tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52556760135387482602024-03-05T07:43:37.531-08:00Cars and ClimateExamining ways to mitigate carbon emissions from automobiles and other forms of transportation. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14221841483000107479noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-37838530978830948702022-09-19T10:00:00.005-07:002023-01-18T18:07:59.859-08:00The latest light truck versus EV emissions gap <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsP7tBXOcFmX3VxO_O_mjieV3zhq8XlZgiivHkAG88VAtNVk_9W7FBEXf3Gd8oORclt_khB801R6anK_y9YJuaTje54O_-uI47aXUGawnrpDxP-wapLPv6fhzCWTWQ8NH_Y5Rxjr1vRFLgqf2qjQZofnUIDj3urqM2f9mnFRPAytFRVkpxEDrIoKA/s1613/EVs-vs-LTs-2012-2021.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="915" data-original-width="1613" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsP7tBXOcFmX3VxO_O_mjieV3zhq8XlZgiivHkAG88VAtNVk_9W7FBEXf3Gd8oORclt_khB801R6anK_y9YJuaTje54O_-uI47aXUGawnrpDxP-wapLPv6fhzCWTWQ8NH_Y5Rxjr1vRFLgqf2qjQZofnUIDj3urqM2f9mnFRPAytFRVkpxEDrIoKA/w400-h228/EVs-vs-LTs-2012-2021.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> reduction from EVs compared to CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions increase from higher light truck sales, <br />light-duty fleet average changes from 2012 through 2021. </b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator">Although U.S. electric vehicle sales have been growing by leaps and bounds, so too have the sales of large light trucks. Last year, my analysis of the then-current EPA data revealed that CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions due to the market shift to light trucks (mainly pickups and most SUVs) was over five times greater than the emission reduction that EVs would have achieved on their own. This gap has dropped to just under a factor of four, as shown in the chart above. In short, EVs sales still have not made a dent in the overall lifetime carbon burden of the new light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet. </div><br />
Last year's analysis examined data through model year 2019; EPA's most recent <a href="https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report">Automotive Trends report</a> includes preliminary data through model year 2021. Combining those data with plug-in electric vehicle <a href="https://www.anl.gov/esia/light-duty-electric-drive-vehicles-monthly-sales-updates">(PEV) sales reports</a> from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy) enables an updated calculation. The methodology used is the same as that described in <a href="https://www.carsclimate.com/2021/01/personal-trucks-widen-emissions-gap.html">last year's post</a>. <br /><br />The market share of EVs (counting pure plug-in battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, but not gasoline-only hybrids) reached 4.2% in 2021, up from the 2% share in 2019. But 2021 also saw the light truck share of the new LDV fleet reaching a record high of 61% (using EPA's classifications, which count small, front-wheel-drive SUVs as cars while counting all other SUVs as well as pickups and minivans as light trucks). <div><br /></div><div>These data imply a factor of 3.7 for the gap; that is to say, the excess emissions from the increased light truck sales are nearly four times greater than the potential emission reductions from the increased EV sales. So although the gap has narrowed somewhat, there is still quite a way to go before EV sales become high enough to dig us out of the hole caused by adverse market shifts. The EV reductions are termed "potential" because they are not realized on a net basis due to the fleet average nature of clean car standards. <div><div><br /></div><div>As in most recent years, the average CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rate of each vehicle class has declined. However, as the mix of vehicles sold has shifted to higher-emitting light trucks, fleetwide progress has all but ground to a halt. EPA's estimate for 2021 is a LDV average of 348 grams per mile (g/mi), differing only trivially from the 2020 average of 349 g/mi. <br /><br />
The calculation shown here tracks progress since 2012. That year is selected as the baseline because it was when the Obama Administration finalized strong fuel economy and GHG emission ("clean car") standards. That year also saw a number of significant EV introductions even though plug-in vehicle sales were still quite small. The ANL data indicated that EVs represented just 0.4% of new LDV sales in 2012. Thus, over the nine years through 2021, EV market share has increased by an order of magnitude (to the aforementioned 4.2%). <br /><br />
The EPA data show the overall fleet-average new LDV CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rate fell by 7.7%, from 377 g/mi in 2012 to the 348 g/mi preliminary estimate for 2021. That's a decline of only about 1% per year, much less than the 4%-5% annual reduction hoped for with the GHG standards issued in 2012. The reasons for this large shortfall in carbon-cutting progress include the weakening of the standards by the Trump administration as well as the market shift from cars to light trucks and the general upsizing within each class, which relax the effective stringency of the standards that automakers must meet. <br /><br /> As was the case for last year's version of this analysis, it excludes the effect of the largest pickups. These ever-more-massive and powerful, ¾-ton and 1-ton pickups are omitted from EPA's public reports. Including these large, luxurious personal trucks would make the emissions gap even larger. <br />
<div><br /></div></div><br /></div></div>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0Ann Arbor, MI, USA42.2808256 -83.743037816.518430987264338 -118.8992878 68.043220212735662 -48.586787799999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-32713937366628367202021-12-02T13:30:00.001-08:002021-12-08T15:45:41.396-08:00Looking back at the RFS on the eve of its target year<p>When Congress and the Bush Administration expanded the Renewable Fuel Standard in 2007, they set next year as the target for a full-scale biofuel mandate as then envisioned. The goal was 36 billion (ethanol-equivalent) gallons by 2022, with 16 billion of those to have been cellulosic ethanol or other fuels derived from such non-food feedstocks. </p><p>Just posted on <i>The Conversation</i> is my look-back at the RFS, pointing out that the U.S. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-biofuel-mandate-helps-farmers-but-does-little-for-energy-security-and-harms-the-environment-168459#comment_2672547" target="_blank">biofuel mandate helps farmers, but does little for energy security and harms the environment</a>. It reviews the RFS experience to date in terms of the policy's three main rationales: improving energy security, reducing CO2 emissions and boosting agricultural income. My article's title sums it up ... read more there! </p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-62720125555612434502021-11-17T09:51:00.005-08:002021-11-17T11:10:01.805-08:00Cellulosic ethanol's highly subsidized failure<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_g5FBpBnWi9AkVvjr8QI63LkOwJtUmOdasG-OStoh7U5LwA-5_3RU7-DADrsewGqPwc9jLXu9qojRVOu9Mzruy-zCh-WxhLnmO-0f3b_FBm79ZJX5Yp09Cvr1d-6LsX2vy5wbDiz9EnA/s560/Cellulosic+liquids+thru+2020.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Chart of actual vs targeted cellulosic ethanol production" border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_g5FBpBnWi9AkVvjr8QI63LkOwJtUmOdasG-OStoh7U5LwA-5_3RU7-DADrsewGqPwc9jLXu9qojRVOu9Mzruy-zCh-WxhLnmO-0f3b_FBm79ZJX5Yp09Cvr1d-6LsX2vy5wbDiz9EnA/s16000/Cellulosic+liquids+thru+2020.jpg" title="Chart of actual vs targeted cellulosic ethanol production" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Actual U.S. production of cellulosic ethanol and other cellulosic liquids compared to the targets for cellulosic biofuels specified in the Renewable Fuel Standard</b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Cellulosic ethanol, once a great green hope for cutting petroleum use and CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions, has been a bust. The chart above compares the volume of cellulose-based liquid biofuels (largely ethanol) actually used in the United States to the targets for such fuels set by Congress when it expanded the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in 2007. Note the logarithmic scale on the vertical axis; the gap between promise and reality is so large that actual production would be barely visible on a linear scale. </div><p>The fuel has been delivered at levels of no more than about 0.1% of (three orders of magnitude less than) the volumes on which the RFS was premised [1]. This chart does not include cellulosic biogas, which EPA re-classified to qualify for RFS compliance purposes and has seen recent production of around 500 million ethanol-equivalent gallons. However, such "renewable natural gas" is not in the spirit of the law, which envisioned liquid biofuels that could be readily used in motor vehicles. The 2019 RFS target for cellulosic biofuels was 8.5 billion gallons, set to reach 16 billion gallons by 2022. But in 2019, before the pandemic-related drop-off in 2020 for nearly all forms of energy, only 9.8 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol were tallied by EPA. </p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Cellulosic ethanol has been the holy grail of the alternative fuels world. The concept is that it can be made from the non-edible materials that comprise the bulk of plants, including crop residues as well as purpose-grown energy crops such as switchgrass, or from organic wastes. Other promised cellulosic biofuels include "<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-fuel-of-the-future-is-grassoline/" target="_blank">grassoline</a>," which wouldn't face the limitations and other problems caused when blending oxygen-bearing, water-loving ethanol into petroleum based gasoline, and <a href="https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/emerging_hydrocarbon.html" target="_blank">similarly compatible</a> bio-based diesel and jet fuels. <p></p><p>Claiming to side step the food-versus-fuel problems of crop-based biofuels such as ethanol from corn or sugarcane and biodiesel from soy or palm, cellulosic ethanol became a darling of many environmentalists and green-leaning policymakers. Billions of gallons of cellulosic biofuels were supposed to account for the bulk of a fully-ramped-up RFS. Cellulosic ethanol was also a key premise for California's so-called Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which--recognizing the cellulosic ethanol bust--has since largely segued into yet another way to promote electric vehicles. </p><p>For many decades, programs at the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture ploughed billions of public dollars on research, development, demonstration and start-up facilities for cellulosic biofuels. Substantial private capital also poured into the quest, as seen in the multiple high-profile ventures by <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/squared/letter-from-sand-hill-road/letter-from-sand-hill-road-vinod-khoslas-cleantech-portfolio" target="_blank">Vinod Khosla</a> (among others) that have since collapsed. Developing commercially viable ways to produce cellulosic biofuel was a top goal nearly 15 years ago when BP made news by committing a half-billion dollars to launch the <a href="https://energybiosciencesinstitute.org/about/" target="_blank">Energy & Biosciences Institute</a>. That R&D center has since refocused its biofuel efforts largely on other pathways, none of which have yet become economically feasible. </p><p>Others have written further about this <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/02/11/cellulosic-ethanol-falling-far-short-of-the-hype/?sh=7bd5132b505f" target="_blank">taxpayer-funded failure</a>. Just under a decade into the RFS-driven quest, the cellulosic <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whatever-happened-to-advanced-biofuels/" target="_blank">struggles were noted even while touting hope</a> for <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/poet-dsm-project-liberty" target="_blank">Project Liberty</a>, a generously subsidized facility that began making a dribble of fuel in 2014. It was <a href="https://www.radioiowa.com/2020/10/21/project-liberty-cellulosic-ethanol-plant-in-emmetsburg-closed/" target="_blank">shuttered in 2020</a>, joining the long <a href="https://bioenergyinternational.com/biofuels-oils/global-failure-of-cellulosic-ethanol-new-biofuelwatch-report" target="_blank">list of failed projects</a> that tried to produce economically viable cellulosic ethanol. In short, what had been hailed as the nation’s most ambitious program to cut global warming emissions from motor vehicles collapsed <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-a-government-program-to-get-ethanol-from-plants-failed/" target="_blank">despite a bipartisan effort that involved billions</a> of taxpayer and corporate dollars. </p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Public Data for the Renewable Fuel Standard, Spreadsheet of RIN generation and renewable fuel volume production by fuel type from September 2021, via <a href="https://www.epa.gov/fuels-registration-reporting-and-compliance-help/public-data-renewable-fuel-standard">https://www.epa.gov/fuels-registration-reporting-and-compliance-help/public-data-renewable-fuel-standard</a> accessed 27 Oct 2021. </span></p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-70950159300716786832021-08-06T06:00:00.023-07:002021-11-17T09:56:26.264-08:00Newly proposed auto standards hold promise<p>The Biden Administration is clearly making good on its pledge
to revisit the automobile GHG emission standards weakened by the previous administration.
