Tag Archives: Biofuels

Benicia ALERT & VIDEO: Bay Area Refineries Proposing Biofuel & Hydrogen Production

Biofuels and hydrogen proposed at Bay Area refineries – may not be as green as they sound

The Richmond City Council held a study session in late October called “Refinery Transition Briefing.”  (Video below.)  Senior attorney Ann Alexander from Natural Resources Defense Council and staff researcher Dan Sakaguchi with Communities for a Better Environment examined Chevron’s recent announcement to convert at least a portion of their Richmond refinery to biofuel and hydrogen production.  They also discussed the biofuel conversion plans of neighboring refineries in Rodeo, Phillips 66, and Martinez, the already shuttered Marathon refinery.

The study session explained why biofuels and hydrogen may not be as green as they sound, especially when produced at large, aging refineries that are desperate to extend the life and profits of their facilities as the need for fossil fuels ramps down in California.

Why should Benicians care?  Three out of the five Bay Area refineries are in the process of converting to biofuel production and Valero’s corporate leadership out of San Antonio is on the record saying the company is “going all in on carbon capture projects and renewable diesel, a fuel produced from animal fats and waste products, such as used cooking oils.” (Houston Chronicle, May 26, 2021)

ALERT AND INVITATION…  There aren’t enough french fries and soybeans in the world to feed all of our large Bay Area refineries.  And in some cases, the production of hydrogen and biofuels can even increase greenhouse gas emissions.  Give this study session a listen to go beyond the greenwashing hype of the fossil fuel industry. 

VIDEO: Refinery Transition Briefing
Dan Sakaguchi, CBE, and Ann Alexander, NRDC
Richmond City Council, 26 Oct 2021

VIDEO GUIDE
(Thanks to Constance Beutel for snagging the Richmond video.)

  • 0:00      Dan Sakaguchi, Introduction
  • 1:10      Chevron’s Hydrogen Announcement, reading between the lines
  • 2:24      Hydrogen Basics – Grey, Blue and Green Hydrogen
  • 6:23      Back to Chevron’s Announcement – Grey Hydrogen
  • 9:27      Biofuel Basics
  • 10:27   Ann Alexander, Biofuels at Marathon Martinez & P66 Rodeo
  • 10:43   Driving forces
  • 12:20   Timeline
  • 14:16   Environmental benefit claims
  • 15:00   Environmental and community concerns
  • 18:35   Dan Sakaguchi – Chevron Corporation Biofuels Announcements
MORE…

Bay Area refineries taking a new path – going from processing crude oil to renewable energy

Refineries Renewed  – Phillips 66, Marathon move to renewable biofuels

East Bay Express, By Jean Tepperman, September 16, 2020
OIL CHANGE: Local residents stand tall in front of the Phillips 66 refinery, which will become the world’s biggest producer of renewable fuels by 2024. PHOTO BY GLENN HUMMEL

Residents of East Bay refinery communities, public officials and environmental organizations had mixed reactions to recent surprise announcements by two Bay Area oil refineries: Phillips 66 said its Rodeo refinery will stop processing petroleum and switch to producing biofuel—made from living plants. It will also close its Rodeo carbon-processing plant. Days later, Marathon announced it would close its Martinez refinery and consider using it to produce biofuel.

“It’s really historic to see 50 percent of the refineries in Contra Costa make a decision to go from processing crude oil to renewable energy,” said Supervisor John Gioia. “It moves us in the right direction, knowing it’s not where we want to end up.” He added that, since the converted refineries will probably employ fewer workers, the county’s big challenge will be “to assist workers to find replacement jobs with equal pay [and create] pre-apprenticeship programs to get local people into jobs.”

Rodeo resident Maureen Brennan said, “I’m 60 percent excited for the community about this new technology and 40 percent worried. I’m happy to have less pollution from the refinery. I’m just suspicious.” She noted that Phillips 66 hasn’t withdrawn permit applications for “two tar-sands-related projects.” Nancy Rieser, another refinery neighbor, was skeptical about the refinery’s mention of “used cooking oil” as a raw material. She said she feared that, instead, rainforests in Brazil and Paraguay would be cleared for “industrial soybean production” to supply the biofuel industry.

