Senate Climate Crisis Committee Report Supports Biofuels in New Report

August 27, 2020

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by Meghan Sapp (Biofuels Digest) ... The new report – which comes after dozens of hearings, meetings, and input from experts, labor unions, mayors, environmental justice leaders, and native communities, among others – details how bold climate action from Congress can create millions of new jobs, grow the American economy, and improve people’s lives across the country.

The Committee’s report calls on Congress to:

 Reduce U.S. emissions rapidly to achieve 100 percent global net-zero emissions no later than 2050;
 Stimulate economic growth by increasing federal spending on climate action to at least 2 percent of GDP annually — and ensure that at least 40 percent of the benefits from these investments help communities of color and low-income, deindustrialized, and disadvantaged communities; and
 Create at least 10 million new jobs.

Biofuels, especially advanced biofuels coupled with BECCS, are highlighted as a way to address commissions but the impacts of climate change on crops is noted as a concern. READ MORE

Senate Democrats’ Climate Committee Releases New Report On Climate Action, Plan To Build Clean Economy For American People (Senate Democrats)

U.S. Flood Strategy Shifts to ‘Unavoidable’ Relocation of Entire Neighborhoods: Using tax dollars to move whole communities out of flood zones, an idea long dismissed as radical, is swiftly becoming policy, marking a new and more disruptive phase of climate change. (New York Times)

RFA Welcomes Inclusion of Renewable Fuels in Senate Democrats’ Climate Plan (Renewable Fuels Association)

Senate Democrats’ Climate Plan Includes Renewable Fuels (Energy.AgWired.com)

Excerpts from Senate Democrats: It is time to decarbonize everything possible: our cars, our homes, our public transportation, and our office buildings. In the near term, we must continue to significantly grow solar and wind energy, energy storage, and electric vehicles while conducting more research into new technologies, advanced biofuels, and smaller and safer nuclear power.

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Switching fuels for high-temperature heat
Many industrial processes require high-temperature heat, which is not suited for replacement by electrification.176 For example, making cement requires temperatures of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and melting iron ore to produce steel requires temperatures of 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit.177 One way to address these emissions is the use of low- and zero-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen, ammonia, and biofuels.

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Promising negative emission technologies include: afforestation projects and other natural solutions; direct air capture (pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air); and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which pairs
carbon capture technologies with biofuels.185 All of these technologies require more research and development to deploy them at the scale needed, but we likely need to pursue all options to achieve a net-zero economy.

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Developing cleaner liquid fuels

Alternative liquid fuels could play a significant role in reducing the carbon intensity of the U.S. transportation system by transitioning it away from oil dependency. This is particularly applicable for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, including trucks, farming and mining vehicles that are more challenging to electrify, and for specific regions of the country. It is also true for transportation modes like aviation, rail, some freight trucking, and marine shipping,
where viable alternatives to liquid fuel are not yet available. It will also be important for the United States’ existing fleet of internal combustion engine vehicles. Advanced and cellulosic biofuels, coupled with carbon capture and storage technologies, have the potential to serve as alternatives to fossil fuels if we continue investing in their development.

One of the big drivers of biofuels in the United States has been tax subsidies. In December 2019, Congress retroactively extended the biodiesel tax credit for years 2017-2022 and the second generation biofuels tax credit for years 2017-2020. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the value of the biodiesel tax credit at $15 billion and the second-generation biofuels tax credit at $43 million.

Currently, the primary driver of alternatives fuels in the United States is the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The RFS creates a mandate for volumes of renewable fuels that refiners and blenders must use in transportation fuels, and sets up a trading system so those volumes can be used most efficiently. If implemented properly, the RFS gives farmers revenue stability, allowing U.S. agriculture to play an important role in reducing U.S. oil usage and further supporting rural economies.

Although biodiesel use has expanded, the advanced biofuels segment has not otherwise developed as rapidly as the authors of the RFS envisioned. This is at least in part because the Trump administration continues to lower biofuel volumes and waive blending requirements under the RFS, jeopardizing the market stability that the RFS was intended to create. New policy tools may be needed to encourage growth of new advanced fuels beyond just corn starch ethanol and soybean biodiesel.

A Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) may also be an effective policy to reduce the carbon intensity of the fuel supply. An LCFS sets a maximum carbon intensity level for fuels that must be met each year, with the goal of increasing the range of commercially available low-carbon and renewable fuel alternatives.267

California was the first state in the country to implement an LCFS. The California system regulates refineries and distributors and allows emissions trading to increase economic efficiency. To date, California’s LCFS has helped avoid 38 million tons of carbon pollution and the use of 13.7 billion gallons of gasoline. The California LCFS was the model for a similar program in British Columbia, and Oregon recently followed California’s lead and adopted an LCFS of its own. In 2010, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and the District of Columbia formed the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI). TCI has developed a draft memorandum to create a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels and invest revenues to achieve additional emission reduction benefits. The
proposal is currently out for public comment, and TCI hopes to finalize it by September 2020.

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ADVANCED LIQUID FUELS. One of the biggest challenges to reducing emissions from aviation is the continued
reliance, at least for commercial aviation and freight, on liquid fuels. The weight-to-energy ratio of batteries
will need to come down significantly before electric aviation becomes a viable alternative for commercial flights.

However, some smaller airlines are investing in electric air fleets for shorter trips, including Cape Air in Massachusetts.284 Since the aviation sector will likely depend on liquid fuels in the near term, we must develop the next generation of cleaner fuels as quickly as possible. Advances are already being made in advanced and cellulosic biofuels. There have also been proposals to create a federal LCFS similar to the one in California for aviation fuels, to bring low-carbon fuels to market. Another potential opportunity is to make synthetic jet fuel from carbon removed from the air through direct air capture.

Investments in research, development, and deployment of new technologies will help bring technologies to market and achieve economies of scale. In 2012, President Obama created the Navy Biofuel Initiative under the Defense Production Act (DPA) to speed the development of “drop in” biofuel substitutes for diesel and jet fuel.”285 This initiative used Title III of the DPA to procure $510 million of biofuels for the Navy. As a result, in 2016 the Navy launched its “Great Green Fleet” using a biodiesel petroleum blend, utilizing biofuels it bought for less than the cost of gasoline.286

Additional federal R&D spending could aid the development of usable batteries and advanced fuels for aviation.

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America’s farmers already have many of the tools they need to improve productivity, increase resilience to extreme events, and generate new income. Advanced biofuels and biomaterials are being developed as alternatives to synthetic plastics, building on the opportunity demonstrated by ethanol to continue lessening our dependence on fossil fuels. Certain farming and ranching practices can also draw significant carbon from the atmosphere, and when this service is assessed a value, it can mean new income for farmers and ranchers. The data show that these soil-enhancing practices can also make farms more productive and resilient to flood and droughts. Expanding methane capture, the use of tailored livestock feed mixes, and precision farming aided by satellites, broadband data, and sensors can substantially reduce both emissions and production costs from our working lands.

These advancements and others, when used at scale, can make farms more profitable while helping fight climate change.

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The federal government can and should facilitate this transition by promoting stable markets, providing incentives and financial support to implement best practices, and delivering accessible, science-based decision-making tools. Specifically, Congress should:

Expand existing USDA agricultural conservation programs and include improved soil health and soil carbon storage incentives.
Invest in technical assistance and expand apprenticeship programs to support farmers and ranchers as they adopt and expand regenerative practices.
Facilitate participation in carbon markets by supporting research and development of accurate, low-cost, readily scalable methods to measure soil carbon.
Provide funding for research, development, and deployment of advanced biofuels and bio-based products from waste products and non-food crops.
Provide technical assistance and financial incentives to scale the use of methane digesters.
Fund grants, incentives, and tax credits to assist with the costs of building on-farm clean power generation and reduce the costs and technical barriers of connecting to the grid.
Invest in and maintain state-of-the-art universal rural connectivity, including rural broadband.

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Growing the bio-based economy can reduce emissions and bolster rural economies

The federal government has invested in research and development of these products for years, but regulatory uncertainty and market volatility create barriers to private sector investment in advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol.590 Increased federal funding for RD&D of advanced biofuels and bio-based products from waste products and non-food crops could significantly accelerate the adoption of advanced biofuels and bioproducts in American commerce, thereby lowering emissions in the transportation, electric, and industrial sectors.