The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/proposed-rule-revise-existing-national-ghg-emissions" target="_blank">notice of proposed rulemaking</a> issued by EPA on August 5, 2021 aims to cut model
year 2026 car and light truck GHG emission rates 17% compared to the recent
level, from 205 grams/mile (g/mi) in 2020 to a nominal target of 171 g/mi in
2026. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-steps-to-drive-american-leadership-forward-on-clean-cars-and-trucks/" target="_blank">White House announcement</a> just prior to the EPA proposal also states an ambitious goal
for EVs to comprise half of U.S. vehicle sales in 2030. This non-binding target
would include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) as well as pure
zero-emission vehicles such as battery electric and fuel cell cars. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>The new fleet average targets proposed by EPA are
"nominal" because of the many flexibilities built into the
regulations. These provisions include extra credit given for various electric
vehicles (EVs), hybrid pickup trucks and the ability for automakers to carry
forward credits they had earned in previous model years. The agency is also tweaking the off-cycle credits, which aim to improve real-world fuel economy by motivating automakers to make engineering changes that save fuel in ways that are not picked up on the test cycles used to evaluate vehicles for regulatory purposes. <p></p><p class="MsoNormal">As has been
the case for many recent model years, the actual GHG emission rates achieved by
the fleet will be higher than the nominal target values. Nevertheless, the
agency is proposing to sunset the extra EV and pickup truck credits after 2025
-- a good idea given the way such credits cause higher emissions from the bulk
of the fleet that still runs only on gasoline. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In terms of fuel economy, the actual 2026 fleet will be much
less fuel-efficient on the road than it might seem from the 52 mpg value
highlighted in the announcement. EPA's accompanying <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-08/420r21056.pdf" target="_blank">fact sheet</a> notes that the 52 mpg target corresponds to a 38 mpg estimated
"real world" value. However, even that number seems likely to be
higher than what actually would be achieved. For perspective, the estimated
value for the standard in 2020 is 32.2 mpg, while the actual 2020 new fleet
average most recently projected in EPA's annual <a href="https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends" target="_blank">Automotive Trends report</a> was 25.7
mpg, i.e., 20% lower (which implies emissions about 21% higher). </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The August 5, 2021, regulatory proposal is also notable because comes only from EPA. That's in contrast to the prior joint EPA-NHTSA rules that issued CAFE
standards in coordination with GHG emission standards. Global warming is now a
far more pressing problem than the energy security concerns that motivated CAFE
standards over 45 years ago. Could it be that fuel economy standards are ready to
be discarded? Having both CAFE and GHG standards entails duplicative federal agency
efforts, creating two legally distinct regulations that motivate largely similar
vehicle design changes. The executive branch, however, does not have the
discretion to drop CAFE standards itself. That would require a change in law
through Congressional action, something perhaps unwise to invite in these times
of hyper-partisanship. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All in all, the Biden Administration's proposal is
definitely a great start in the effort to rebuild a robust national policy for cutting
carbon from transportation, the nation's largest source of GHG emissions. <o:p></o:p></p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-37607347755076413622021-02-01T06:00:00.042-08:002021-08-04T20:03:58.909-07:00Fleetwide efficiency gains more important than electric cars over the next decade<p>For at least the next decade, the overall fuel economy of the entire car and light truck fleet will be more crucial for climate protection than the number of electric vehicles sold. That's the message of my recent online article in <i>Scientific American</i>: "<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/want-greener-cars-focus-on-fuel-efficiency/" target="_blank">Want Greener Cars? Focus on Fuel Efficiency</a>." Read the discussion there (the article was first published in <i>The Conversation</i> under the title "<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-make-the-us-auto-fleet-greener-increasing-fuel-efficiency-matters-more-than-selling-electric-vehicles-153085" target="_blank">To make the US auto fleet greener, increasing fuel efficiency matters more than selling electric vehicles</a>"). </p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-23954815443310262602021-01-22T08:45:00.011-08:002021-04-24T08:54:40.809-07:00Personal trucks widen emissions gap over EVs<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHaEcMxmFc9UUj0INiga6UyjPowx2Vn6RZLIGzOMeJ-FNPckQKu60rDvgPjEZj0ObHlBDnniD9G2ZAxS_9C5Ibe9q_3nVe8QWybvuWPv8_cGde0uJErsa_jTcqKF85Z4erWNQmvczwY-0/s560/Ram-vs-Tesla-560px.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHaEcMxmFc9UUj0INiga6UyjPowx2Vn6RZLIGzOMeJ-FNPckQKu60rDvgPjEZj0ObHlBDnniD9G2ZAxS_9C5Ibe9q_3nVe8QWybvuWPv8_cGde0uJErsa_jTcqKF85Z4erWNQmvczwY-0/s16000/Ram-vs-Tesla-560px.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excess carbon dioxide emissions from the rising popularity of light trucks, such as the Ram pickup, swamp many times over the potential carbon savings from increased sales of EVs, such as the Tesla Model 3, to date. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Last fall, I posted <a href="https://www.carsclimate.com/2020/12/trux-overwhelm-EVs.html">an analysis</a> showing that, even as electric vehicle sales had grown significantly over the past several years, the broader market shift to personal trucks (mainly SUVs and pickups) has overwhelmed the potential CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> reductions from EV use by more than a factor of four. With the new EPA data now released, this ratio has increased to a factor of 5.6, as shown in the chart below. <span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /><div>EPA issued its latest <a href="https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-trends-report" target="_blank">Automotive Trends report</a> in early January. It provides final data for model year 2019, the most recent annual period for which complete official data are available on the sales, CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates and fuel economy performance of new light-duty vehicles, including cars, SUVs, pickups, minivans and other vehicles up to 8,500 pounds gross vehicle weight. <p></p><p>The EPA report documents how fleetwide carbon-cutting progress has stalled, with average CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates becoming somewhat higher in model year 2019 than they were in 2018. The agency notes that, even though nearly all vehicle types have record low CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates, the continuing shift away from cars and towards SUVs and pickups has offset the benefit of such vehicle engineering improvements. </p><p>Examining market trends since 2012, which was a significant year for key EV introductions, sales of plug-in cars were up sixfold by 2019. In isolation, that gain would have cut new fleet average CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates by 4.7 grams per mile (g/mi). This potential benefit is shown as the light green bar in the figure below. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgL6ARh9AAbeqFCEI1zNA1gSDxL8CoO29j2w7GSQtXPsTWL70Jw052Uck8s1LwaNNd_geVa5c4Qape75sEf3_MdQak2ckvdpQyJUX_oGQqcqDH_VdXRnQU2poHHRxleWlzcTi5jmVqnM/s1825/Trux-vs-EVs+from+CarBur-by-class+Jan2021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1027" data-original-width="1825" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgL6ARh9AAbeqFCEI1zNA1gSDxL8CoO29j2w7GSQtXPsTWL70Jw052Uck8s1LwaNNd_geVa5c4Qape75sEf3_MdQak2ckvdpQyJUX_oGQqcqDH_VdXRnQU2poHHRxleWlzcTi5jmVqnM/w400-h225/Trux-vs-EVs+from+CarBur-by-class+Jan2021.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />Also over the 2012-2019 period, average new light truck fuel economy improved from 19.3 to 22.0 miles per gallon (mpg). Again in isolation, that improvement corresponds to a 12 percent reduction in average new light truck CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates. However, model year 2019 light trucks emit an average of 37 percent more CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> per mile than vehicles classified as cars. Light truck market share rose by 20 percentage points, from 36 percent to 56 percent, over 2012-2019. <p></p><p>The net effect is that new fleet CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions averaged 26.1 g/mi higher than they would be without the increased market share of personal light trucks. That's shown as the pink bar in the figure above. Comparing this 26.1 g/mi emission increase to the potential 4.7 g/mi CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> decrease estimated for EVs yields the factor of 5.6 disparity noted above. (See the <a href="https://www.carsclimate.com/2020/12/trux-overwhelm-EVs.html">earlier post</a> for further details on the assumptions for this analysis.)</p><p>In other words, EV sales would have to increase more than five fold just to counteract the carbon reduction deficit that results from the combination of lenient regulation and rising market share for light trucks. </p><p>One legacy of the Trump Administration is that clean car standards (the coordinated national program of light-duty vehicle CAFE standards and GHG emission standards) are now slated to tighten only trivially over the next five years. Even though EVs are an important carbon-cutting technology, much more stringent clean car standards are the real priority for putting the U.S. automobile fleet on track for climate protection. </p><p>Finally, note that this analysis based on EPA's public data doesn't tell the whole story. The picture would be even worse if we accounted for the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/pickup-trucks-are-getting-huge-got-a-problem-with-that-11596254412" target="_blank">largest and most luxurious</a> personal trucks, such as the Chevy Silverado and GM Sierra 2500, Ford F-250 and Ram 2500 models, traditionally called 3/4 ton pickups, as well as 1-ton pickups. </p><p>These so-called work trucks are not meaningfully regulated, at least as far as environmental integrity is concerned, and even escape fuel economy and GHG emission labeling requirements. Because EPA does not report their sales and CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emission rates, data are not publicly available for estimating their effect on fleetwide emissions. But the popularity of such huge personal vehicles has grown, and so accounting for their impact would mean that the potential benefits of EVs are overwhelmed even more by the broader market trend toward ever more size, muscle and luxury. </p></div></div>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-57593219552726528482021-01-05T01:00:00.004-08:002021-04-24T09:07:27.269-07:00GM touts innovation while weakening regulation<p>My <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2021/01/05/opinion-general-motors-touts-innovation-rejects-industry-regulations/4126242001/" target="_blank">opinion piece</a> published in <i>The Detroit News</i> points out the inconsistency of how some automakers have advocated for weaker fuel economy and GHG emission standards even as they promote their technology innovations. Taking General Motors' recent public statements as an example, it reminds readers that what ultimately matters for reducing emissions is the stringency of the regulations that apply across the entire vehicle fleet. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">General Motors touts innovation, yet rejects industry regulations</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">John DeCicco, Opinion, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Detroit News,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> January 5, 2021 <br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">General Motors earned some glowing headlines with a pair of post-election environmental announcements. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">On Nov. 19, CEO Mary Barra touted GM's <a href="https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/nov/1119-electric-portfolio.html" target="_blank">amped-up plan</a> to expand its electric vehicle offerings. The following Monday, her <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-lawsuits-environment-california-gavin-newsom-f30458eb13b6ff967d05b12c178621e8" target="_blank">letter</a> to green-group leaders signaled that GM is pulling out of the lawsuit to block California and other states from setting clean car standards stronger than the federal standards that GM and its industry allies had previously gotten the Trump administration to greatly weaken. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">It’s an encouraging development, though long overdue. Conspicuously absent from the announcements is a mention of what is really needed to make climate protection progress — namely, putting clean car standards back on track with steeply declining limits on climate pollution across the entire new automobile fleet. If GM is serious about being a leader in innovation and growing good American jobs in the industry of the future, it must publicly support much stronger clean car standards. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">Transportation is the nation's largest source of climate-disrupting carbon emissions. A steady clampdown on tailpipes is the most important move the country can make to drive these emissions to zero. Fleet-wide standards are a cost-effective way to ensure that all of the technologies in the automotive engineering arsenal — including electrification — are used across the entire market, not just in a few green niches, to cut emissions sooner rather than later. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">GM clearly has the ability to innovate and develop the low- and no-emissions vehicles that our future needs. Sadly, the company has a history of touting innovation while at the same time fighting the regulations needed to ensure that its technology advances truly serve the cause of clean air. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">A generation ago, the Clinton administration subsidized $1 billion worth of research in its partnership with the then-Big Three automakers. But those taxpayer-supported innovations didn't deliver cleaner cars to the marketplace because GM and its allies successfully lobbied to block stronger efficiency standards for over a decade. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">Fast forward to 2010, and the company was again in the vanguard of transportation electrification as it introduced the Chevy Volt. The critically revered car was named North American Car of the Year in 2011. Despite being on the forefront of the industry’s evolution, once President Donald Trump was elected, GM led the lobbying to gut the clear-car standards and backed that administration's anti-environmental agenda. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">The incoming Biden administration will have a huge task at hand to right the many wrongs perpetrated by Trump and his enablers. Not the least of such harms is the clean car standards rollback made at the automakers' behest. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">GM's cross-town rival came to take a different tack. Ford, along with Honda, BMW and VW, negotiated a <a href="https://electrek.co/2019/07/25/automakers-california-emissions-deal/#:~:text=July%2025%2C%202019-,BMW%2C%20Ford%2C%20Honda%2C%20and%20VW%20strike%20deal%20with%20California,vehicle%20emissions%2C%20bypassing%20Trump%20rollback&text=Four%20big%20automakers%20have%20cut,to%20freeze%20fuel%20economy%20standards." target="_blank">plan</a> with California to keep advancing stronger standards. GM, Toyota, Fiat-Chrysler and other firms that backed Trump's rollback need to join that constructive effort. </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">The Alliance of Automotive Innovation, the main trade group of automakers, has also signaled that the industry plans to collaborate with the Biden administration. The only way automakers can show they are truly serious about climate protection is if they work with policymakers — indeed, publicly advocate — to reinstate strong, nationwide clean car standards. <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre;">▰</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">John DeCicco is a University of Michigan research professor emeritus. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Originally published at: </span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><i>
</i></span></span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.6667px; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2021/01/05/opinion-general-motors-touts-innovation-rejects-industry-regulations/4126242001/</span></p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-8693714149496925732020-10-19T14:44:00.021-07:002021-11-17T09:59:08.525-08:00Light trucks overwhelm EVs' carbon-cutting benefits to date<p>Electric vehicle sales have grown rapidly over the past several
years. In 2012, only about 53,000 EVs were sold in the United States, counting
both battery electric and plug-in hybrid models. By 2018, the annual tally of new
EVs sold in the United States reached 361,000. It then tapered to 327,000 in
2019, the last full year of data before the 2020 pandemic. The vast majority of
EVs are Teslas, with the big jump in 2018 due to the introduction of the Tesla
Model 3. With overall light vehicle sales on the order of 17 million per year
(pre-pandemic), EVs comprised about 2% of the U.S. market as of 2019.</p><p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Although they increased over six fold in six years (2012-18),
EV sales remain lower than was expected a decade ago when gasoline prices were still
quite high after the marked oil price rise of the 2000s. But that was before
new petroleum supplies came online, including domestic oil from fracking as
well as expanding deep ocean oil production and other global supply-side
advances. Once pump prices moderated and the economy recovered, the market began
shifting back to SUVs and pickups. Most such light trucks are held
to GHG emission standards less stringent than those for vehicles classified as
passenger cars, such as sedans and small, front-wheel drive SUVs. <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">EPA's annual <a href="https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends">Automotive Trends report</a>
characterizes new vehicle CO<sub>2</sub> emission rates, providing data that
can be used to assess how market trends affect overall fleet average emissions.