And Greg Karras, author of a recent report calling for gradual decommissioning of California refineries, said the move to biofuel is a “strategy to protect oil companies’ stranded assets.” State and federal support for this strategy diverts resources from the real solution: electrification of transportation.

Phillips 66 announced that, starting in 2024, the refinery will become the world’s biggest producer of “renewable diesel, renewable gasoline, and sustainable jet fuel,” reducing the use of fossil fuel. The company said the change will cut carbon dioxide emissions from the refinery by 50 percent, sulfur dioxide by 75 percent and reduce pollution in general. The plant will produce 50,000 barrels of biofuel a day, compared to its current output of 122,000 barrels a day of petroleum products.

In addition, the project’s website, Richmond Renewed, says it “will provide high-paying family-wage jobs with healthcare benefits. Crude oil refinery workers will have the opportunity to transition to produce renewable fuels. Construction jobs for refinery conversion will help the county recover from the COVID-induced recession.”

The Phillips 66 biofuel project—and the possible project at Marathon in Martinez—reflect an oil-industry trend that started before the current economic problems. Many California policies have been promoting a move from fossil-fuel transportation. And environmental activists have been winning battles against planned fossil-fuel expansion. “There’s a lot about this project that’s way less terrible” than previous proposals, said Karras. San Luis Obispo County recently nixed a Phillips 66 plan to bring crude oil by rail from Canada’s tar sands to its Santa Maria refinery. And for years community opponents have stalled two Rodeo refinery proposals they say are also about tar sands: construction of propane and butane storage tanks and expansion of tanker traffic.

For starters, refinery neighbors and environmental organizations are focusing on making sure the county won’t approve the new proposal without a thorough public study. “To understand the details—local pollution shifts, where the feedstock will come from, how many millions of acres could be needed for soy, palm trees, you name it—there must be a full-scale environmental review combined with a 180-degree shift away from their planned tar sands expansions,” said Wilder Zeiser of Stand.earth.

Just Transition

Many are also concerned about the loss of jobs. Mike Miller, president of United Steelworkers Local 326, which represents workers at Phillips 66, said the company told him they could probably handle the reduction in jobs through attrition—10 or 20 people typically retire every year, Miller said, and “there are a lot of older people at our facility.” He added that when the company tells the union something, “most of the time they tell us the truth.” He said the company also mentioned the possibility of transferring workers to other Phillips facilities.

Supervisor Gioia reported that in his conversations with Marathon about its possible conversion to biofuels, managers estimated that the new plant would employ fewer than half of the number soon to be laid off from its Martinez refinery.

The problem, Gioia said, is that “the new jobs in the green economy aren’t there yet.” Many communities whose economies depend on fossil fuel, he said, are looking to the example of the electric-bus manufacturing plant recently opened in L.A. County. “Contra Costa is ground zero” for figuring out how to make a just transition from fossil fuels, Gioia said.

U.S. Representative Mark DeSaulnier said in a statement, “Workers must be taken into consideration and supported through [this] process—including with proper training, advanced warning, and jobs worthy of their skills. I have already begun and will continue to bring together local stakeholders to ensure that a transition away from fossil fuels does not leave anybody behind.”

In his report, Karras calls on governments to require fossil-fuel producers to pay up-front into a fund to help communities recover from their economic and environmental impacts and to provide income support and retraining for laid-off workers. Noting the support for biofuels from state and federal government, he said, “The project being proposed is so heavily subsidized that there’s every justification for holding the company responsible for making the workers and the community whole.”

In addition to jobs, neighbors are concerned about leftover toxic pollutants. Crockett resident Rieser said Phillips has “tanks of toxins and old oil sludge on both sides of Route 80. How will these be dealt with? Abandoned?” In addition to converting the refinery, Phillips 66 says it will close the nearby carbon-treatment plant, leaving another toxic site. A requirement to clean up the pollution, she said, should be a condition of any permit the county may grant.

Clean Fuel?

