California Air Resources Board proposes Low Carbon Fuel Standard
The California Air Resources Board wants to reduce the amount of carbon in transportation fuels as a way to reduce the resulting greenhouse gas emissions. One way CARB wants to meet California's stated goal of a statewide GHG emissions cap for 2020 (which would be based on 1990 emissions) is a Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Since at least 2007, CARB has been looking into implementing a Low Carbon Fuel Standard, and yesterday made an official announcement of a public hearing to consider the adoption of this standard. As a preliminary measure, this standard "would reduce GHG emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by an average of 10 percent by the year 2020." The draft regulations issued yesterday call for the fuel industry to meet the first step of the standard by 2011. Up to 20 percent of the conventional fuels used today would be replaced by things like electricity, hydrogen, natural gas and biofuels. CARB will hold a public hearing on the proposal on April 23rd and 24th. More details here and at GreenTechMedia. [Source: CARB via GreenTechMedia]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ME 10:45AM (3/06/2009)
Help me out here.
I am all for reducing carbon output, but why is CARB and others focusing so much on cars when they are 20% of the emitters? And moving to plug in electrics when the electric producers are currently the biggest emitters?
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paulwesterberg 11:23AM (3/06/2009)
How much impact an electric car will have on the environment will depend on how your electricity is generated. California actually ranks #2 in the nation in renewable power generation(25-33%). More than half of their electricity is generated from natural gas. Only a few small coal-fired power plants operate in California. Power inported from other states is mostly hydro from Oregon and Washington.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/state_profiles/r_profiles_sum.html
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=CA
Electric cars can still be cleaner when using coal power plants because it is easier to add emissions controls to one power plant than it is to control the emissions of thousands of vehicles.
Setting standards for transportation vehicles is important because vehicles made today will be on the road for 20 years. But I agree that carb should focus on all sources of pollution including industry, ships, trucks, etc.
jharlan 12:07PM (3/06/2009)
It sounds reasonable, but beware! The devil is always in the details. I have learned the hard way to distrust this state government as well as the FEDS. Politicians start out idealistic, but the intrinsic corruption of money in our system quickly converts many of them to double-speaking, self serving bastards. Why would one be willing to spend millions to be elected to a job that pays thousands? Basically I suspect the result in the end will be an additional tax on all carbon emissions. That is in addition to fuel taxes, vehicle taxes, and mileage taxes, Cynical? you bet, but I think it's obvious that's where it is headed. By the way, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, license fees are taxes.
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ME 1:00PM (3/06/2009)
"Electric cars can still be cleaner when using coal power plants because it is easier to add emissions controls to one power plant than it is to control the emissions of thousands of vehicles."
That obviously makes sense, but is the control of the emissions of coal power plants being increased?
"Basically I suspect the result in the end will be an additional tax on all carbon emissions. That is in addition to fuel taxes, vehicle taxes, and mileage taxes, Cynical? you bet, but I think it's obvious that's where it is headed."
One's opinion on that really depends on your "opinion" on climate change and oil dependence. Paying taxes sucks, but It is obvious to me that the majority of people are not going to change their energy usage on their own. And anyone that thinks changing our energy use ways will be painless is delusional.
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