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:
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.
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.
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.
Links to additional information:
Editor’s note:
An excellent high-resolution, color photo of Daniel Sperling and Alex Farrell is available. Contact Sylvia Wright at swright@ucdavis.edu .
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