Even with new technology and a robust clean cars program that is improving fuel efficiencies, California drivers use so much gas that we import more than half of the fuel we use. At the price of $100 per barrel, California is spending $33 billion annually, nearly $90 million each day, on these imports. Instead of buying dirty energy, this money could be invested domestically to develop cleaner fuels that create jobs and help break our oil addiction.
Not only does our reliance on this energy hit us in the wallet, it threatens our health and environment. More than 90 percent of Californians live in areas that fail to meet federal air quality standards. Transportation is a leading source of air pollution that contributes to cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, premature death and asthma, a condition that is increasing in California and nationally claims the lives of 4,000 people each year and results in 1.8 million emergency room visits.
Study after study confirms the high cost of our oil addiction. Despite the facts, those who prefer the status quo claim we cannot afford to adopt policies that promote innovation and help secure our future.
California recognizes that growing our economy, protecting our air quality and rewarding innovation can go hand in hand. In 2007, the state passed the world’s first Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which mandates a 10 percent reduction in the carbon content of transportation fuels by 2020. The policy measures emissions in every step of fuel production, delivery and use. It rewards companies that extract, process and deliver fuels more efficiently and with less environmental impact.
California’s leadership is already encouraging development of cleaner biofuels and generating economic activity in the process. Since the standard was passed, more than 100 companies have asked California’s Air Resources Board to certify their products’ carbon content in hopes of competing to meet the new standard.
Financial backing
Many of these applicants have found ways to produce fuels that reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants. They have earned the backing of venture capitalists and Fortune 500 companies. In fact, venture capitalists invested at least $2.4 billion in North American companies – many of which are based in California – from 2007 through the second quarter of 2011.
Two local businesses that are reaping rewards for their innovative fuels are Ceres Biofuels in Thousand Oaks, which has raised $300 million in funding, and Cool Planet Biofuels in Camarillo.
Funded in part by Google, Cool Planet is demonstrating that advanced fuels can have the same operational characteristics as traditional ones. The company is fleet testing its fuels as direct substitutes for gasoline, using waste products such as wood chips and corn husks as feedstock. The byproducts from the production process can be used to replace coal in power plants, too, making this a very low-carbon fuel.
Out-of-state refiners and big ethanol interests have filed lawsuits that aim to repeal the California’s fuel standard. Rather than focusing their energy and resources on innovation, these businesses are standing in the way of the dozens of companies in California and around the world that are producing low-carbon fuels and are poised to help break the state’s dependence on dirty energy.
Erica Morehouse is an attorney for Environmental Defense Fund’s California Climate Initiative in Sacramento. Alexander Gershenson is a principal of EcoShift Consulting in Santa Cruz, which advises advanced biofuel companies.
