California’s request for a waiver that would allow it to regulate gases like carbon dioxide, which is widely seen as a way for the state to set its own fuel efficiency requirements

Click here to read the entire article.

  (Source: New York Times, Greenwire via Autobloggreen)