Spurring the Low-Carbon Revolution

At first, my wife and I couldn’t see the eclipse. But we heard it coming. A chorus of cheers traveled over the rooftops and reached our ears. It emanated from 800 children – our girls among them – at the nearby elementary school. We raced outside, and sure enough, a clearing in the overcast sky passed over, just long enough to reveal through our eclipse glasses a spectacular orange crescent hanging above Houston’s “Space City.”

It was warm that day in Space City, but not as warm as August last year, when we recorded temperatures as high as 109 degrees Fahrenheit. That was our city’s hottest temperature during our hottest summer on record.

“Here is a problem that transcends our particular generation,” the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once testified to Congress. “If we don’t do the right thing now, our children and grandchildren will face serious problems.”

That was in 1985. Later that year, I was born.

Since then, I admit I have not done my part to “do the right thing now.” I have burned fossil fuels. I spent part of my career enabling fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have improved the quality of life for my family and many other families, even as they have slowly, invisibly mortgaged the future quality of life of all our grandchildren.

But what I will not admit – and what none of us should ever admit – is defeat because we have not failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The truth is, until recently, we never really tried. As John Paul Jones is supposed to have said during the American Revolution, “I have not yet begun to fight!”

For this reason, despite the enormous challenge, we should be undaunted. We should be eager to throw ourselves to the task. There is another American revolution afoot: a low-carbon revolution.

History teaches that America can overcome anything, from overthrowing monarchy to winning the space race, helping to feed the world, saving the ozone layer, and reversing acid rain. In each of those cases, the investment, gumption, and grit that America put into the cause returned a benefit many times over. We did not go bankrupt winning the space race. We did not stop living to save the ozone layer. We did not make energy unaffordable by cutting sulfur and smog.

On the contrary, each of those undertakings made the next generation of Americans freer, more prosperous, and healthier than the one before.

Today, Texas produces more wind energy than any other state. “Texas turbines” are encroaching on “Texas tea,” spreading across corn belt states as far as South Dakota, which have abundant natural wind. In Iowa, dairy farmers capture the methane emissions from their manure. In Minnesota, GPS tracks seeds within fractions of an inch to reduce chemicals, improve soil health, and cut greenhouse gas footprint. It may surprise some that the number of acres used to plant corn in the U.S. has not changed significantly for 100 years. Yet we produce far more corn today than a century ago, enough to feed ourselves and much of the world, as a result of yield improvements: use less, make more.

Properly incentivized, growth and innovation in renewable power, biogas, carbon capture, and climate-smart agriculture in America’s heartland will help win the low-carbon revolution. It will spur growth in rural communities and make energy cleaner and more affordable over time. The global fossil fuels industry invests approximately $1 trillion every year in its growth and has been building and optimizing its supply chain for over a century. Global clean energy investment per year has now surpassed fossil fuels investment, and no one can predict the limits of clean energy in the next century if we simply maintain this effort, or how many jobs it will bring. But we know the direction we must go, and that we have only just begun to try.

The future of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions looms over us as plainly as an eclipse or a thermometer. Yet if we listen, we can hear the sound of cheering children: the billions on our planet today and every generation to come, carried to us on the winds of a different future.

Eric Frey is Vice President of Finance and Strategy at Gevo, Inc., a company dedicated to commercializing the next generation of low-carbon fuels and materials.

Old Home Week

I had the chance to present at a couple industry events this month. It felt like old home week, in the best possible way.

First up was the Future of Low Carbon Fuel Standards panel at the Transportation Energy Institute (TEI) annual conference. Back to when it was called Fuels Institute, it’s been one of my favorite events.

A lot of old friends and allies were in the room. There were also many new faces, broader attendance than ever, and some unexpected new alliances.

TEI is a nonprofit research arm of the National Association of Convenience Stores. They produce top-notch research and surveys on a host of topics relevant to the fueling industry, from incorporating equity into fuel policy to the role of liquid fuels in ensuring a smooth transition to the transportation system of the future. Electrification has also become a central theme. (Seriously, it’s worth checking out their interesting work at those links!) 

The other event was the Ag-Auto-Ethanol Alliance annual confab. This one also goes back a long way for me. It’s a great group, informally collaborating on strategies to maximize the value and decarbonization potential of liquid fuels. 

Attending these gatherings back to back after a few years away revealed how much has stayed the same (a lot of us are still plugging away!), AND where some things have fundamentally shifted.

There is a lot more attention on the role of states to drive policy, due to a combination of increasing state opportunities and sluggish progress at the Federal level on key issues. Another notable shift is growing industry consensus for clean fuel standards. Not long ago, you wouldn’t have seen the American Petroleum Institute and the Renewable Fuels Association not only sharing a stage but advocating for the same thing: an all-of-the-above approach to reducing carbon emissions in transportation. It continues the trend we’ve seen in New Mexico and elsewhere. With an eye on the long game and global trends in a single direction, big oil companies seem to be warming to incentive-based policies that boost ROI on investments to decrease carbon emissions and diversify assets.

No surprise. The market-based design of clean fuel standards has proven to be good for climate AND for business.

A Big Win for New Mexico

We did it! The New Mexico legislature passed HB 41, the Clean Transportation Fuel Standard in February, and Governor Lujan Grisham has now signed it into law. The signing ceremony was the culmination of so much work over the past four years, and a ringing testament to strong leadership, both from the Governor and the NM Environmental Department, and in the legislature. As the photos attest, women were at the center of it all.

There’s so much to reflect on in the aftermath. Some key things went our way this year. We and our allies also pulled out all the stops leading up to and during the session to give the bill the best possible chance to pass.

We had the most diverse group of stakeholders to date in New Mexico—from environmental advocates to oil majors, tribal groups, the chamber of commerce, public utilities, health advocates, and of course, broad clean fuels industry. Supporters repeatedly showed up in force to advocate for the bill, in person, virtually, and in writing.

We garnered a lot of media attention. No less than six op-eds were published, from perspectives representing the many reasons to support a clean fuel standard. Of course, the LCFC and Board member Adelante Consulting directly made the case for the across-the-board benefits (also published here). And critically, bill sponsor Rep. Kristina Ortez highlighted the value of fuel market competition.

From a campaign perspective, making the case for fuel market competition was a signature achievement of the NM effort this year. It is the first time that any legislative campaign has successfully defused the oft-repeated-but-never-actually-demonstrated claim that clean fuel standard policies raise gas prices. Real-world data contradicts that claim. And that’s not even the best part: Thanks to market competition resulting from the policy, clean fuels are often cheaper than their petroleum counterparts.

We at the Low Carbon Fuels Coalition will continue to publicize the merits of creating competition for gasoline and diesel. Too many campaigns are stymied by unfounded scare tactics in the absence of a counter narrative based on the facts. But in the meantime, we are basking in the win, and looking forward to participating in the NM rulemaking.