EVs can clearly cut emissions, but how does the potential CO<sub>2</sub> decrease
due to higher EV sales compare to the CO<sub>2</sub> increase due to the shift
back to light trucks? </p>This comparison is shown in the following chart, which shows
the impacts in terms of new fleet average CO<sub>2</sub> emissions rates in
grams per mile (g/mi). The green bar shows the <i>potential</i> decrease in CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions implied by the rise in EV sales, which amounts to 4.6 g/mi on a fleet
average basis over 2012-19. EVs offer only a potential, rather net, CO<sub>2</sub>
reduction because under the emission standards they are averaged out across the
fleet by less efficient vehicles (and that's not even considering the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2019.04.003">perverse effect</a> of the
extra credit EVs get toward meeting the standards). The pink bar is the
increase in fleet average emissions due to the shift to light trucks over that
same period, which amounts to 21 g/mi. That's over four times greater than the potential
reduction due to EVs. <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoIb_X_vWCgFjVCXzxvYQPPkOoHKzUD3iDP4hdA1CJ7bwJzQvPsDDo0cYTjsHHiRBMgpykHuYX_Aoh0AMnuS9MHgagz73EgdzH8QkAUPvoO_tptd7RrFANtzIBKK8bJwf9DjmUN5Ujro/s1820/Trux-vs-EVs+from+CarBur-by-class+Oct2020.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1031" data-original-width="1820" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoIb_X_vWCgFjVCXzxvYQPPkOoHKzUD3iDP4hdA1CJ7bwJzQvPsDDo0cYTjsHHiRBMgpykHuYX_Aoh0AMnuS9MHgagz73EgdzH8QkAUPvoO_tptd7RrFANtzIBKK8bJwf9DjmUN5Ujro/w400-h226/Trux-vs-EVs+from+CarBur-by-class+Oct2020.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />What's the upshot of this comparison? It's not that EVs
aren't a great technology. Rather, its that now and for the immediate future,
significant reductions in personal vehicle CO<sub>2</sub> emissions depend much
more on the effectiveness of the clean car standards (GHG emissions regulations
and the corresponding CAFE standards) than they do on EV sales. Therefore,
additional policy support for EVs in the absence of more stringent clean car
standards will not deliver urgently needed CO<sub>2</sub> reductions anytime
soon. <o:p></o:p><p></p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;">How this comparison was made </h4><h2><o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoBodyText">This analysis is based "tailpipe plus upstream"
(sometimes called full fuel cycle) GHG emission estimates from the EPA <a href="http://www.fueleconomy.gov/">www.FuelEconomy.gov</a> online tool. The year
2012 is used as the basis for comparison because by then the recovery from the 2009
recession was well underway and it was also a key year for EV introductions,
including the Tesla Model S, the Prius Prime and the first full year of Chevy
Volt among others. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The calculation assumes an EV emission rate of 70 g/mi,
which is EPA's estimate for a Tesla Model 3 driven in California; we take that
as the typical EV emission rate because it's the most popular EV model and most
EV sales have been in California. The emissions estimate would be similar for
EVs in the Northeast as well because, like California, that region of the
country has a much cleaner-than-average electric grid. We assume that each new EV
replaces an average passenger car, rather than the average light-duty vehicle (combined
passenger car plus light truck average), similar to <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w25771">earlier findings</a> about EV sales. Scaling
this average per-vehicle reduction by the EV market share increase yields a 4.6
g/mi reduction in fleetwide CO<sub>2</sub> emissions shown by the green bar in
the chart. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">The effect of the shift back to SUVs and pickups is based
on the 16-point gain in light truck market share, from 36% in 2012 to 52% in
2019. During this time, the average new light truck CO<sub>2</sub> emission
rate fell by 13%, from 461 g/mi to 399 g/mi, as also reflected in the
calculation. By comparison, the average vehicle classified by EPA as a
passenger car had a CO<sub>2</sub> emission rate of 293 g/mi in 2019; in other
words, the average new light truck emitted 36% more CO<sub>2</sub> per mile
than the average car. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText">Finally, we compute what the overall new fleet average
would have been in 2019 if car and truck market shares were the same as they
had been in 2012. Adjusting for upstream emissions, the effect of the shift
back to light trucks on a new fleet average basis amounts to 21 g/mi, as shown
by the pink bar in the chart. That's 4<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;">½</span>
greater than the potential CO<sub>2</sub> reduction associated with the rise in
EV sales to date. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText"><o:p> </o:p></p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-41687638593253077752020-07-17T12:00:00.010-07:002021-11-17T09:58:02.084-08:00A missing link in green car marketing <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievzvr9vl4ve8iFiPDcSUiODoIa2CV97rDFOF2lBGgJ95bVJjYaGJztF-9aJUpzD-ZFaPodC8DsYf2ZvuPC84xNt2xrmu5OfkcrZX5Hq87HHAA4U7NQmDbzgF29zwwXkK1NaO7Gl_2EDY/s560/Couple+car+shopping+Web2Carz+1552419465+560px.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievzvr9vl4ve8iFiPDcSUiODoIa2CV97rDFOF2lBGgJ95bVJjYaGJztF-9aJUpzD-ZFaPodC8DsYf2ZvuPC84xNt2xrmu5OfkcrZX5Hq87HHAA4U7NQmDbzgF29zwwXkK1NaO7Gl_2EDY/s16000/Couple+car+shopping+Web2Carz+1552419465+560px.jpg" /></a></div><div>One of the reasons why automakers have advocated weaker fuel economy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards is that lower-than-expected fuel prices have lessened consumer interest in higher fuel economy. Although insufficient consumer interest relative to environmental need is the main reason why regulations are needed, lack of consumer interest is a legitimate concern. The challenge is quite real when the market is pulling one way while regulations are pulling another.</div><br />Nevertheless, environmental need -- and indeed policy-fostering public sentiment to address global warming -- does not go down when pump prices fall. <br /><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span>It is now well recognized that, to advance electric vehicles, extensive social marketing efforts are needed in addition to incentives, regulations and investments in charging infrastructure. But EVs are a slow slog in terms of market gains and, for cost and convenience reasons, likely to remain so for some time. For at least the next decade, EV promotion is poorly leveraged for reducing emissions at meaningful scales. <br /><br />Significant emission reductions require fleet-wide gains in fuel economy. Climate concerns dictate that such gains be much greater than those to be seen under the near-flatlining of CAFE standards recently done at the industry's behest. <br /><br />In spite of this need, no comparable social marketing effort is being directed to encourage consumers to choose more fuel-efficient vehicles whatever the market segment. This void is a missing link in the overall effort to reduce auto sector GHG emissions.<br /><br /> A large number of consumers do have environmental concerns, a fact borne out by numerous surveys in recent years. For example, the University of Michigan Energy Survey found that, since fuel prices fell several years ago, Americans are more concerned about the environmental impact of energy than they are about its cost. But little is being done to tap this sentiment when it comes to car shopping. <br /><br />In a piece for Automotive News two years ago, I asked "<a href="https://www.autonews.com/article/20180521/MOBILITY/180529995/why-aren-t-automakers-connecting-better-with-green-minded-consumers">Why aren't automakers connecting better with green-minded consumers?</a>" That question is even more salient today. <br /><div><br /></div>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-84670579968192440412020-04-22T19:32:00.006-07:002021-04-24T08:55:45.449-07:00Earth Day and auto efficiency<p>On Monday March 9, 2020, just before the coronavirus lockdown, I hosted a pre-Earth-Day <a href="https://energy.umich.edu/news-events/news/story/teach-in-on-auto-efficiency/" target="_blank">teach-in on auto efficiency</a>. It was part of the commererative week of action that the University of Michigan had planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p>In 1970, awareness of the need to far better protect the environment was growing, triggered by the many forms of out-of-control pollution afflicting communities across the country and across the world. Automobile pollution was one big part of huge environmental problems overall. At the time, the focus was on smog-causing tailpipe emissions, which were especially bad in Los Angeles while worsening all around the country and indeed throughout the world. </p><p>In response to the growing public pressure, Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970. That landmark law was signed by President Richard Nixon and established the first truly stringent nationwide motor vehicle emission control regulations. Those standards fully took effect in 1975 and were tight enough to require the use of catalytic converters on nearly all new cars. Successive rounds of regulation led to the far cleaner vehicles we have on the road today. </p><p>Today's challenge is global warming, caused by excess emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Transportation is the largest source of U.S. CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions, and automobiles -- including ever-popular pickups and SUVs as well as cars and minivans -- are the largest part of the sector. Improving auto efficiency is therefore as crucial now as cleaning up conventional tailpipe pollution was a generation ago. </p><p>This event discussed the current challenges for auto efficiency improvement. It reviewed where things stand in terms of autos and CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>, describing the progress on fuel economy and GHG emission standards made under the Obama Administration, the Trump Administration's effort to weaken the regulations and why most automakers wanted weaker standards, as well as public understanding of the issue. The <a href="https://energy.umich.edu/news-events/news/story/teach-in-on-auto-efficiency/" target="_blank">teach-in</a> featured retired EPA executive Chet France, Brett Smith of the Center for Automotive Research and notable environmental journalist Julie Halpert along with myself. </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-77736317567024778432019-02-18T13:00:00.110-08:002020-05-29T09:01:06.134-07:00Considering petroleum's grip on mobility<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9e7aa1b2-7fff-e27d-5574-c889420578f9" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiC98ffKdSNI0fDAWhZFCjpCUwetU7STCWZbe7deu6UYH0c6P6mBr9JUFY3XTKESDvB89-a37Ej9aXbmBLaOBi3JA_yFBHP5O7BQDwtbpHiqaSFX3gKSc4NE6bc22xMFXZPH5_iRoK18/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="World petroleum consumption by region" border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiC98ffKdSNI0fDAWhZFCjpCUwetU7STCWZbe7deu6UYH0c6P6mBr9JUFY3XTKESDvB89-a37Ej9aXbmBLaOBi3JA_yFBHP5O7BQDwtbpHiqaSFX3gKSc4NE6bc22xMFXZPH5_iRoK18/d/Oil-cons-by-region-560px.png" title="World petroleum consumption by region" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9e7aa1b2-7fff-e27d-5574-c889420578f9" style="line-height: 1.44; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oil has sustained its energy dominance largely due to its convenience for supplying </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">transportation fuels. Petroleum is largest source of CO</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 0.6em; vertical-align: sub;">2</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> emissions in the United States and second largest globally. Addressing this part of the climate problem means confronting both the market factors and market actors that determine petroleum </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">supply </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">and demand. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">My recent discussion paper <span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">examines </span>this intersection of transportation, oil and climate. It traces recent trends affecting petroleum supply and demand, providing a perspective on the industry's interests and how the sector might be affected by potential demand disruptions due to policy changes and innovations in mobility systems. The pertinent aspects of energy policy reflect </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">an ever-evolving political process that attempts to balance competing forces, including the oil industry's desire to maximize income and minimize costs, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">popular pressures to keep prices low, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">public sector needs for tax revenue and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">environmental concerns</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">These forces are now amplified by the pace of innovation. Impacts were seen first on the supply side through developments such as fracking. Next up are changes on the demand side, including </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">new mobility options such as ridehailing, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">vehicle electrification and rising levels of vehicle automation. Although it is unclear whether such changes will be </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">evolutionary or revolutionary, their net long-run effect is likely to be increased demand for mobility. Policies to address the climate concern seek to decouple transportation from oil, creating a petroleum demand destruction risk that the industry </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">can be expected to resist. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Read the full analysis at</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13.3333px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">DeCicco, J.M. 2019. Market Factors Related to Transportation, Oil and Climate. Discussion Paper. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Energy Institute. January. <a href="https://bit.ly/mktftoc19" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/mktftoc19</a>
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John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-26020048705666539242018-11-15T11:42:00.001-08:002021-01-11T14:09:51.527-08:00Can the Trump administration pull off a clean car deal after all? Regulations have long been a bone of contention between automakers and green groups, with policymakers caught in the middle. The disagreements have grown sharper than ever over the past two years, culminating in an <a href="https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot4818" target="_blank">August proposal</a> from the Trump administration. That plan detailed a preferred option of freezing car and light truck Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards after 2020.<br />
<br />
In response -- and they were indeed prepared for this worst-case scenario -- the State of California and its allies have girded for legal battle. They filled the <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docketBrowser?&D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0283" target="_blank">docket</a> with comments and extensive supporting analysis designed to fight the administration's crippled standards in court. On the other side, automakers -- who had prompted the administration to revise the regulations -- hailed the Trump agencies regulatory reform process even though they said it weakened the rules even more than they wanted. At that juncture, it seemed like years of litigation might be inevitable.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, a look at the formal comments filed reveals the makings of a compromise peeking through the otherwise disparate views. Recent news stories report that serious negotiations between California and the Trump administration seem to be underway. My recent <i>Axios</i> piece muses about how <a href="https://www.axios.com/after-epa-rollback-a-compromise-on-car-standards-could-be-in-sight-68174c2a-378d-4903-a901-009552faeb3b.html" target="_blank">a compromise on car standards could be in sight</a>.<br />
