{"id":23096,"date":"2012-07-19T08:21:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T15:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=23096"},"modified":"2012-07-19T08:21:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T15:21:00","slug":"selling-congress-on-low-carbon-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/07\/19\/selling-congress-on-low-carbon-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"California Dreaming? Selling Congress on Low-Carbon Fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers hope to sway Congress on expanding the California-based standard, though it remains untested at home<\/strong><\/p>\n

Proponents of California’s low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) hope problems with the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) could spell an opportunity to promote the state\u2019s groundbreaking alternative approach at the national level.<\/p>\n

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Dan Sperling is leading California's LCFS research group.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scientists from six research institutions\u2014including UC Davis\u2014are attending a bipartisan briefing on Capitol Hill this week to present the results of a new study<\/a> touting the potential benefits of a national low-carbon standard.<\/p>\n

LCFS \u2014 part of California\u2019s AB 32 climate change legislation \u2014 calls for a 10% reduction in the “carbon intensity” (CI) of transportation fuels in California by 2020. The federal Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), by contrast, calls for a gradual increase of 35 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022<\/a>. It also establishes threshold production levels for various biofuel feedstocks, which is where it has run into trouble.<\/p>\n

Corn-based ethanol, conceived as a temporary solution, continues to exceed the maximum production level set by the mandate.\u00a0Meanwhile, production of cellulosic biofuels, derived from non-food and potentially more environmentally sustainable feedstocks such as grasses and wood chips, has fallen short each of the last five years. The EPA reduced the 2011 cellulosic biofuels mandate by a staggering 97%, from 250 million gallons to just 6.6 million.<\/p>\n

Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis and lead author of the study, sees an opportunity here. In the last six months, “the circumstances have changed a lot,\u201d says Sperling. \u201cPeople are curious whether [the California low-carbon fuel standard] could solve the RFS problem,\u201d\u00a0he says.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s LCFS includes all transportation fuels \u2014 electricity, natural gas, and hydrogen — as well as\u00a0biofuels. It also gives fuel providers many more options to reduce carbon intensity, including:<\/p>\n