Biofuel helps reduce the amount of climate-disrupting carbon dioxide produced each year because it’s made from living plants. The carbon dioxide they absorb when they grow balances that emitted when they’re burned. “It’s probably true that biofuel will be some of what we need” to transition from a fossil fuel transportation system, Karras said. That’s because biofuel can be substituted for petroleum in existing vehicles and distribution systems, although for use in airplane engines, it must be blended with at least the same amount of petroleum fuel.

But according to the nonprofit Biofuel Watch, biofuel is “misleading as a climate solution,” for several reasons. One is that producing biofuel still releases carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants. Phillips 66 says the new facility will be 15 percent solar-powered, implying that the other 85 percent of the power will come from burning some kind of fuel.

Hydrocracking, the process Phillips 66 says it will use to produce biofuel, requires large amounts of hydrogen. And the refinery’s process for producing the hydrogen also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, Karras said—along with health-harming pollutants.

In addition, burning biofuel in vehicles produces some of the same kinds of pollution as burning petroleum products, especially the “particulate matter” that causes the most harm to human health. A report from the National Institutes of Health evaluated research comparing the pollution from burning biofuel and petroleum. Results varied depending on the exact composition of the fuels, but in general the biofuels produced substantial amounts of particulate and other pollution, although less than petroleum. Low-income people of color are mostly likely to live near the refineries and freeways where those pollutants are concentrated.

A 2019 study compared two “pathways” for California to get off fossil fuel, one focusing on renewable fuels, the other on electrification of transportation. It estimated that the electrification pathway would reduce particulate pollution enough to avoid about 12,000 premature deaths a year. The renewable-fuels pathway would also avoid some premature deaths from particulate matter—but only about a quarter as many, 2,800 a year.

Land and Climate

The other big concern about biofuel is where the raw material comes from. Phillips 66 says it will be processing “used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils.” But according to Biofuel Watch, the supply of used cooking oil is very limited. Phillips 66 has said that it will use soy oil from the Plains states, but these supplies are also limited. Many fear that the demand for soy and other biofuel crops is adding to the large-scale destruction of forests.

“Where biofuel production has been successful – using vegetable oils, corn, and sugarcane for example – the environmental and social consequences of vast new demand for these commodities has had severe and rippling effects on markets, food production, biodiversity, and human rights,” wrote Gary Hughes of Biofuel Watch. Destroying forests and soil to produce biofuel sometimes releases several times as much carbon as burning the fossil fuels they replace, according to a report from that organization.

State and federal policies heavily subsidize biofuels, according to Marijn van der Wal of Stratas Advisors, quoted in the Los Angeles Times story on the Phillips 66 announcement. Under the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the federal Renewable Identification Number program, producers of biofuel earn “credits” they can sell. They also get $1 per gallon through the federal Blenders Tax Credit program. Altogether, van der Wal estimated, this adds up to “about $3.32 a gallon . . . enough to cover production costs.”

Most American biofuel is produced in California “due to economic benefits under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard,” according to the US Department of Energy. But in a recent letter to the California Department of Energy, Biofuel Watch said this policy “locks in fossil fuel reliance” and “provides cover” for continuing the use of fossil fuel. That’s because it perpetuates the “liquid-fuel supply chain” and liquid-fuel vehicles. This “distracts from the imperative of deep transformation of our energy economy.”

Another Bay Area refinery shutting down fossil fuel production – Phillips 66 in Rodeo

Phillips 66 is turning a California oil refinery into a biofuel plant

Phillips 66 said its Rodeo refinery near San Francisco will make fuel from used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils. Above, a taco shell, dripping oil, emerges from a deep fryer. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles Times, by Bloomberg, August 12, 2020

Phillips 66 has become the latest in a string of U.S. refiners to announce plans to convert an oil refinery into a biofuel plant.

The company said Wednesday that its 120,000 barrel-a-day Rodeo refinery near San Francisco will become the world’s biggest plant that makes so-called renewable diesel, as well as gasoline and jet fuel, out of used cooking oil, fats, greases and soybean oils.