<br />John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-12998772412846856472018-10-08T16:19:00.000-07:002021-01-11T14:14:18.457-08:00Pondering the future of the car with the planet in mind<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5iMVqmjeF5Qg2ae93FMsSe3YyTHfpp7jCoNRhExEUh-NPhgyIVHN5FpxwfIwPEiUxFmGGwV8bW5-WenNT_yQ4Ea-s1um5YlTZCtBhAt0r7eHu9rSzE1gNQBd_kG_r21IH_tYXkLYhT0/s1600/Durant-carts-GM-Factory1-560px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="563" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC5iMVqmjeF5Qg2ae93FMsSe3YyTHfpp7jCoNRhExEUh-NPhgyIVHN5FpxwfIwPEiUxFmGGwV8bW5-WenNT_yQ4Ea-s1um5YlTZCtBhAt0r7eHu9rSzE1gNQBd_kG_r21IH_tYXkLYhT0/s1600/Durant-carts-GM-Factory1-560px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Historical vehicles on display at General Motors Factory One (left to right): Flint Road Cart (1886), <br />
Buick Model C (1905) and Chevrolet Classic Six (1913)</b> [photo: Jason Robinson, courtesy of General Motors]</td></tr>
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This year, the Society of Environmental Journalists' (SEJ) <a href="https://www.sej.org/initiatives/sej-annual-conferences/AC2018-main" target="_blank">Annual Conference</a> was held in Flint, Michigan. The city has been in the news recently because of its toxic, lead-contaminated tap water, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/piping-as-poison-the-flint-water-crisis-and-americas-toxic-infrastructure-53473" target="_blank">public health crisis</a> brought on by negligence and indifference at all levels of government. Clean water was a major theme of the event, which included moving presentations by members of the community, activists and researchers involved in the crisis.<br />
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Historically, however, Flint is one of the cities that gave birth to the automobile. William Durant, a key co-founder of General Motors, and his partner Josiah Dort opened a factory for making horse-drawn carriages there in 1886. That building subsequently became an early factory for Durant's car company before falling into disuse in 1924. Five years ago, General Motors purchased the building and named it <a href="https://www.gmfactoryone.com/product/public/us/en/factory-one/home.html" target="_blank">Factory One</a>, turning the refurbished structure into a museum and event space.<br />
<br />
This location served as a fitting venue for an evening plenary on the Future of Cars held on October 3, 2018, the <a href="https://www.sej.org/sej-annual-conferences/AC2018-agenda-wednesday" target="_blank">first day of the SEJ conference</a>. Moderated by <a href="http://www.jimmotavalli.com/" target="_blank">Jim Motavalli</a>, the panel included <a href="http://press.autotrader.com/spokespeople?item=33779" target="_blank">Michelle Krebs</a>, a leading automotive analyst, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/people/michael-ableson" target="_blank">Mike Ableson</a>, a GM vice president involved in the company's electric vehicle efforts, and myself.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Jim framed the discussion in terms of the much-hailed mobility revolution that will occur as car sharing, electrification and autonomous operation converge to overthrow the century-long dominance of personal vehicle ownership. Apostles of this "<a href="https://3rev.ucdavis.edu/about/" target="_blank">3 Revolutions</a>" vision foresee a not-too-distant future when electric robocars run cleanly and around the clock, taking people wherever they want to go and delivering whatever consumers desire to their doorsteps.<br />
<br />
Jim pressed the panel on how soon such a green transportation utopia will transpire, and my own opening remarks homed in on the factors likely to determine just how planet friendly the future of automobiles will be.<br />
<br />
This issue has many facets, of course. Impacts on air, water and climate happen throughout the entire process of vehicle production and use, but the concern that looms largest for the future of transportation is global warming. The car-climate challenge has five main dimensions:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>the vehicle population</li>
<li>fuel efficiency</li>
<li>electrification</li>
<li>automation, and</li>
<li>carbon offsets.</li>
</ul>
<br />
The first one is obvious: the world vehicle population now stands at roughly one billion, and conventional projections -- that is, those made without factoring in the wild card of automation -- foresee a billion more by mid-century. Two billion plus cars will rack up many trillions of miles each year, consuming road space as well as fuel.<br />
<br />
The second dimension is fuel efficiency: now and for the next 2-3 decades, how well we improve the fuel economy of gasoline and diesel vehicles will be the main factor that influences the global warming impact of automobiles.<br />
<br />
The third and fourth dimensions pertain to the new mobility technologies -- electrification and automation -- which are now garnering so much investment by not only car companies, but also many startups and other innovators in the rapidly evolving new mobility ecosystem.<br />
<br />
Certainly in the United States, electric vehicles clearly provide a climate benefit. However, given their cost, capability limitations, charging issues and other barriers, the question is this: will the process of electrification be revolutionary as some suggest, or will it be evolutionary, and to what extent can it be forced by policy?<br />
<br />
As for the automation of mobility -- which is a better way to look at it than "autonomous vehicles" -- there's no doubt that it will be a disruptive change. It is indeed a wild card, and the big question is whether its net effects are positive or negative for the environment.<br />
<br />
The fifth dimension -- carbon offsets -- is a sleeper. It's not been part of the conversation even though it should be. Cars and other forms of transportation will continue to use vast quantities of liquid fuel for many years to come even as electrification unfolds. The notion of low-carbon fuel is pure myth; the scientific reality is that as long as you burn a liquid fuel, you are putting more carbon into the atmosphere. To mitigate that part of emissions, you have to speed up the rate at which you pull carbon out of the atmosphere somewhere else. I realize this one might be a head-scratcher for many of you and so as we get into the discussion, I'll be happy to further explain how it might influence the future of the car.<br />
<br />
So those are my five points to ponder -- vehicle population, fuel efficiency, electrification, automation and offsets -- and I'll look forward to hearing what all of you have to say. Thank you.<br />
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<br />John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-48024574140370106512018-10-01T05:00:00.000-07:002019-01-01T13:50:48.566-08:00Reconsidering bioenergy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXb9tToXn8hjOYTfooUadSNO3IYrRtK1KjzqqtaAobY2tOA8ArFA79NSyp52Tl6PcL70qXwyEjrSEZkebUTqx5FVwivEKQ1igDGPmU9srtimKCJvoMY-DwIaQhsZoBgh2f81NJm3pTCbI/s1600/Malheur-restoration-photo-560px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="555" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXb9tToXn8hjOYTfooUadSNO3IYrRtK1KjzqqtaAobY2tOA8ArFA79NSyp52Tl6PcL70qXwyEjrSEZkebUTqx5FVwivEKQ1igDGPmU9srtimKCJvoMY-DwIaQhsZoBgh2f81NJm3pTCbI/s1600/Malheur-restoration-photo-560px.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Accelerated restoration in progress at the Malheur National Forest, Oregon</b> [photo: U.S. Forest Service] </td></tr>
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Protecting the Earth's climate takes on greater urgency every day. The vast majority of carbon dioxide (CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>) and other climate-wrecking greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions comes from the unmitigated use of fossil fuels. But that doesn't mean that every form of alternative energy is helpful for the planet. Case in point: bioenergy, such as liquid biofuels to replace oil or forest products to replace coal.<br />
<br />
Indeed, using biomass for energy at large scales does not belong on the short list of actions to take for climate protection. This is the conclusion of a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814120115" target="_blank">commentary</a> by Bill Schlesinger and myself just published in the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</i> Given the real-world limitations of not only technology but also land-use governance, we argue that the priority policymakers have given to promoting bioenergy is profoundly misplaced.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>As bioenergy use has grown over the past decade and a half, so too has the evidence that the net effects on GHG emissions are marginal at best and that in many cases it makes matters worse. Extensive bioenergy use also harms biodiversity and worsens other environmental problems. Over a decade ago some astute analysts warned that biofuels might be a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-29466020070911" target="_blank">cure worse than the disease</a>. We now know that the adverse impacts of bioenergy use are even worse than feared.<br />
<br />
The bioenergy blunder is a morality tale of what can go wrong when researchers fail to adequately check their computer models. All of the modeling studies used to justify bioenergy were premised on the belief that it is inherently carbon neutral. This common assumption holds that the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> released when burning bioenergy products instead of fossil fuels does not increase the net amount of CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> in the atmosphere because the emissions are fully offset by the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> absorbed when biomass is grown. But this assumption turns out to be simplistic and misleading; it is not a problem that can be patched over with ever more complex computer modeling, which only serves to make the results even more uncertain and difficult to verify.<br />
<br />
The scientifically correct way to look at the situation starts with the fact that using bioenergy emits CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> into the atmosphere at the same rate or faster than the fossil energy it replaces. The burden of proof then becomes whether diverting biomass for energy <a href="http://www.carsclimate.com/2015/05/biofuels-balance.html"><i>speeds up</i> the rate at which CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> is removed from the atmosphere</a> by the biosphere. In other words, one must empirically check the <a href="https://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/citizenscientist/additionality/" target="_blank">additionality</a> of the carbon accumulation in biomass harvested to replace fossil carbon.<br />
<br />
In this context, once one realizes that CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> mitigation requires increasing the net rate of carbon uptake, it is clear that there are much better ways to do that than bioenergy. First of all, it is crucial to redouble efforts to halt deforestation and the destruction of grasslands, peatlands and other carbon-rich ecosystems. Bioenergy increases the pressure to convert natural lands, which are already under stress due to the rising demand for food, feed and forest products. Moreover, there are many opportunities for<a href="https://global.nature.org/initiatives/natural-climate-solutions" target="_blank"> natural climate solutions</a> including reforestation, habitat restoration and rebuilding soil carbon.<br />
<br />
Legitimate ways to reduce CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions from fossil fuel use include higher energy efficiency and truly carbon-free energy sources such as photovoltaics, wind and nuclear energy. Replacing fossil fuels with bioenergy does not "decarbonize" the energy system; it is a flawed strategy now and for the reasonably foreseeable future. The programs and policies devoted to bioenergy should be pared back and redirected toward greatly expanded efforts to protect terrestrial carbon stocks and recarbonize the biosphere.<br />
<br />
<h3>
References </h3>
<br />
DeCicco, J.M., and W.H. Schlesinger (2018) Reconsidering bioenergy given the urgency of climate protection. <i>Proc Natl Acad Sci</i> 115(39): 9642-45. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814120115" target="_blank">http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1814120115</a><br />
<br />
Doornbosch, R., and R. Steenblik. 2007. Biofuels: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? Roundtable on Sustainable Development. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), September. <a href="https://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/remea/biofuels-cure-worse-disease" target="_blank">https://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/remea/biofuels-cure-worse-disease</a><br />
<br />
Griscom, B.W., et al. (2017) Natural climate solutions. <i>Proc Natl Acad Sci</i> 114(44): 11645-50. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710465114" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710465114</a><br />
<br />
Haberl, H., et al. (2012) Correcting a fundamental error in greenhouse gas accounting related to bioenergy. <i>Energy Policy</i> 45: 18-23. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.02.051" target="_blank">http://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2012.02.051</a><br />
<br />
Lal, R., et al. (eds., 2012) <i>Recarbonization of the Biosphere: Ecosystems and the Global Carbon Cycle.</i> Heidelberg: Springer. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4159-1" target="_blank">http://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4159-1</a><br />
<br />
Lambin, E.F., and P. Meyfroidt (2011) Global land use change, economic globalization, and the looming land scarcity. <i>Proc Natl Acad Sci</i> 108(9): 3465-72. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1100480108" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1100480108</a><br />
<br />
Schlesinger, W.H. (2018) Are wood pellets a green fuel? <i>Science</i> 359: 1328-29. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2305" target="_blank">http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2305</a><br />
<br />
Searchinger, T. (2010) Biofuels and the need for additional carbon. <i>Environ Res Lett</i> 5, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/024007" target="_blank">http://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/024007</a><br />
<br />
<br />John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-67574157771257902442018-09-25T06:00:00.001-07:002021-01-11T14:11:49.457-08:00No justification for weaker CAFE standards<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaGpBj3p6onuwTX5zcLaxnlnKQFj-s-DeWYJzx4-QTrRy9OoHlWr2iLLGCcxbpFKRSAyVcMSD0WBJwh_jv0MFd2bH0JDsj7ZtCB9vWchmcBVhaQ22oj2pJrMNoK523bRjuLZFCg4x2to/s1600/Ford+F-150+Limited+2019+interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="563" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaGpBj3p6onuwTX5zcLaxnlnKQFj-s-DeWYJzx4-QTrRy9OoHlWr2iLLGCcxbpFKRSAyVcMSD0WBJwh_jv0MFd2bH0JDsj7ZtCB9vWchmcBVhaQ22oj2pJrMNoK523bRjuLZFCg4x2to/s1600/Ford+F-150+Limited+2019+interior.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Interior view of the 2019 Ford F-150 Limited edition pickup truck. Such luxurious features in what were once utilitarian vehicles showcase automakers' impressive design and technology capabilities. The key policy question is how well these capabilities can be harnessed to improve fuel economy rather than offering ever more niceties at the expense of better protecting the environment. <span style="color: #444444;">[photo: Ford Motor Company media]</span> </td></tr>
