The production of biomass-based diesel, a category that includes motor and aviation fuel, reached 4 billion gallons in 2023 — a 1-billion-gallon gain from the previous year, said the Clean Fuels Alliance America on Monday. “The clean fuels industry achieved what EPA said could not be done – namely continued growth of advanced biodiesel, renewable diesel, SAF [sustainable aviation fuel], and heating oil from sustainably sourced feedstocks,” said Kurt Kovarik, vice president of the trade group.
The Renewable Fuel Standard set a target of using 2.82 billion gallon of biomass-based diesel to power motor vehicles in 2023, 3.04 billion gallons this year, and 3.35 billion gallons in 2025. The Clean Fuels Alliance said it was “extremely disappointed” that the EPA failed to mandate a more rapid expansion of use of the fuel when it updated the RFS last year. Half of U.S. soybean oil produced during the 12 months ending last Sept. 30 was used in making biofuels.
Separately, agricultural economist Aaron Smith inclusion of biogas from dairy farms in California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) was “a convoluted solution with numerous drawbacks” for the goal of reducing agriculture’s methane emissions. Dairy biogas accounts for half of all natural gas used for transportation in the state. The California Air Resources Board has proposed amendments to the LCFS but would retain dairy biogas in the program until 2040 for gas used directly in transportation and until 2045 for biogas used to produce hydrogen for transportation, Smith wrote a blog post.