BIOMASS HUB

California is in a tight spot right now, stuck between a slumping economy and pressure to carry through on its mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via AB 32, the state’s landmark global warming bill passed in 2006.

Nathanael Johnson writing for KALWNews.org, reports that

Here in the golden state there is some serious head scratching going on as well: How are we going to comply with those laws?

Low carbon fuels are a key strategy for California, which has already implemented the nation’s first low carbon fuel standard (see Is California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Compatible with RFS 2.0?).

But in the Bay Area, Johnson points out, the problem of paying for greenhouse gas reductions is balanced out by the problem of paying for sea-level rise.  And while the economy is lubricated by carbon-based fuels, the commercialization of biofuels to offset emissions may not be the silver bullet many claim, meanwhile, putting California refiners out of business.

Johnson describes the Catch-22 as this:

The petroleum refiners are particularly worried about the push for low carbon gas. The industry has done a lot to make fuel cleaner in the last 20 years, filtering out sulfur, mercury, and other pollutants. But it’s a lot harder to filter the carbon dioxide out: As Tupper Hull of the Western States Petroleum Association bluntly put it, ‘You can’t take carbon out of a carbon fuel.’ All you can do is substitute other forms of gas (like biofuels) that suck carbon out of the air. The problem is that right now, most biofuels don’t suck enough (or just plain suck depending on how you look at it).  In the worst of all worlds, the regulations would drive California refiners out of business, shifting production to other places that are dirtier and less efficient at making gas.