A key component of future federal Climate Change policy will be incorporation of renewable fuels into the transportation fuel mix, which currently comprises over 28% of U.S. energy consumption. Even renewable energy sources like biofuels use fossil fuel energy throughout their life cycle, so life cycle assessment is increasingly becoming an essential tool for understanding the carbon intensity of transportation fuels.

California has approved a plan to reduce the life cycle carbon intensity of transportation fuel by 10% by 2020. The purpose of the regulation is to incentivize the development of lower carbon fuel for California’s transportation system. Any fuel with 10% less carbon than conventional transportation fuel can generate credits, which must be purchased by fuel producers that are non-compliant with the LCFS. We anticipate that a similar framework will be adopted at the national level.  

Since Ecoshift is familiar with the various design improvements in the acquisition and processing of fuels, and follows the ISO 14040 life cycle analysis guidelines, we can help you identify places to improve the physical pathway used to produce your biofuel. Once implemented with your fuel, we can then apply to CARB for a new pathway.

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