The announcement came about a week after Marathon Petroleum Corp. said that it may convert two refineries into renewable diesel plants. In June, HollyFrontier Corp. said it would turn its Cheyenne, Wyo., refinery into a renewable diesel plant by 2022.

As refiners across the U.S. struggle with depressed fuel demand amid the pandemic, California’s low-carbon fuel trading scheme may represent a pathway for survival. Demand for so-called renewable diesel is surging in the Golden State as refiners buy increasing numbers of credits under the low-carbon fuel standard program, which aims to cut vehicle emissions 20% by 2030.

“There is overcapacity on the refining market,” Marijn van der Wal, biofuel advisor at Stratas Advisors in Singapore, said in an interview Wednesday. “Are we going to shut down our refineries or are we going to repurpose them?”

Renewable diesel is chemically identical to diesel derived from fossil fuels, according to Neste Oyj, the word’s biggest producer of the fuel.

The LCFS credits as well as federal RIN D5 credits and recently reintroduced Blenders Tax Credits generate about $3.32 a gallon in subsidies for renewable diesel producers, enough to cover production costs, Van der Wal said in a June report.

“It’s a mind-boggling amount of money,” he said by phone. “You will make a lot of money as long as all these subsidies come in.”

Find out why the smallest details can be the most important.
The Rodeo plant could start operating as early as 2024, producing 680 million gallons a year of renewable diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, the company said. Combined with production from an existing project in development, the plant would produce more than 800 million gallons a year. In addition to repurposing the Rodeo refinery, the company also announced it would be closing its 45,000-barrel-a-day plant in Santa Maria in 2023.

Last week, Marathon said it will convert its 166,000-barrel-a-day Martinez, Calif., refinery into a terminal facility and that may include a 48,000-barrel-a-day renewable diesel plant as soon as 2022. The company is turning its 19,000-barrel-a-day North Dakota plant into a renewable diesel plant by the end of this year.

The surge of new entrants into the California biofuel market is creating its own problems, Van der Wal said. Existing renewable diesel suppliers to California, including Neste and Valero Energy Corp., have locked up much of the feedstock, leaving less tallow and cooking oil for the newcomers. Additionally, so many projects are being proposed that there may not be enough diesel demand in California to absorb the additional fuel.

SF Chronicle Editorial: California should stick with clean-fuel rule

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial: California should stick with clean-fuel rule

San Francisco Chronicle, September 22, 2015

Though state lawmakers caved to the oil industry by spiking a plan to sharply reduce gasoline use, there’s another option for Sacramento in reducing climate change and promoting alternative sources to fill gas tanks. State regulators are close to extending a measure that cuts carbon levels in everyday driving fuel.

The low-carbon standard is among a batch of policies designed to cut carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse-gas culprit blamed for rising temperatures and whipsawing weather. Extending the mandate to cut levels in gas is an essential part of state strategies to curb climate change.

Reducing the carbon level in gas has other benefits. It spurs development of alternative biofuels to wean California off its petroleum diet. The skies will be clearer and public health improved. It nudges the state toward more low-emission vehicles by showcasing the innovation needed to change gas-burning habits.

It’s not without controversy. Oil producers and Midwest ethanol producers say the plan is too flawed and complicated to work, an argument that failed in court last year. But this week, a string of major businesses — eBay, KB Home and Dignity Health among them — is backing the fuel rule. “It’s a practical, gradual and manageable transition,” said Anne Kelly, director of the employer coalition known as Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy.

Later this week the state Air Resources Board will consider extending the low-carbon standard, first promulgated in 2007. It’s almost certain to renew the policy, which aims to lower carbon levels by 10 percent by 2020.

The larger picture should be unmistakable. California is pushing ahead on major climate-change measures that Washington is too timid to undertake. The state is increasing renewable energy to light homes and businesses. Rules to encourage thriftier ways of heating and cooling will be strengthened. The worries about lost jobs and shuttered businesses aren’t proving true as the state’s economy gathers steam.

Changing the ingredients in gas-pump fuels should be part of this overall trend. Renewing the low-carbon standard will be good for California’s future.