We need a stable framework that accounts for the climate and ecosystem benefits of these fossil fuel alternatives—and passes this value on to farmers and advanced biofuel producers. This would promote the sustained investment necessary to develop the next generation of these products and accelerate their use by consumers and industry. But as this sector grows, we must focus on increasing productivity on each parcel of land, while protecting high-worth
conservation areas.

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There is also great potential in transitioning more farm technology and processes to systems fueled with clean electricity or to systems that pair electric power with biofuel-fueled vehicles and machinery.

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Energy production from biomass includes biodiesel, energy crops, landfill gas and biogas, municipal solid waste, algae, and wood waste. U.S. investments in bioenergy R&D should prioritize advancing ways to efficiently produce bioenergy from agricultural, municipal, or industrial waste and development of renewable hydrocarbon biofuels. These forms of
bioenergy offer particular promise for decreasing emissions in harder-to-shift sectors. It is also important that biofuels be produced sustainably. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Bioenergy Innovation has identified three overarching research targets:

(1) sustainable biomass feedstock crops using plant genomics;

(2) advanced processes to convert plants into specialty biofuels; and

(3) valuable bioproducts, such as chemical feedstocks made from lignin residue from bioprocessing.1010

In 2019, ARPA-E announced funding to develop technologies to quantify feedstock-related emissions at the field level.1011 DOE also announced R&D funding for projects related to improving algae yield, enhancing conversion efficiency, lowering costs of smaller wet waste systems, and using systems research to improve performance and lower costs of hydrocarbon biofuels.1012 Renewable hydrocarbon biofuels, or ‘drop-in’ fuels, present opportunities to replace petroleum in existing pipelines, refineries, and engines; this field particularly merits increased R&D funding.

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Solutions are emerging for harder-to-shift sectors, but more work is needed

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Aviation, freight, and shipping are additional areas for further innovation. Promising propulsion for planes includes renewable drop-in fuels, hydrogen fuel cells, and batteryelectric engines. Biofuels can be made from industrial process waste gases, reusing carbon.

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A lignin and ethanol blend and cooking oil are two of the biofuels in R&D for use in shipping. Hydrogen and ammonia are considered promising alternatives, but RD&D is needed to advance green production and address the special storage considerations for these fuels. One manufacturer plans to deliver its first ammonia engine in 2024. Efficiency is another aspect of emissions-reducing RD&D in shipping, and ranges from rotor sails, to paints that improve glide, and “flapping foil” propellers.

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The Department of Defense (DoD) has a sizable budget for energy-related RD&D and has funded projects related to solar PV materials, battery storage, fuel cells, biofuels, and microgrids.

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Some references:

285 Anthony Andrews et al., The Navy Biofuel Initiative Under the Defense Production Act, Congressional Research Services, 22 June 2012. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42568.pdf

286 Jim Lane, “Navy to launch Great Green Fleet with 77 million gallon buy of costcompetitive, non-food advanced biofuels blends,” BiofuelsDigest, 7 Jan. 2016. http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2016/01/07/ navy-to-launch-great-green-fleet-with-77-million-gallon-buy-of-cost-competitive-nonfood-advanced-biofuels/

287 IPCC, Aviation and the Global Atmosphere, 1999. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/aviation-andthe-global-atmosphere-2/?idp=4

590 International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Advanced Biofuels: What holds them Back? Nov. 2019. https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Nov/IRENA_Advanced-biofuels_2019.pdf

Excerpt from Renewable Fuels Association: “We look forward to speaking with the Committee about the value and contributions of grain-based ethanol under existing LCFS programs in California, Oregon, and British Columbia,” RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper said. “Grain-based ethanol has already reduced transportation-related GHG emissions by 24 million metric tons in California, more than any other low-carbon fuel since the program began in 2011.”

Cooper said the LCFS model is spreading to other states and regions. “We are proud to be part of a broad coalition of stakeholders who recently developed a framework and set of guiding principles for a potential Midwest LCFS program. RFA served on the steering committee for the Midwest LCFS coalition, and we prioritized the inclusion of approaches that would reward farmers for reducing the carbon intensity of agricultural practices; we were happy to see the Committee recommend including incentives for lower-carbon farming practices.”

In particular, the senate report also endorses the value of carbon sequestration, noting that it can help sustainable farmers survive and thrive, and cites the important growth of bio-based products as smarter and healthier alternatives to those derived from fossil fuels – using corn ethanol as a prime example. READ MORE