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<i>This week the administration is holding public hearings on their <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/safer-affordable-fuel-efficient-safe-vehicles-proposed#rule-summary" target="_blank">proposal to weaken</a> Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards after 2020. What follows is the comment I prepared for the hearing being held today in Dearborn, Michigan. </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Comment on CAFE and GHG Standards Proposed Rule <br />for MY 2021-2026</b></span><br />
<br />
John M. DeCicco, Ph.D.<br />
University of Michigan Energy Institute*<br />
<br />
Thank you for the opportunity to present this comment today.<br />
<br />
Having reviewed the proposed rule, I find that it fails to scientifically or economically justify freezing the standards for model years 2021 through 2026. My assessments show that the greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy standards for those years remain sound.<br />
<br />
My overarching conclusion is that there is no justification for changing the standards.<br />
<br />
The one new development with any significance is that fuel prices are lower now than projected. However, this does not justify weakening the standards. Lower prices are all the more reason why fuel economy and emission standards should remain untouched.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Lower fuel prices increase consumer payback time from 3½ years to roughly 5 years. This change in economics is not enough to justify weaker standards, which remain highly cost-effective for both consumers and society over the life of the vehicles.<br />
<br />
Strong standards, such as those we have now, will help keep oil prices down and buffer consumers from inevitable fluctuations in fuel prices.<br />
<br />
The fact is that technology is available to cost-effectively meet the standards.<br />
<br />
A <a href="http://www.carsclimate.com/2010/10/effcy-horiz1.html">more conservative study</a> that I conducted several years before EPA’s Technical Assessment Report showed that we could cost-effectively achieve a fleet average of 52 mpg, higher than the new average projected under the current standards. Moreover, these standards have already adjusted to the shift from cars to light trucks and SUVs and they will continue to adjust – as they were designed - to accommodate changes in vehicle sizes and classifications.<br />
<br />
While the standards' flexibility helps them track the changing market, we have also seen outstanding progress in automotive engineering. This progress provides automakers with many affordable ways to achieve steady gains in efficiency. The past decade saw average fuel economy rise by 23 percent, even as vehicle sales and performance reached new highs. This is a tribute to the engineering ingenuity of our domestic automakers as well as the industry as a whole. Such gains refute any concerns that the standards put sales or jobs at risk.<br />
<br />
In summary, the proposal to effectively freeze the standards after 2020 reflects a denial of basic science and a denial of the auto industry's extensive capabilities to engineer, market and successfully sell ever more fuel-efficient cars and light trucks.<br />
<br />
I urge the agencies to set aside this ill-considered proposal and issue final rules for 2021-2025 that maintains steady progress on both fuel economy and emission reduction.<br />
Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.<br />
<br />
<i>* These comments represent the professional assessment of the author alone and should not be taken to reflect views or positions of the University of Michigan or any of its units. </i><br />
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John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-40666344236731812132018-06-11T10:00:00.000-07:002021-01-11T14:12:36.480-08:00The precarious state of fuel economy policy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoU8HVw0zpeIDgDeXseaQIMxjdrZF8LqYA0pVnAvlkA2Et7xo3UpVzUbwH7ajT0EK_f6y3e_LqorRvDhBloAeCngZFE05F_aSbqa3VMRAqXqa6zKk-8cPGTjyFuGfVAVBBJUAABCJsQrE/s1600/RAV_MY17_white_865px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="865" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoU8HVw0zpeIDgDeXseaQIMxjdrZF8LqYA0pVnAvlkA2Et7xo3UpVzUbwH7ajT0EK_f6y3e_LqorRvDhBloAeCngZFE05F_aSbqa3VMRAqXqa6zKk-8cPGTjyFuGfVAVBBJUAABCJsQrE/s400/RAV_MY17_white_865px.jpg" width="560" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Rated at 25 mpg, the Toyota RAV4 is a good example of the average new personal vehicle now being<br />sold in the United States, emitting 5.2 metric tons of CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> per year over 15,000 miles of driving.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"> </span></b></span></td></tr>
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Any day now, the Trump Administration will formally propose its revisions to the coordinated program of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for cars and light trucks. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has determined that the existing standards, set in GHG terms by the previous administration for model years 2021-25, are too tough. Everyone expects that the proposal will weaken the regulations; the question is by how much. <br />
<br />
As a long-time analyst of automotive fuel economy policy, over the past few weeks I've written several pieces providing perspectives on the issue as linked here.<br />
<br />
Even though it's not a good reason to weaken the standards, automakers do have a valid concern about low consumer interest in ever-higher fuel economy. The tension between what consumers desire and the need to cut GHG emissions is a problem to take seriously and address creatively. This challenge is discussed in my recent piece "<a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20180521/MOBILITY/180529995/1137" target="_blank">Why aren't automakers connecting better with green-minded consumers?</a>" in <i>Automotive News</i>.<br />
<br />
A broader look at the regulatory dispute is given the piece, "<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/after-years-of-green-promises-us-automakers-renege-on-emissions-standards" target="_blank">After Years of Green Promises, Automakers Renege on Emissions Standards</a>," published last week by <i>Yale Environment 360.</i> Hooking to visionary-sounding statements by GM's chief executive, it highlights the contrast between the automaker's promise of technological solutions and the efforts to fight the policies needed to bring such solutions to fruition. That's an old story in the long-running debates about clean cars. However, with automakers now able to exploit the empowered political hostility to the environment that they (and some other industries) cultivated over the years, progress may soon grind to a halt. My comments echo those of others who point out California's crucial leverage on the issue. <br />
<br />
A concise take on this very point is given by my <i>Axios</i> Expert Voices piece, "<a href="https://www.axios.com/automakers-struggle-to-head-off-the-californiaepa-legal-battle-94f7371a-87be-49f1-bbc7-78ff5652b972.html" target="_blank">Automakers struggle to head off the California–EPA legal battle,</a>" published earlier last week.<br />
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A couple of months back, shortly after Administrator Pruitt issued his notice about the process to revisit the CAFE and GHG emissions standards, I argued that "<a href="https://theconversation.com/stronger-fuel-standards-make-sense-even-when-gas-prices-are-low-94274" target="_blank">Stronger fuel standards make sense, even when gas prices are low</a>" in <i>The Conversation</i> (and also republished by <i>Salon</i> and other outlets). <br />
<br />John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-86523960423091325202018-06-03T09:00:00.000-07:002021-01-11T14:15:02.533-08:00Breaking down biofuels analysisDebates about the merits of biofuels have gone on for at least a generation. Over time, one might think that the accumulation of data would resolve key issues, especially those about biofuels and global warming. Nevertheless, the arguments not only persist but have become even more heated.<br />
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What has taken things to a new level of contention is that some researchers (myself included) are now rethinking the heart of the matter, namely, the belief that biofuels are inherently carbon neutral. This is the assumption that the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emitted when biofuels are burned does not lead to a net increase in emissions because the carbon in the biofuel is recycled during feedstock growth. My new paper, "<a href="http://doi.org/10.3390/su10051581">Methodological issues regarding biofuels and carbon uptake</a>" published in the journal <i>Sustainability,</i> breaks this aspect of the debate down to its bare essentials.<br />
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As illustrated in the adjoining diagram, it comes down to how one looks at things. Can we evaluate the situation by comparing two different "snapshots," one of biofuel use and the other of petroleum fuel use? Or is it better to track all movements of carbon (whether in biomass or a fossil resource) through time, as one form of carbon replaces the other? Methodologically, the question is whether to use a fundamentally static method of analysis such as lifecycle assessment (LCA) or whether to use a dynamic method.<br />
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The LCA approach is shown in panel (a) of the figure; panel (b) shows an approach, annual basis carbon (ABC) accounting, that tracks the dynamics. There's nothing special about ABC accounting; all it does is explicitly tally carbon flows exactly where and when they occur. That's instead of introducing assumptions that certain flows do not need to be counted, which is what LCA methods do when treating biofuels as inherently carbon neutral. This LCA convention is shown in panel (a) of the diagram by the dashed line depicting that the biofuel carbon is "recycled."<br />
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When I <a href="http://www.carsclimate.com/2013/01/lcfs-some-early-history-of-concept.html">first began examining the issue</a> over twenty years ago, the LCA approach of comparing two distinct fuel lifecycles -- a fossil fuel's one-way flow of old carbon from underground and into the atmosphere versus a biofuel's seemingly circular flow of young carbon harvested from the land -- seemed to make sense. But just over ten years ago when land-use concerns were raised, it occurred to me that something was deeply amiss. Accounting for land-use change meant that it was no longer enough to examine a fuel's supply chain and add up the emissions from well-to-wheels, or farm-to-wheels in the case of biofuels. Analysts now had to model ripple effects across the globe and decades into the future.<br />
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At that point, I realized that the question of how biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel compared to their petroleum-based counterparts on a lifecycle basis <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0164-z">could not be answered</a> through strict use of scientific methods. That is to say, it could not be settled by data, if for no other reason than that we can't get data for the future. After some further analysis (mostly using pencil and paper and a lot of head-scratching), I determined that <a href="http://www.carsclimate.com/2015/02/bad-bookkeeping_20.html">LCA is the wrong way to look at the issue</a>. <br />
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My new paper breaks down the key reasons why LCA fails for the biofuels and carbon problem. In addition to elaborating on the diagram shown here, it walks through a numerical example based on real-world data for a corn ethanol production facility. That case study shows the very different results obtained when tracking how the carbon flows actually change from one year to the next (i.e., by examining the system dynamics) versus when using LCA methods that treat the biofuel as a static (unvarying flow) system separate from that of a petroleum fuel.<br />
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Looking at the dynamics -- i.e., the year-to-year changes in carbon flowing in and out of the atmosphere -- refutes the assumption that biofuels are inherently carbon neutral. Therefore, it's not enough to estimate the emissions only throughout the fuel supply chain. Neither is it enough to project consequential dynamic effects, such as land-use change and various product and co-product substitutions, as long as the static assumption of biomass carbon neutrality remains at the heart of the modeling. All such LCA modeling fails to explicitly evaluate the extent to which terrestrial carbon uptake during biomass growth actually balances the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emitted when biofuels are burned. <br />
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After highlighting this critical issue of carbon uptake, the paper's discussion offers some historical context. It turns out that a few <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0961-9534(97)10032-0">researchers noted the need for dynamic analysis</a> over twenty years ago. Nevertheless, for reasons that it may take further historical sleuthing to reveal, the biofuels research and policy communities embraced the fundamentally static assumption of biomass carbon neutrality. That decision now haunts the whole field and seems likely to do so for some years to come. <br />
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<b>Reference</b><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-3b73c384-a877-c1ce-a12a-a60066fc8a74"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DeCicco, J.M. 2018. Methodological issues regarding biofuels and carbon uptake. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sustainability</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 10: 1581. </span><a href="http://doi.org/10.3390/su10051581" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://doi.org/10.3390/su10051581</span></a><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-2821478559595509442018-04-06T07:32:00.000-07:002021-01-11T14:15:28.988-08:00Stronger fuel standards make sense, even when gas prices are low<div style="text-align: right;">
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The current Republican administration is taking steps to weaken EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for cars and light trucks. One of the stated reasons is that lower fuel prices make it more difficult for automakers to comply with the regulations. However, car companies are already well on the way to re-engineering their vehicles to cut emissions through higher fuel economy. Fuel prices are a fickle friend when it comes to the crucial long-term quest to cut climate-disrupting GHG emissions. So that's all the more reason to keep strong standards in place, as explained in this <a href="https://theconversation.com/stronger-fuel-standards-make-sense-even-when-gas-prices-are-low-94274" target="_blank">recent piece</a> published on <i>The Conversation. </i>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-21126374569522538402018-02-08T17:54:00.003-08:002021-01-11T14:16:08.347-08:00Biofuels vs. Biodiversity and the Need to Think Beyond Carbon Neutral<i><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seminar given at the </span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">University of Michigan,</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Thursday, February 8, 2018,
as part of the 2016-2018 "Beyond Carbon Neutral" seminar series. </span></i><br />
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Download the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s6De6THgjwnSFTbwapCqVXN8W9i4yqfO/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">presentation slides [PDF]</a><br />
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<b>ABSTRACT</b><br />
