Drop-in biofuels offer strategies for meeting California’s 2030 climate mandate

Abstract

In 2015, California established a mandate that requires on-road greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be reduced by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. We explore the feasibility of meeting this goal by largescale commercialization of drop-in biofuels. Drop-in biofuels, although not clearly defined, are a class of fuels that can be produced from biomass and blended with either crude oil or finished fuels without requiring equipment retrofits. This article focuses on thermochemical routes at or near commercialization. We provide a bottom-up, spatially explicit cost analysis to evaluate whether California can meet its 2030 GHG reduction target with drop-in fuels alone. A takeaway from our analysis is that drop-in fuels, if their performance is consistent with small-scale and simulated results, can be viable low-carbon substitutes for gasoline and diesel. We find that California can meet, and even exceed, its 2030 GHG emissions target for on-road vehicles with drop-in biofuels alone, but this requires use of biomass resources located outside the state. Meeting the 40% reduction target in a cost-effective manner requires pyrolysis of herbaceous agricultural residues (96% of total fuel output) and the conversion of woody residues via methanol-to-gasoline (4%). This scale of production would require 58 million metric tons of biomass feedstock, or 20% of total available biomass residues in the United States. For comparison, California is responsible for 11% of transportation-related petroleum consumption in the US. The approximately 5 billion gallons (19 billion liters) per year of drop-in fuel would displace 30% of gasoline and 60% of diesel demand in California. If electricity offset credits are eliminated, the target can be met with a similar scale of production, but methanol-to-gasoline becomes the dominant route (>99%), biomass requirements increase by 33%, and average production costs increase by 20%. Following this policy pathway would increase national biofuel production by 30% relative to 2015 production levels.

Location-Routing Optimization for Two-Echelon Cold Chain Logistics of Front Warehouses Based on a Hybrid Ant Colony Algorithm

“…In the pursuit of low-carbon logistics, in addition to direct carbon emission factors, biofuels and transportation technologies are crucial for emission reduction [40,41]. Additionally, electric vehicles (EVs) are widely considered as they can reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and contribute to the low-carbon circular economy [42,43].…”

Co-Processing Agricultural Residues and Wet Organic Waste Can Produce Lower-Cost Carbon-Negative Fuels and Bioplastics

“…Biological carbon sources have three critical roles to play in reaching global climate change mitigation goals: providing energy-dense fuels for difficult-to-electrify transportation modes, enabling net carbon-negative technologies at lower costs than what is achievable with direct air capture, and replacing petrochemicals with bio-based alternatives. , However, the bioeconomy has fallen short of achieving these goals to date. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a U.S. cellulosic fuel production target of 16 billion gallons by 2022, but this goal was revised to just 0.63 billion gallons in the latest final volume requirements. , This shortfall stems from a variety of factors, including blend wall limitations for ethanol, fluctuating crude oil prices, and challenging economics for the conversion of lignocellulosic material to advanced liquid fuels. , The narrow aim of producing a single liquid biofuel as cheaply as possible overlooks the range of services biorefineries can provide. Commercial-scale cellulosic biorefineries have the potential to play a multifaceted role in the future carbon economy by serving as both fuel production and waste treatment infrastructure, ultimately producing multiple fuel and non-fuel products.…”

“…3 , 4 This shortfall stems from a variety of factors, including blend wall limitations for ethanol, fluctuating crude oil prices, and challenging economics for the conversion of lignocellulosic material to advanced liquid fuels. 5 , 6 The narrow aim of producing a single liquid biofuel as cheaply as possible overlooks the range of services biorefineries can provide. Commercial-scale cellulosic biorefineries have the potential to play a multifaceted role in the future carbon economy by serving as both fuel production and waste treatment infrastructure, ultimately producing multiple fuel and non-fuel products.…”

Cell Wall Compositions of Sorghum bicolor Leaves and Roots Remain Relatively Constant Under Drought Conditions

“…Lignocellulosic bioenergy crops have the advantage of being renewable energy resources with reduced carbon emissions compared to petroleum-based fuel. Recent studies have demonstrated that the use of lignocellulosic biofuels has the potential to sequester carbon from the atmosphere by increasing soil organic carbon, which may help mitigate increased carbon release to the atmosphere ( Vanholme et al, 2013 ; Taptich et al, 2018 ; Wu et al, 2018 ). Despite these advantages, lignocellulosic biofuels have several requirements to meet before they can be considered competitive with petroleum-based fuels.…”