Environmental advocates have stepped up criticism of last year's largest sources of California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits as regulators expect to need more of the fuels to meet the state's climate goals.
Groups object to the proposed conversion of two San Francisco-area petroleum refineries to produce renewable diesel and a rise in livestock methane capture projects for renewable natural gas, approved to generate LCFS credits from both within and outside of the state.
Renewable diesel and biomethane generated a combined 45pc of all new LCFS credits through the first nine months of 2021 and represented the fastest-growing sources of credits for the period. LCFS credit prices have slumped over the past year as new supplies of low-carbon fuels outpace a recovery in California demand for petroleum-based gasoline. Slowing or stopping these credit sources could disrupt the flow of low-carbon fuels that last year saturated the California market.
California Air Resources Board (CARB) staff have warned that in-state production of both renewable diesel and renewable natural gas remain key to state greenhouse gas reduction efforts. But health and environmental advocates for disadvantaged communities, especially, protest that residents along the fence lines of livestock and biofuel operations languish with air quality concerns.
The objections pair with a broader suspicion that LCFS programs do too little to compel a transition from petroleum fuels. New York opponents of a proposed state LCFS worry that such a program would merely subsidize electric vehicle conversions in richer communities while leaving poorer areas stuck with extended and costlier petroleum use.
New Mexico LCFS legislation failed in February after 10 Democrats joined all Republicans in the state House of Representatives opposing the measure following a lengthy debate on how the program might increase rural fuel prices.
California challenges
Over the last two weeks, opponents appealed key approvals sought by Marathon Petroleum in Martinez, California, and Phillips 66 in Rodeo, California, to convert facilities to renewable diesel production. The projects would target more than 100,000 b/d of renewable diesel output by 2026. Growing renewable diesel supplies — most of it brought from facilities outside of California — made up almost a third of all LCFS credits produced in the first nine months of 2021.
Skepticism of renewable diesel includes concerns over the continued use of conventional natural gas to manufacture the fuel, land use changes to produce oilseeds for renewable fuel feedstocks, and studies showing renewable diesel does not cut emissions of NOx, a contributor to smog and respiratory ailments.
Critics this week excoriated CARB for encouraging LCFS credit generation from methane captured from swine and dairy operations using digesters. CARB has assessed biomethane from projects over the last year as carbon-negative, generating strong incentives to connect the renewable gas to compressed natural gas vehicles in California or to burn it to generate electricity to charge vehicles.
California risks falling far short of a goal to cut in-state livestock emissions by 40pc by 2030, based on the latest state analysis. LCFS joins a portfolio of incentives to add digesters as methane controls that would help draw closer to those goals.
CARB in January rejected a request to immediately amend the LCFS program to reduce or exclude biomethane entirely from LCFS credit generation. The agency instead said it would consider those issues in an ongoing, broader review of all of its climate policies.
"The Low Carbon Fuel Standard is rewarding and entrenching the very manure mismanagement practices that are harming communities in the San Joaquin Valley and across the country," Christine Ball-Blakely, an attorney with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said this week during a CARB workshop on biomethane.