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Just over a decade ago, policymakers gave a big boost to biofuels through the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and similar policies. These policies included sustainability provisions for protecting sensitive lands; the intent was to spur the production of advanced biofuels that would be sustainable in many ways including low CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions. Now, new studies appear each year revealing the destruction of diverse habitats as biofuel production amplifies the global demand for land. There have also been multiple bankruptcies of highly-subsidized advanced biofuel operations. What went wrong and how can we find a better path forward?<br />
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To answer these questions, this talk synthesizes findings from the recent literature, including the speaker's own work, regarding the impact of biofuel production on land use, biodiversity and CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions. It re-examines the assumptions that underpin renewable fuel policies in light of ecological and economic realities. Mistakes could have been avoided had analysts been more attentive to the terrestrial carbon cycle and the fact that increasing the rate of net carbon uptake is crucial for any form of bio-based climate mitigation. The discussion highlights the importance of "Thinking Beyond Carbon Neutral," which in this context means properly valuing the carbon-storing ecosystem service that biologically rich lands provide. This insight is consistent with environmental economics, notably, the importance of putting a uniform price on carbon so that terrestrial carbon stocks are properly valued and all CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions are managed regardless of their origin.<br />
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<i>Given below is a list of the references cited in the presentation. </i><br />
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References</h4>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Arima, EY, P Richards, R Walker and MM Caldas. 2011. Statistical confirmation of indirect land use change in the Brazilian Amazon. Environ Res Lett 6(2): 024010. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/6/2/024010">http://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/6/2/024010</a> </span><br />
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Brooke, R, G Fogel, A Glaser, E Griffin and K Johnson. 2010. Corn
Ethanol and Wildlife: How increases in corn plantings are affecting habitat and
wildlife in the Prairie Pothole Region. Report prepared for the National
Wildlife Federation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, School of Natural
Resources and Environment, January. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">CARB. 2012. LCFS Lookup Tables as of December 2012. Sacramento,
CA: California Air Resources Board. <a href="http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/lu_tables_11282012.pdf">http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/lu_tables_11282012.pdf</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">DeCicco, JM 2013. Biofuel's carbon balance: doubts, certainties
and implications. <i>Climatic Change</i>
121(4): 801-814. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0927-9">http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0927-9</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">DeCicco, JM 2015. The liquid carbon challenge: evolving views on
transportation fuels and climate. <i>WIREs
Energy Environ</i> 4(1): 98-114. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wene.133">http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/wene.133</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">DeCicco, JM, et al. 2016. Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel
production and use. <i>Climatic Change</i>
138(3): 667-80. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4">http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">DeCicco, JM 2017. Author's response to commentary on "Carbon
balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use." <i>Climatic Change</i> 144(2): 123-29. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9">http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">EIA. 2016. Monthly Energy Review. Washington, DC: Energy
Information Administration. <a href="http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/index.php">www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/index.php</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">EISA. 2007. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Public
Law 110-140, 110th Congress, approved December 19, 2007. Washington, DC: U.S.
Congress. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Fargione, J, J Hill, D Tilman, S Polasky & P Hawthorne. 2008.
Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt. Science 319: 1235-38, 29 February. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152747">http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1152747</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Farrell, AE, et al. 2006. Ethanol can contribute to energy and
environmental goals. Science 311: 506-508, 27 January. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121416">http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121416</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">GCP. 2017. Carbon Budget 2017. Global Carbon Project: <a href="http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget">www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Gibbs, HK, et al. 2010. Tropical forests were the primary sources
of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s. Proc Nat Acad Sci 107(38):
16732-37. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0910275107">www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0910275107</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Griscom, BW, el al. 2017. Natural climate solutions. <i>Proc Nat Acad Sci</i> 114(44): 11645-50, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1710465114">https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1710465114</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Refs">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">IEA. 2011. Technology Roadmap: Biofuels for Transport. Paris:
International Energy Agency. <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/Biofuels_Roadmap.pdf">www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/Biofuels_Roadmap.pdf</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">IEA. 2017. Tracking CleanEnergy Progress 2017. Paris:
International Energy Agency. <a href="https://www.iea.org/etp/tracking2017/">https://www.iea.org/etp/tracking2017/</a>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Kline KL, Oladosu GA, Dale VH, McBride AC. 2011. Scientific
analysis is essential to assess biofuel policy effects: in response to the
paper by Kim and Dale on "Indirect land-use change for biofuels: testing
predictions and improving analytical methodologies." Biomass and Bioenergy
35(10): 4488-91. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.08.011">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.08.011</a>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Lark, TJ, M Salmon & HK Gibbs. 2015. Cropland expansion
outpaces agricultural and biofuel policies in the United States. Environ Res
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">NRDC. 2004. Growing Energy: How Biofuels Can Help End America's
Oil Dependence. New York: Natural Resources Defense Council, December. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Searchinger, T, et al. 2008. Use of U.S. croplands for biofuels
increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change. Science 319:
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">UCS. 2008. The 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard: A key first step to
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Wang, MQ. 2005. Updated Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Results of Fuel Ethanol. Presentation at the 15th International Symposium on
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Wang, MQ, et al. 2012. Well-to-wheels energy use and greenhouse
gas emissions of ethanol from corn, sugarcane and cellulosic biomass for US
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Wise, M, et al. 2009. Implications of limiting CO<sub>2</sub>
concentrations for land use and energy. <i>Science</i>
324: 1183-86, 29 May. <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1168475">http://doi.org/10.1126/science.1168475</a>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Wright, CK, B Larson, TJ
Lark and HK Gibbs. 2017. Recent grassland losses are concentrated around U.S.
ethanol refineries. <i>Environ Res Lett</i>
12.044001. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6446">https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa6446</a>
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John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-19759947807614150642017-11-17T10:00:00.000-08:002021-01-11T14:16:45.573-08:00Carbon balance effects of biofuel expansion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The 4th biennial <a href="https://www.nwf.org/grasslandsconference" target="_blank">America's Grasslands Conference</a> organized by the National Wildlife Federation was held in Fort Worth, Texas, on 14-16 November 2017. What follows is the narrative with key slides from my presentation in the session on "The Ethanol Mandate as a Driver of Land Conversion and Carbon Emissions." </td></tr>
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I imagine that you have often heard that ethanol and other biofuels are "clean and green" compared to ordinary gasoline. Even if not perfect, aren't biofuels better than petroleum because they recycle carbon from the atmosphere instead of getting it from under the ground? That makes them inherently carbon neutral, many people believe.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, that belief is quite misleading. Take, for instance, the claim that corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 43% compared to gasoline, as given by a <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2017/01/12/usda-releases-new-report-lifecycle-greenhouse-gas-balance-ethanol" target="_blank">recent USDA study</a> (which is <a href="http://www.theenergycollective.com/john-m-decicco/2396792/separating-fact-from-fiction-in-the-newest-u-s-federal-ethanol-study" target="_blank">critiqued here</a>). That value is based on computer modeling and the assumption that biofuels fully recycle carbon is hard-coded into the model. However, when using field data to evaluate how much CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> is actually recycled, it turns out that such modeling is off base, and not by just a small amount. In fact, biofuels fall so far short of being truly carbon neutral that they cause higher rather than lower CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions than petroleum fuels.<br />
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<h3>
Real-world carbon flows</h3>
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To understand what's going on, we have to start with land. All productive land removes CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> from the atmosphere. When I say productive, I mean that in an ecological sense. Any land that has something growing on it is ecologically productive whether or not it is commercially productive for crops, grazing or forest products.<br />
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If we take the vantage point of the atmosphere, looking down on the earth, we can see that it is constantly absorbing CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> through photosynthesis. For crops, carbon uptake depends on yield. Corn is a highly productive crop and a typical corn field removes carbon from the air at a net rate of about 4,000 pounds per acre per year. Wheat and soybean fields remove about 1,000 pounds per acre annually. When managed to build soil carbon, grasslands can remove a few hundred pounds of carbon per acre per year depending on local conditions. (These are textbook estimates and recent research indicates that the ability to sequester carbon on grasslands and pastures may be much greater than that.)<br />
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The rate of carbon uptake depends only on what's growing on the land, not what becomes of the harvest. Thus, a corn field removes CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> from the air at the same rate regardless of whether the corn is used for food or for fuel.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg003H4WGAX67Ef0efwD6_I-2P9gZXxqsLKEra0ZAP7jKu7BakkYlyN8UTP-SVJDloqlRVyPK2HY7b8IEZXdsHbfWgYYSOmJL7k1MfyECG6FTYGxd1O2vsbEEHzX6kPXrItJrQlqR0D6DM/s1600/FuelsCarbon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="830" data-original-width="1348" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg003H4WGAX67Ef0efwD6_I-2P9gZXxqsLKEra0ZAP7jKu7BakkYlyN8UTP-SVJDloqlRVyPK2HY7b8IEZXdsHbfWgYYSOmJL7k1MfyECG6FTYGxd1O2vsbEEHzX6kPXrItJrQlqR0D6DM/s400/FuelsCarbon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions per unit of energy vary little among similar fuels. </td></tr>
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Let's next look at motor fuels. Whenever we burn a fuel in an engine, it emits carbon dioxide. CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions are quite similar for similar fuels. Ethanol emits about 2% less CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> than gasoline; diesel and biodiesel both emit a bit more than gasoline.<br />
<br />
And so, when looking at CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> flows in and out of the air, there is no appreciable difference in CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions when we burn ethanol instead of gasoline. No more CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> is removed on land when we use corn to make ethanol instead of food. So, to a first approximation, biofuel use isn't carbon neutral at all. Even if less petroleum is used, that does not necessarily translate to less CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions. <br />
<br />
Any potential benefit requires speeding up the rate at which CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> is removed from the air. That is to say, there must be an additional gain in carbon uptake. If one just re-purposes a harvest from food to fuel, there is no environmental benefit but there are many disbenefits such as higher grain costs as well as other forms of environmental harm. Moreover, people still need to eat. The corn and soybeans diverted to fuel have to be made up by growing more crops somewhere else. That leads to land conversion and very large carbon releases.<br />
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<h3>
Retrospective evaluation of the RFS</h3>
<br />
Our <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4" target="_blank">recent study</a> quantified the rate of CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> removal by U.S. cropland from 2005 to 2013 and compared it to the amount of CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emitted when biofuels are burned. The following diagram provides a schematic of the analysis. It shows the cropland, motor vehicles and fuel processing, which also releases emissions. The dashed boundary encloses the vehicle-fuel system that we need to evaluate.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oI3ZpwvysqmUfaKtVBdeD4VKMtNcr4M5Nrm1S9f7k9V5sNxvN9l-w9H-zsUVipUbV7kAzz77FgZX7VuH6jhkRnUh1kU-P0op8GV2lVOfL5lzXyqPIkuW0M_16g6Jxx1T-CmzZqhQ-pg/s1600/Simplified+schematic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="1049" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7oI3ZpwvysqmUfaKtVBdeD4VKMtNcr4M5Nrm1S9f7k9V5sNxvN9l-w9H-zsUVipUbV7kAzz77FgZX7VuH6jhkRnUh1kU-P0op8GV2lVOfL5lzXyqPIkuW0M_16g6Jxx1T-CmzZqhQ-pg/s400/Simplified+schematic.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Schematic diagram for evaluating the directly measurable CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> impacts of substituting biofuel for fossil fuel</td></tr>
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This diagram also shows that carbon leaves the system in the form of food and feed not used for fuel, and that fossil carbon enters the system from petroleum resources. This form of analysis rigorously accounts for all of the carbon leaving and entering the system, which is something that the lifecycle computer models fail to do because they do not consistently track carbon uptake even though they track the processing emissions.<br />
