California aims to reduce transportation emissions 10% by 2020

Getting a jump on the rest of the world, the California Air Resources Board recently approved a landmark regulation designed to cut carbon emissions from California’s transportation fuels.  The Low Carbon Fuel Standard aims to reduce harmful emissions from California’s transportation fuels by 10% over the next 11 years.

How does it intend to do this?  Well, for one, having a new standard in place should boost the market for alternative-fuel vehicles.  That alone could eliminate around 16 million metric tons of emissions.  The new regulation is also expected to dramatically cut gasoline consumption (by around 20-25%) and of course encourage the development of low-carbon fuel sources for vehicles.  As reported by sustainablebusiness.com, fuel sources such as algae, post-recycled garbage, wood, straw, weeds, etc are all being considered.

The LA Times also reported, “The regulation requires producers, refiners and importers of gasoline and diesel to reduce the carbon footprint of their fuel by 10% over the next decade.”  With 40% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions being generated from the transportation section, it is good that measures such as these are being taken to lower these harmful emissions.

But I guess that means if you are planning to import gasoline to California, you’d better ensure it meets the new low-carbon fuel standards or start using an effective fuel additive to get it to conform to the new standards.

On a more immediate basis, one benefit of California’s new Low Carbon Fuel Standard is that it should create an estimated 3,000 new jobs.  With over 1.5 billion gallons of biofuels needed to sufficiently lower emissions (as per estimates from the California Air Resources Board) more than 25 new biofuel factories will need to be built.  So not only will workers be needed to build the factories but employees will be needed to run them and with the current condition of unemployment in California, new jobs are definitely good news.