Low carbon fuel standard (lcfs)
Low carbon fuels are those transportation fuels that use less carbon for its emission fuels. These are fuels that are less carbon intensive than the normal transportation fuels like diesel and gasoline that use a lot of carbon and thus emit a lot of this gas into the atmosphere. Low carbon fuels are mainly the alternative type of fuels like LPG and CNG that are also cleaner in nature. The main reason why this standard for low carbon fuels was intiatied was so that the overall carbon dioxide emission could be controlled in vehicles that uses these combustion engines. This will significantly reduce the overall greenhouse gas emissions and improve the overall life cycle.
California was the first state to introduce low carbon fuel standards in 2007, which came into effect in proper terms in January 2011. This led to similar standards being approved by British Columbia and the European Union in consecutive years. The United Kingdom is also looking to implement some of these low carbon fuel rules and even the United States is detailing some standards regarding the same, yet none have been approved as of now.
California’s way of low carbon fuel rules
The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger set into effect the low-carbon fuel standard (lcfs) of January 19, 2007. According to this, all oil distributors and refineries must ensure that the fuel they sell to the transportation market meets the reduced targets for greenhouse gas emissions. This means the fuel they sell and distribute must be less carbon intensive that will be measured in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent of grams in terms of the fuel sold.
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Reduced carbon emissions
These oil refineries have to make sure that they reduce the amount of carbon used in the fuel by at least 10 percent by the year 2020. This is related to all kinds of emissions used in the transportation industry and not just the tailpipe emissions. By doing this, the state wants to monitor the fuel’s life cycle and also ensure that the state uses less of gasoline and diesel and more of such low carbon fuels like natural gas.
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What are the rules for this standard
This low carbon fuel standard involves control and command regulation as well as emissions trading. By this, the providers can choose how they want to reduce the carbon emissions to the required target while ensuring that the consumer demand in the market is met. In this respect they will have to adopt market tactics like improving upstream production and the efficiency of the refineries, use less carbon ethanol in gasoline, or use carbon electrons from electric utilities to passengers who use electric vehicles, or else to sell hydrogen that is low in carbon for vehicles to use or any other way so as long as the standard is met.