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From 2005 to 2013, U.S. biofuel use rose from 4 to 15 billion gallons, displacing an energy-equivalent amount of petroleum. Over the same period, carbon uptake on cropland increased from 196 teragrams per year (TgC/yr; same as a million metric tons) to 215 TgC/yr in 2013. As shown in the chart below, this gain in uptake was largely a result of more corn being grown.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carbon uptake on U.S. cropland, 2005-2013</td></tr>
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To quantify the net effect on CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions, we need to tally the cumulative carbon flows directly related to substituting biofuels for petroleum fuels. The next chart shows the amount of fossil carbon replaced by biofuel carbon, termed "biogenic" carbon, shown as the steadily rising black curve. The question is, how much of the biogenic carbon is neutralized by additional carbon uptake on cropland?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4aWwC5iL4vJbEUORqGBYJe7apCt15Vs1nOvu5uqbGuYyitYdauNbFuxkipfFNSjMmXk2DnZGfJ54I6iLchRYiHJxJbYgg1Yd9sPsqtMpSV-wVScrd1qmaXA_A8MOjpvrFqBPXGukz8z4/s1600/FigCC4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1364" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4aWwC5iL4vJbEUORqGBYJe7apCt15Vs1nOvu5uqbGuYyitYdauNbFuxkipfFNSjMmXk2DnZGfJ54I6iLchRYiHJxJbYgg1Yd9sPsqtMpSV-wVScrd1qmaXA_A8MOjpvrFqBPXGukz8z4/s400/FigCC4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Cumulative biogenic carbon emissions compared to gains in carbon uptake on cropland</td></tr>
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The cumulative increase in cropland carbon uptake is shown by the green curve. It does not rise steadily; there are up years and down years, such as the drought related drop in 2012, although it trends upward overall consistently with the rise in the annual rate of carbon uptake shown above.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the gain in carbon uptake falls well short of the increase in biogenic CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions. As shown on the chart, there is a gap of 83 teragrams by 2013. Comparing this shortfall in carbon uptake on cropland with the cumulative biogenic CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions shows that, over this period, biofuel use was only 37% carbon neutral instead of 100%. This gain in carbon uptake was not enough to neutralize the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions from fuel use. Therefore, even though less petroleum was used, the quantity of fossil fuel displaced by biofuel did not fully translate to a net emissions reduction because the biofuel use still emits CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>.<br />
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The table below shows what happens when we add in other effects. Without a 100% offset of biogenic emissions to balance out the emissions due to fuel processing and land conversion, these effects overwhelm the partial offset that did occur. The partial, 37% offset is reflected in the -38 teragram number shown first in this table. That emission reduction is nearly undone by the 36 teragrams due to cropland expansion based on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044003" target="_blank">Lark et al (2015)</a>, which doesn't even reflect carbon losses over the full 2005-2013 period.<br />
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What really pushes things over the top, however, is the huge release from international land-use change, i.e., greater tropical deforestation. The 433 teragram value is taken from EPA's analysis. Such values are highly uncertain because they depend on global modeling, but sensitivity analysis has shown that they are more likely to be much larger than they are to be much smaller. In any case, it's quite clear that biofuel use has made overall CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions much higher than they would otherwise be.<br />
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That's not to say that the way we now use petroleum is OK. It's not; oil is the nation's largest source of CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions and the second largest world-wide. Addressing those emissions is an urgent need, but the solutions need to be real. In addition to improving vehicle efficiency, the other key step is offsetting tailpipe CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions through carbon sequestration.<br />
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<h3>
What to do instead</h3>
<br />
Although a correct carbon balance analysis is bad news for biofuels, the principles behind it point the way toward what to do instead. The key insight is that what mitigates emissions is increasing carbon uptake on land. There are many ways to do this that don't involve turning biomass into fuel and burning it. An excellent overview of such options is given in a recent paper on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044003" target="_blank">Natural Climate Solutions</a> led by scientists at The Nature Conservancy (Griscom et al 2017).<br />
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Their study quantified ways to sequester carbon in the biosphere that, if pursued globally, could offset a large portion of excess CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions. A number of the opportunities involve pasture and grasslands as well as reforestation; although grassland options are not featured as prominently as forest options in the Griscom et al study, other literature suggests that they can be quite substantial as well.<br />
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If the full set of natural climate solutions were pursued with determination, they could provide a large share of the CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> reductions needed over the next two decades for getting the world on track to hold global warming to less than 2°C. Such actions entail managing carbon on land, something that many of you do as part of your grassland conservation efforts.<br />
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In fact, managing carbon on land is a prerequisite for biofuels to one day be sustainable. But promoting biofuels today is putting the cart before the horse. We have to start with increasing carbon uptake on land, which is the foundation for any form of bio-based climate mitigation.<br />
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<h3>
Conclusions</h3>
<br />
To conclude, here are the main take-aways:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Biofuels are not automatically carbon neutral; in other words, one can't just assume that biofuels recycle carbon. The models used for renewable fuel policies build in this invalid assumption, leading to flawed claims that biofuels are beneficial. <br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Correct carbon accounting shows that the expansion of biofuel use has made CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> emissions worse. This added damage to the climate compounds the other environmental and economic harms caused by the policy. <br />
<br />
</li>
<li>Instead of pursuing biofuels, we should be protecting and restoring ecosystems that store carbon, including grasslands and forests. Using productive land to make fuel is a mistake.</li>
</ul>
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Much more needs to be done to educate Americans and policymakers about the value of sequestering carbon in our landscapes and to correct the false positive impression of biofuels that has tragically taken hold in energy policy.<br />
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<h3>
References</h3>
<ol>
<li>DeCicco, J.M., et al. 2016. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4" target="_blank">Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use.</a> <i>Climatic Change</i> 138(3): 667-80.</li>
<li>Griscom, B.W., el al. 2017. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1710465114" target="_blank">Natural climate solutions.</a> <i>Proc Nat Acad Sci</i> (PNAS) 114(44): 11645-50.</li>
<li>Lark, T. J., et al. 2015. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/4/044003" target="_blank">Cropland expansion outpaces agricultural and biofuel policies in the United States.</a> <i>Environ Res Lett</i> 10:044003.</li>
</ol>
<i><br /></i>
<i>Download the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jYklErykCWhRefoavX3sl9cEWX9zLO0F/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">presentation slides here</a> </i>[PDF].<i> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-12409051157192459982017-09-18T13:00:00.000-07:002017-09-22T10:36:04.044-07:00Carbon taxes and the affordability of gasolineAlthough new taxes can seem like a third rail in American politics, taxing carbon seems to be an approach that is slowly gaining ground in public discussions of ways to tackle global warming.<br />
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We recently explored what a carbon tax would mean for how U.S. consumers feel about the affordability of gasoline. It turns out that for over 90% of Americans, a $40 per ton carbon tax -- which translates to an extra 36 cents per gallon -- would still leave them a gasoline price range that they consider affordable.<br />
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Of course, consumers' views on the issue depend on their household incomes, with lower income households expressing a lower price threshold for "pain at the pump," so to speak.<br />
<br />
Further details on these survey findings can be found in the article on "<a href="http://www.umenergysurvey.com/carbon-tax-how-much-too-much/" target="_blank">A carbon tax: how much would be too much?</a>" at the University of Michigan Energy Survey website, where the <a href="http://www.umenergysurvey.com/assets/C-taxG-aff_12Sep2017.pdf" target="_blank">full report</a> is also posted.<br />
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<br />John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-25896624540766592292017-08-16T06:36:00.000-07:002017-09-22T10:39:24.439-07:00A new and deeper wrinkle in the biofuel debate<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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Two short articles just published by the journal Climatic Change highlight the divide in scientific thinking about the effect of biofuels on CO<span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span> emissions. A <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2032-y">commentary</a> by Robb De Kleine and colleagues at Ford Motor Company criticizes a paper on the topic published last year by myself and colleagues at the University of Michigan. My <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9">response</a> to their commentary explains why I believe that our approach is correct, in contrast to the established lifecycle analysis method that our critics say is the best way to address the question. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoq1S18oR5ShUlyAsmJ4tNThXIyddo-dlemlMGULw3Scriup4hlCkNsebmd4oIYZ5ddPWIQahyphenhyphen45AqUc0ooIhjZmYLYJVA7kJqQnhW9k7vMw0-qLznmlVxTGJSNKwSSvf7DBhSanSKMRE/s1600/Corn%252Bsoy1_crop1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1160" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoq1S18oR5ShUlyAsmJ4tNThXIyddo-dlemlMGULw3Scriup4hlCkNsebmd4oIYZ5ddPWIQahyphenhyphen45AqUc0ooIhjZmYLYJVA7kJqQnhW9k7vMw0-qLznmlVxTGJSNKwSSvf7DBhSanSKMRE/s320/Corn%252Bsoy1_crop1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cropland adjoining patches of forest. All arable land <br />removes </span><span style="font-size: small;">carbon from the atmosphere at varying rates. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This quarrel reflects a new stage in the long-running
debate because it does not involve disputes about net energy use or even the
food-versus-fuel and land-use change issues raised over the past decade. It is
instead a disagreement about the core assumptions to use when examining the
question, particularly whether or not biofuels should be treated as inherently
carbon neutral. That's the assumption that the <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>emitted when
biofuels are burned does not count because it is biogenic, i.e., newly removed
from the atmosphere when feedstocks are grown. My work challenges this
assumption, showing that it only holds under certain conditions. De Kleine and
colleagues defend the assumption, arguing that it is true unconditionally.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">The disagreement is not merely academic. Because new
oil production technologies have expanded the supply of economically attractive
fossil-based liquid fuels, the business case for biofuels rests increasingly on
their value for mitigating CO</span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"> emissions. The stakes are high for both the
biofuels industry and for policies to address global warming. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">To dig into the details, start with our paper from last year, "<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4" target="_blank">Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use</a>." Using field data, we found that the rate at which CO</span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"> was removed from the air was enough to offset only 37% of the CO</span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"> emitted from biofuel use, rather than 100% as commonly assumed. Once production-related emissions are considered, we concluded that biofuels (corn ethanol and soy biodiesel) worsened CO</span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"> emissions rather than reduced them over the 2005-2013 period examined.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">The <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2032-y" target="_blank">commentary by De Kleine and colleagues</a> walks
readers through reasoning that defends the proposition that biofuels are, by
definition, fully carbon neutral based on how carbon cycles through the global
ecosystem. They say that our carbon balance analysis has inconsistencies and fails
to consider economic effects. They also state that our method is not robust
because it uses a term that is not pertinent for measuring the direct CO</span><span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> impact of biofuels and depends on the time period chosen for analysis. De
Kleine and colleagues conclude that our results are unfounded and that their
examination of our data and assumptions falsifies the approach we used. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9" target="_blank">In response</a>, I explain the mistakes in the logic used
by De Kleine and colleagues, as well as by the majority of biofuel researchers
and government officials who apply lifecycle analysis for policy. They assume
that biogenic carbon flows are always in balance over a biomass product's lifecycle; in other words, that flows of <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>between the atmosphere and biosphere
(which includes crop and forest lands as well as all other ecosystems) always even
out. They therefore believe that lifecycle analysis, which treats carbon flows
as being steady (not varying over time) is suitable for evaluating biofuels. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">In
reality, however, carbon flows are dynamic (vary over time). The atmosphere and
biosphere are not in balance because mankind is consuming ever more biogenic
carbon for food and other economic uses. It is therefore necessary to examine the
dynamics of biofuel use and determine the extent to which biogenic <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>emissions are balanced by <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>uptake on a case-by-case basis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">My response invites readers to visualize how the rate at
which <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>is removed from the atmosphere by farmland changed as U.S.
