 |
|
UC experts detail new standard for cleaner transportation fuels
August 03, 2007Expected to become national, international model
University of California experts today released their much-anticipated blueprint for fighting global warming by reducing the amount of carbon emitted when transportation fuels are used in California.
This "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 nationally and internationally.
The new standard was commissioned in January by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He asked the university's top transportation-energy experts to design a standard that would reduce carbon emissions from fuels by 10 percent by 2020. Carbon and other greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and are a major cause of global climate change. In California, transportation fuels account for about 40 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
The standard's authors are 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.
"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."
In Part 1 of their report, completed in May, Farrell and Sperling evaluated the technical feasibility of achieving the 10 percent cut by 2020. They identified six scenarios based on a variety of different technologies that could meet or exceed this goal, and concluded that the goal was ambitious but attainable. At the end of June, the California Air Resources Board voted to start working toward that goal, with the new standard taking effect by January 2010.
Today, in Part 2, Sperling and Farrell examine many of the specific policy issues involved in designing a low carbon fuel standard. The LCFS, together with California's vehicle greenhouse-gas standards, will advance automobile technologies and contribute significantly to achieving California's climate change goals.
"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."
Some highlights of the report:
* Gasoline and diesel fuel refiners, blenders and importers: Gasoline makes up 70 percent of California's transportation energy, diesel 17 percent, and jet fuel 12 percent. (Included in the gasoline and diesel figures are biofuels blended with or substituting for fossil fuels.) The report recommends that the new LCFS cover all gasoline and diesel. (Aviation is exempt from regulation by international treaty, although the standard might allow emissions credits for cleaner jet fuels.) The point of regulation should be the refiners, blenders and importers of petroleum fuels.
All gasoline and diesel fuel providers would be required to track the life-cycle global warming intensity (GWI) of their products and reduce this value over time. (The term life cycle refers to all activities included in the production, transport, storage and use of the fuel.)
The report suggests that petrofuel providers would reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions in a variety of ways, including blending more biofuel with gasoline and diesel; buying low-carbon fuels and emissions credits from other producers; making refineries more efficient; and using lower-carbon sources of energy to run refineries.
The authors 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.
* Non-liquid fuel providers (electricity, natural gas, propane and hydrogen): These firms should be given the option to participate in the LCFS, most likely by selling emissions credits to petrofuel providers.
* Low-carbon biofuel providers (fuels from plant and animal sources, such as corn, switchgrass and food waste): Revenue from selling emissions credits will help these firms recoup investments made in innovation and learning.
* Passenger vehicle owners: The LCFS will bring a greater variety of fuels to the market. Fueling infrastructure will evolve (such as E85 filling stations, dedicated electric vehicle charging stations and meters in residences, and hydrogen delivery systems). The menu of fuel choices might vary regionally, depending on local availability, so that in some areas of the state, there would be more electric vehicles; in others more hydrogen, and in still others more biofuel.
Consumers will be able to keep the gasoline-powered cars they drive today for many years, as fuel providers lower the global warming effects of gasoline. They will also have more options for new vehicles and fuels in the future.
* Trucking, construction and farming vehicle owners: 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.
* Biofuel farmers and manufacturers: Growing more biofuel crops (feedstocks) will have mixed effects on greenhouse-gas emissions. If biofuels are to be cleaner than fossil fuels, they must: 1) use advanced production methods (some of which are available now), 2) be derived from feedstocks grown on degraded land, or 3) be produced from solid wastes or agricultural residues.
* Administrators: The California Air Resources Board will require additional resources to develop and enforce the new standard. It is imperative that neither the state administration nor the Legislature expect LCFS administration to be a peripheral set of duties shoehorned into current operations without explicit funding. The California Board of Equalization may play a role. Certainly the California Energy Commission will; it already manages the Petroleum Industry Information Reporting Act (PIIRA) program, which requires firms that ship, receive, store, process and/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 grapple with tricky questions of how regulated local electricity providers should compete with the highly competitive global oil industry.
* Scientists and policy analysts: The report identifies many questions that require further study, and also recommends periodic reviews and assessments. They include: reviews of protocol and methods (but not, the authors emphasize, of emissions targets); study of the sustainability impacts and lifecycle emissions of existing and new fuels; and a cost analysis of the LCFS following the cost-effectiveness approach used in evaluating the U.S. Clean Air Act.
* Environmentalists: In addition to climate change, the report recommends that fuel providers report on the sustainability and environmental justice implications of the LCFS. And it calls on the state to ensure that sensitive lands are protected from conversion to biofuel production.
University of California - Davis
The new standard was commissioned in January by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He asked the university's top transportation-energy experts to design a standard that would reduce carbon emissions from fuels by 10 percent by 2020. Carbon and other greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere and are a major cause of global climate change. In California, transportation fuels account for about 40 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions.
The standard's authors are 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.
"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."
