A $100-million bet on making fuel from trash

California – As the state moves to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel, an engineer hopes to build a plant in Lancaster that will convert garbage into an alcohol-based mixture.

Fuel is a critical front in the battle against global warming. Nearly a quarter of the man-made greenhouse gases that the United States spews into the atmosphere comes from transportation. And although cars have reduced unhealthy pollutants such as nitrogen oxides by 99% in recent decades, the gasoline they burn emits as much carbon dioxide as it did a century ago.

California’s proposal “is the first time anyone has attempted, for environmental purposes, to change the content of what goes into cars and trucks,” says Mary D. Nichols, state Air Resources Board chairwoman. “It would revolutionize transportation fuel.”

Under California’s proposal, producers, refineries and importers would be forced to reduce the “carbon intensity” of their fuel by 10% by 2020, and by increasing percentages after that. Currently, California gasoline contains 10% corn-based ethanol, most of it from coal-powered Midwestern plants. Its carbon footprint is as high as gasoline’s.

But by measuring the “cradle-to-grave” effect of various fuels, the new rule would favor ethanol such as Klann’s, made from non-food sources. Even “low-carbon” corn ethanol — such as the kind produced in California using gas-fired electricity and efficient machinery — has a far higher carbon footprint than so-called cellulosic fuel from landfill waste, trees, switchgrass or sugar cane.

Los Angeles Times