biofuel production ramped up over the years. One can compare that change in
biomass carbon uptake to the fact that biofuel use does not appreciably change
the rate at which <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>is emitted from motor vehicles. This thought
experiment underscores the need to look at how carbon flows change through
time, i.e., to analyze the dynamics of the situation, as we did in our 2016
paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">To put the debate in perspective, I explain why it is
so appealing to idealize biofuels as part of a circular economy in which inputs
always balance outputs. But the world is far from that ideal state and so
cannot be analyzed correctly using methods which assume that carbon flows are
already in balance. Moreover, transitioning from today's unsteady (and unsustainable)
state to one where <span lang="EN" style="line-height: 22px;">CO</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> </span>levels are no longer rising is itself a
dynamic process. Lifecycle logic breaks down in the real world and so does the
assumption that biofuels are inherently carbon neutral. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN" style="line-height: 150%;">Readers are invited to judge for themselves which view they find
to be more convincing. <span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<b><span style="font-size: 13.0pt;">References<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; tab-stops: .25in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
DeCicco,
J.M., D.Y. Liu, J. Heo, R. Krishnan, A. Kurthen and L. Wang. 2016. Carbon
balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use. <i>Climatic Change</i> 138(3):
667-80.<br />
<a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4"><span style="color: blue;">http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1764-4</span></a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; tab-stops: .25in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
De
Kleine R., T.J. Wallington, J.E. Anderson and H.C. Kim. 2017. Commentary on
"Carbon balance effects of U.S. biofuel production and use" by
DeCicco et al. (2016). <i>Climatic Change,</i> published online 16 Aug
2017. <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2032-y"><span style="color: blue;">http://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2032-y</span></a></span> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; tab-stops: .25in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
DeCicco,
J.M. 2017. Author's response to commentary on "Carbon balance effects of
U.S. biofuel production and use." <i>Climatic Change,</i> published online 16 Aug
2017. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9"><span style="color: blue;">http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2026-9</span></a> <o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-59993002685987163432017-07-27T21:18:00.001-07:002022-01-31T09:15:19.036-08:00Biofuel Research vs. Mandates: House Science Committee Hearing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek19PKXMZHw-h02LgbF_WAUNOHzCPP_TMLh04Waeq6JtjPmiB1UBaGQPLsvFQ95N-bJtsup34VCUwUrgUOv-ed-wXWnF567akO9SVmehK53lSAIMSuEIuw8Do-WwhIw3SuSaIohr3kMg/s1600/HouseSci-panel2-25Jul2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="1242" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjek19PKXMZHw-h02LgbF_WAUNOHzCPP_TMLh04Waeq6JtjPmiB1UBaGQPLsvFQ95N-bJtsup34VCUwUrgUOv-ed-wXWnF567akO9SVmehK53lSAIMSuEIuw8Do-WwhIw3SuSaIohr3kMg/s400/HouseSci-panel2-25Jul2017.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><i style="font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">John DeCicco speaking before </i></span><i style="color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">the U.S. House of Representatives </i><i style="color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Committee on Science, Space and Technology, where the </span></i><i style="color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">Subcommittees on the </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><i style="font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">Environment and on Energy </i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 13.86px;"><span style="color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">held a </span><a href="https://science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/joint-subcommittee-environment-and-subcommittee-energy-hearing-examining" target="_blank">joint hearing</a><span style="font-weight: normal;"> entitled </span></i></span></span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">"</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">Examining Advancements in Biofuels: Balancing Federal Research and Market Innovation</i><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">" </i><i style="color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">on Tuesday, July 25, 2017. </i><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;">What follows is the statement delivered at the hearing. </i></h3>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a2a; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.86px; font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">I wish to thank the chairs, ranking members and other members of the
Committee and Subcommittees for the opportunity to testify. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">The question being
addressed today, that of the right balance between fundamental scientific
research and government intervention in the marketplace, is crucially
important. The focus on biofuels is telling because it involves so many aspects
of the question. Indeed, federal biofuels policy provides a morality tale of
how things go wrong when the right balance is not maintained. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Before delving into the
problems, however, I want to emphasize the importance of maintaining a robust
federal investment in research across all fields of study. Funding for science
is crucial to maintain American leadership and foster the innovation that leads
to high-quality job growth. Federal support for university research is
especially crucial for training a new generation of Americans who can fill
those jobs. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">To summarize my written
testimony, here are the key points: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: .25in .5in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%;">1.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Protecting the climate from a
worsening disruption due to excess CO<sub>2</sub> in the atmosphere is now a
top challenge for energy research and policy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: .25in .5in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%;">2.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">But, the choice of what technologies
to deploy must be left to the marketplace, to industries and entrepreneurs who
take risks with private money rather than rely on public funds. Policies to
address non-market concerns such as CO<sub>2</sub> should therefore be
technology neutral and well informed by independent science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: .25in .5in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%;">3.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Moreover, the climate challenge
should not be an excuse to pick winners through demonstration and deployment
programs, subsidies and technology mandates. Federal resources are best
leveraged through fundamental R&D and technology-neutral regulation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: .25in .5in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Unfortunately, federal biofuels
policy has overstepped these bounds. The result is not only wasted tax dollars,
but excess costs for consumers and harm to the environment. Biofuels are making
CO<sub>2</sub> emissions worse and the Renewable Fuel Standard has been
damaging in that regard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: .25in .5in right 6.5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="line-height: 150%;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">Finally, it is time to face up to the
fact that the federal push for advanced biofuels has failed. DOE and other
agencies have supported bioenergy research, demonstration and deployment for
many decades and with billions of dollars. None of the promised cellulosic
fuels have become commercially viable, even with subsidies amplified by
mandates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">In short, it's time to go back to basics on these issues, to revisit
biofuel policies that the science and economics now show to have been ill
premised.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">I realize that my work
contradicts longstanding assumptions about biofuels. Twenty years ago, I accepted
the notion that biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel were inherently carbon
neutral, meaning that the CO<sub>2</sub> emitted when they are burned does not
count because it is taken from the air when crops grow. In reality, however,
all CO<sub>2</sub> emissions increase the amount of CO<sub>2</sub> in the
atmosphere regardless of where the carbon came from. The correct question is
whether feedstock production speeds up how quickly CO<sub>2</sub> is removed
from the air. That doesn't happen when productive land is used for biofuels
instead of food or forests that sequester carbon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Last year we published
research to evaluate what actually happened as the RFS ramped up. We found that
ethanol and biodiesel are not carbon neutral and their use provided no
significant direct CO<sub>2</sub> reduction. Once indirect impacts are
considered, it turns out that biofuels have caused higher CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions than petroleum fuels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">We do need to address
emissions from motor fuel use along with those from the power plants and other
sources. The best ways to do that are improving vehicle efficiency, controlling
emissions during oil production and offsetting tailpipe CO<sub>2</sub> through
reforestation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_gjdgxs"></a><span style="line-height: 150%;">If
biofuels policy were restricted to basic R&D, we would learn some things
and help students build science and technology skills. Those are worthwhile
outcomes even if the research does not yield successful products. Research is
risky by nature; not all of it bears fruit and that's why the portfolio should
be diverse. University research is broadly beneficial in that regard. In contrast
to when federal funds are used for subsidies and demonstrations, they go a long
way when shared with many schools to support students and young scientists.</span></div>
Thank you again, and I'll look forward to your questions.<br />
<br />
<i><span style="color: #0b5394;">For the written testimony, see: </span></i><br />
<br />
DeCicco, J.M. 2017. Testimony on Advancements in Biofuels: Balancing Federal Research and Market Innovation. Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Subcommittee on Environment and Subcommittee on Energy. July 25. [<a href="https://goo.gl/oGycmo" target="_blank">PDF</a>]<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<i>Link to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBOpr6N-3a4" target="_blank"><b>video of the hearing</b></a>.</i><br />
<br /></div>
John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-81881555524043565602017-03-21T08:00:00.000-07:002021-01-11T14:17:23.934-08:00Deceptive jobs rhetoric and auto regulation Last week, President Trump worked long-time big-business lobbying scripts about "job-killing regulations" into his populist speech here in Michigan. The setting was the Willow Run facility in Ypsilanti and the props included a crowd of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors auto workers bussed in by the former Big Three to cheer for the Donald.<br />
<br />
In reality, environmental regulations do not kill jobs. Read a rebuttal to the speech in my article on the "<a href="http://e360.yale.edu/features/trump-fuel-economy-cafe-standards-decicco" target="_blank">The ‘Job-Killing’ Fiction Behind Trump’s Retreat on Fuel Economy Standards</a>" at Yale's e360 online magazine.John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255676013538748260.post-88667469142070434362017-03-03T09:55:00.000-08:002017-03-28T07:59:52.358-07:00Clean fuels and climate leadership. The past few days found me at this year's <a href="http://www.climateleadershipconference.org/" target="_blank">Climate Leadership Conference</a> in Chicago, where I moderated a panel session entitled "Employing The Next Generation of Clean Fuels." This annual event brings together a diverse set of private companies who are pursuing strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with partners in nonprofit and government sectors.<br />
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The clean fuels panel was framed around the fact that transportation is now the nation's highest emitting sector in terms of greenhouse gases. It addressed how adopting alternative fuels or expanded electrification can reduce the GHG emissions stemming from personal and business travel. The other panelists were Rebecca Boudreaux of Oberon Fuels, a company that produces dimethyl ether (<a href="http://oberonfuels.com/about-dme/dme-basics/" target="_blank">DME</a>); Jon Coleman of Ford Motor Company; Angela Foster-Rice of United Airlines; and Ed Harte of Southern California Gas.<br />
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Most panelists focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with the particular fuel options they are pursuing. Both natural gas and DME are being targeted to replace petroleum-based diesel fuel in commercial vehicles. Airlines such as United have been testing biofuels, which have a significant role in the industry's international plan to avoid further growth in GHG emissions from air travel after the year 2020. As a manufacturer of vehicles for utilizing all of the major alternative fuels, Ford highlighted the need to carefully analyze the many factors that influence whether and to what extent a given alternative fuel might be adopted.<br />
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Not surprisingly, I sounded a note of caution about clean fuels and climate. <br />
<a name='more'></a>What follows are my prepared remarks for the panel: <br />
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In terms of my own points to raise for our discussion, the first is that we need to clarify what is meant by a clean fuel from a climate perspective. Because carbon itself is an energy carrier, not just a waste product, the science is very different for climate mitigation than it is for traditional air pollution control.<br />
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It is common to equate clean fuel with alternative fuel, meaning a transportation fuel not derived from petroleum. However, petroleum fuels can now be burned very cleanly as far as criteria pollution is concerned. Low-sulfur gasoline with advanced catalytic converters enables vanishingly small levels of tailpipe emissions as seen in super-ultra-low emission vehicles, for example. Fuels with simpler molecules, such as methane or dimethyl ether, make it easier to achieve ultra-low emissions than complex hydrocarbon mixtures, especially in diesel engines. Nevertheless, criteria emissions no longer provide a strong reason for a major fuel transition.<br />
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Moreover, given the truly disruptive technology of fracking, the policy rationale to replace petroleum for economic or energy security reasons is also greatly diminished. That means that climate protection is the most important rationale going forward.<br />
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Now, plug-in electrification zeros out vehicle emissions, and so electric vehicles are inherently clean for both CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> and conventional air pollutants. And that brings me to this next point. For climate, it comes down to this: does the fuel carry carbon to the vehicle or not? All practical combustion fuels are carbon based and so emit CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> when burned, and there's no practical way to scrub CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> from a tailpipe or jet exhaust. So as long as we're using liquid fuels, carbon control requires counterbalancing tailpipe emissions by speeding up the rate at which CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> is removed from the atmosphere somewhere else.<br />
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There is no significant benefit to downstream substitution of one chemically carbon-based fuel for another. Rather, it's a matter of carbon dioxide removal, or so-called "negative emissions," in some upstream location outside the transportation sector.<br />
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This insight is crucial for understanding why biofuels have become so controversial. As far as climate is concerned, biofuels have no benefit when they are burned. Any potential benefit can only happen through additional carbon uptake somewhere upstream. And a key word here is "additional." Diverting existing biomass harvests, whether from forests or cropland, does not speed up how quickly carbon is removed from the atmosphere, and so offers no potential climate benefit no matter how efficient the biofuel production process might be.<br />
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Of course, if the fuel is literally carbon free, such as electricity or hydrogen, then the control problem is entirely upstream. Everyone gets that and indeed, shifting the carbon control upstream is part of the appeal.<br />
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To sum up, for transportation fuels and CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>, there are really just two types of mitigation options: reduce and remove. One can reduce liquid fuel demand by driving less and flying less, improving fuel economy or substituting electricity or hydrogen. The other option is to remove CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> from the air somewhere else. That means investing in atmospheric carbon dioxide removal through terrestrial carbon management, and the all the rules governing carbon offsets come into play. The CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> removal must be real, additional, verifiable, permanent and adjusted for leakage. And so for transportation and climate, offsets are not just a way to buy time or control costs. Because the need for liquid fuels isn't going to go away anytime soon, CO<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> removal is real missing link in climate strategy and is just as fundamental as any clean tech option.<br />
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John DeCiccohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02251316545335550634noreply@blogger.com0