In Part 1 of their report, completed in May, Farrell and Sperling evaluated the technical feasibility of achieving the 10 percent cut by 2020. They identified six scenarios based on a variety of different technologies that could meet or exceed this goal, and concluded that the goal was ambitious but attainable. At the end of June, the California Air Resources Board voted to start working toward that goal, with the new standard taking effect by January 2010.
Today, in Part 2, Sperling and Farrell examine many of the specific policy issues involved in designing a low carbon fuel standard. The LCFS, together with California's vehicle greenhouse-gas standards, will advance automobile technologies and contribute significantly to achieving California's climate change goals.
"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."
Some highlights of the report:
* Gasoline and diesel fuel refiners, blenders and importers: Gasoline makes up 70 percent of California's transportation energy, diesel 17 percent, and jet fuel 12 percent. (Included in the gasoline and diesel figures are biofuels blended with or substituting for fossil fuels.) The report recommends that the new LCFS cover all gasoline and diesel. (Aviation is exempt from regulation by international treaty, although the standard might allow emissions credits for cleaner jet fuels.) The point of regulation should be the refiners, blenders and importers of petroleum fuels.
All gasoline and diesel fuel providers would be required to track the life-cycle global warming intensity (GWI) of their products and reduce this value over time. (The term life cycle refers to all activities included in the production, transport, storage and use of the fuel.)
The report suggests that petrofuel providers would reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions in a variety of ways, including blending more biofuel with gasoline and diesel; buying low-carbon fuels and emissions credits from other producers; making refineries more efficient; and using lower-carbon sources of energy to run refineries.
The authors 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.
* Non-liquid fuel providers (electricity, natural gas, propane and hydrogen): These firms should be given the option to participate in the LCFS, most likely by selling emissions credits to petrofuel providers.
* Low-carbon biofuel providers (fuels from plant and animal sources, such as corn, switchgrass and food waste): Revenue from selling emissions credits will help these firms recoup investments made in innovation and learning.
* Passenger vehicle owners: The LCFS will bring a greater variety of fuels to the market. Fueling infrastructure will evolve (such as E85 filling stations, dedicated electric vehicle charging stations and meters in residences, and hydrogen delivery systems). The menu of fuel choices might vary regionally, depending on local availability, so that in some areas of the state, there would be more electric vehicles; in others more hydrogen, and in still others more biofuel.
Consumers will be able to keep the gasoline-powered cars they drive today for many years, as fuel providers lower the global warming effects of gasoline. They will also have more options for new vehicles and fuels in the future.
* Trucking, construction and farming vehicle owners: 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.
* Biofuel farmers and manufacturers: Growing more biofuel crops (feedstocks) will have mixed effects on greenhouse-gas emissions. If biofuels are to be cleaner than fossil fuels, they must: 1) use advanced production methods (some of which are available now), 2) be derived from feedstocks grown on degraded land, or 3) be produced from solid wastes or agricultural residues.
* Administrators: The California Air Resources Board will require additional resources to develop and enforce the new standard. It is imperative that neither the state administration nor the Legislature expect LCFS administration to be a peripheral set of duties shoehorned into current operations without explicit funding. The California Board of Equalization may play a role. Certainly the California Energy Commission will; it already manages the Petroleum Industry Information Reporting Act (PIIRA) program, which requires firms that ship, receive, store, process and/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 grapple with tricky questions of how regulated local electricity providers should compete with the highly competitive global oil industry.
* Scientists and policy analysts: The report identifies many questions that require further study, and also recommends periodic reviews and assessments. They include: reviews of protocol and methods (but not, the authors emphasize, of emissions targets); study of the sustainability impacts and lifecycle emissions of existing and new fuels; and a cost analysis of the LCFS following the cost-effectiveness approach used in evaluating the U.S. Clean Air Act.
* Environmentalists: In addition to climate change, the report recommends that fuel providers report on the sustainability and environmental justice implications of the LCFS. And it calls on the state to ensure that sensitive lands are protected from conversion to biofuel production.
University of California - Davis
Emissions News and Current Emissions Events RSSBad sign for global warming: Thawing permafrost holds vast carbon pool
Permafrost blanketing the northern hemisphere contains more than twice the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, making it a potentially mammoth contributor to global climate change depending on how quickly it thaws.
Closest Look Ever at the Edge of a Black Hole
Astronomers have taken the closest look ever at the giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way. By combining telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, they detected structure at a tiny angular scale of 37 micro-arcseconds - the equivalent of a baseball seen on the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles distant.
Thawing permafrost likely to boost global warming
The thawing of permafrost in northern latitudes, which greatly increases microbial decomposition of carbon compounds in soil, will dominate other effects of warming in the region and could become a major force promoting the release of carbon dioxide and thus further warming, according to a new assessment in the September 2008 issue of BioScience.
GLAST Observatory renamed for Fermi, reveals entire gamma-ray sky
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA announced today that the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) has revealed its first all-sky map in gamma rays.
