Monday, January 7, 2013

LCFS: some early history of the concept

The idea of regulating transportation fuels through lifecycle analysis (LCA) has now become widely accepted; it is the basis for California's low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) as well as provisions of the renewable fuel standard (RFS) and other policies. Although my recent work criticizes the use of LCA to define policy, this disapproval reflects a major change of perspective from 15-20 years ago. Back then I was among the first to propose that LCA -- or "full fuel cycle" (FFC) analysis as we termed it -- would be a great way to regulate motor fuels in terms of GHG emissions.