DOE official cites need for major breakthroughs to cope with climate change
Meeting the world's growing energy needs while responding to global warming during the 21st Century will be one of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced, Raymond L. Orbach, Ph.D., the U.S. Department of Energy's Under Secretary for Science, says in the latest podcast in the American Chemical Society's Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions series
Unusual ultrasonic vocalization patterns in mice may be useful for modeling autism
Scientists have found novel patterns of ultrasonic vocalizations in a genetic mouse model of autism, adding a unique element to the available mouse behaviors that capture components of the human disease, and representing a new step towards identifying causes and better treatments.
Light touch: Controlling the behavior of quantum dots
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaborative center of the University of Maryland and NIST, have reported a new way to fine-tune the light coming from quantum dots by manipulating them with pairs of lasers.
Carnegie Mellon urges industry to broaden carbon footprint calculations
Carnegie Mellon University researchers are urging companies to embrace new methods for following the trail of dangerous carbon emissions that are responsible for much of the world's global warming threats.
Up, Up and Away: Studying Volcanoes With Balloon
People do all kinds of crazy things in Hawaii, but flying balloons over a volcano usually isn't one of them. Unless you're Adam Durant, that is.
Scientists to Assess Beijing Olympics Air Pollution Control Efforts
As the Summer Olympics in Beijing kicks off this week, the event is giving scientists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how the atmosphere responds when a heavily populated region substantially curbs everyday industrial emissions.
More Emissions News Articles
 | Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg “Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the... |
 | Automotive Service: Inspection, Maintenance, Repair by Tim Gilles Updated to reflect the latest technology in the automotive industry, this book will provide the knowledge and skills needed to successfully inspect, maintain, and repair vehicles of all makes and models. Automotive Service: Inspection, Maintenance, and Repair, 3E begins by introducing readers to a number of automotive career options, shop management basics, plus necessary tools and equipment. The... |
 | Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT Technology and Techniques (Nuclear Medicine and PET) by Paul E. Christian, Kristen Waterstram-Rich For more than two decades, this text has succinctly presented the procedures and technologies related to an ever-changing specialty. This 6th edition continues that tradition by providing a general update of all chapters, a new chapter on CT physics and instrumentation, and a revised focus to the increasingly important PET/CT systems. All aspects of nuclear medicine are explored, with a focus on... |
 | Voluntary Carbon Markets: An International Business Guide to What They Are and How They Work (Environmental Markets Insight Series) by Ricardo Bayon, Amanda Hawn, Katherine Hamilton ** By the end of 2006 the world carbon market will top $30 billion in transactions and the first carbon billionaire may well have emerged** HSBC, Volvo, Avis, Ricoh, and American Express are but a few of the thousands of companies now offsetting their CO2 emissions and becoming "carbon neutral", fuelling a massive international voluntary carbon market that is growing exponentially** This is... |
 | Automotive Fuel and Emissions Control System (Halderman/Birch Automotive Series) by James D. Halderman, James Linder This up-to-date comprehensive book, written by two experts in the field, covers all topics in this subject and is correlated to the ASE and NATEF Tasks Lists for the Engine Performance test (A8) and advanced-level Engine Performance test (L1). Student-friendly, it includes numerous ?tech tips’ and ?guru tips’ that break up the text material. All new technical terms are bolded and... |
 | Carbon Finance: The Financial Implications of Climate Change (Wiley Finance) by Sonia Labatt, Rodney R. White Praise for Carbon Finance "A timely, objective, and informative analysis of the financial opportunities and challenges presented by climate change, including a thorough description of adaptive measures and insurance products for managing risk in a carbon constrained economy." —James R. Evans, M. Eng. P. Geo., Senior Manager, Environmental Risk Management, RBC Financial Group ... |
 | Emissions Trading: Principles and Practice by T. H. Tietenberg First published in 1985, Emissions Trading was a comprehensive review of the first large-scale attempt to use economic incentives in environmental policy in the United States; since its publication it has consistently been one of the most widely cited works in the tradable permits literature. The second edition of this classic study of pollution reform considers how the use of transferable... |
 | Otoacoustic Emissions: Clinical Applications Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ. Provides a review of complex physiology of the ear and clinical applications of current research on otoacoustic emissions. Features new chapters on middle ear function enhanced by reflectance measurements, and use of otoacoustic emissions as a preclinical measure of susceptibility to hearing loss. For audiologists. Previous edition:... |
 | Handbook of Otoacoustic Emissions (A Singular Audiology Text) by James W. Hall Designed to help readers gain the technical expertise to add this dynamic procedure to their daily practices, this new handbook details how, when and why to use OAE for pediatric and adult patients. Dr. Hall includes the latest "hands-on" advice for measurement, analysis, and interpretation of OAE data in this evolving procedure. Troubleshooting guidelines are also included, and practical case... |
 | The Energy Construct: Achieving a Clean, Domestic, and Economical Energy Future by Ben Cipiti The Energy Construct establishes an energy strategy for the United States to achieve a clean, domestic, and economical energy future. Our continued reliance on fossil fuels is having drastic consequences to the environment, and our continued reliance on foreign oil threatens our national security and economic well-being. Biofuels, hydrogen, and electric vehicles are examined to find a truly... |
| © 2008 BrightSurf.com |