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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the EcoNews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is Gary Graham Hughes, America's Program Coordinator at Biofuel Watch. Hey Gary, welcome to the show.

GARY GRAHAM HUGHES:

Tom, thank you so much for having me on the show, for being able to join you again on the EcoNews Report.

WHEELER:

So, Gary, we're going to be talking about renewable diesel today, which is something that I think it's kind of a new term. It's really taken off in the last few years and folks might be familiar with its cousin, biodiesel and might be confusing the two. So hopefully at the end of today's show, you know a little bit more about the biofuels that are being put into our fuel system as a state and the consequences of this both to our climate and to fenceline communities.

So trying to figure out how to energize our transportation system has been one of the things I've been curious about basically my entire life, Gary. My first car that I ever purchased with my own money was a 1977 Mercedes-Benz 240D diesel and I used to drive around Pulteney, Vermont and I would collect the used vegetable oil behind the back of the Chinese food restaurant and whatever else and I'd bring it home and I'd run it through a series of filters so I could put it in my trunk and heat it up so that it would be burnt in my diesel engine. It was a pain. I felt good kind of about doing it. Well, I felt less bad about doing it, but I've never been able to figure out the subject. So I'm really glad to have you on because you think so much about biofuels and the risks that they present.

So renewable diesel, let's start and define what this is and then we can define it in opposition to what it's not, which is other forms of diesel and biodiesel. So tell me, what is renewable diesel?

HUGHES:

Yeah, thanks, Tom. I'm really committed to trying to make sure that if we achieve one thing in our episode this week is that listeners have a really firm grasp on what renewable diesel is and can compare it with biodiesel and even compare it with petroleum-based diesel and see how they're even mixed together, etc. I do want to express how happy I am to be here and to be able to share this experience with you because how I've come to have some expertise in these issues is really kind of a funny story in itself in that it's some six years now that I'm working with this group, Biofuel Watch, and when I first got hired to work here in California, we only had a sneaking suspicion that some really major changes were afloat around biofuel issues, especially because the aviation sector, people might have heard so much over time about aviation biofuels or the idea of sustainable aviation fuel, this idea that you're going to magically reduce emissions from flying by using a new green fuel product.

It was interesting for me to come into the question of biofuels too because I worked at EPIC back in the day. I remember really clearly the explosion at the Chevron refinery in August 2012. That was really one of the wake-up moments for me about understanding what was going on with the refinery sector in California and how in Humboldt County we're totally dependent on liquid fuels. I mean, Humboldt County stops without liquid fuels, right? And then I think I go even back further to even when I was just a kid or like when the Exxon Valdez accident happened in 1989. As I got into environmental issues, I was really interested in what it is that we're putting in our vehicles, where it comes from, and all. And so over the years, I've actually learned quite a bit about how our transportation fuel system works and where the products come from.

And so then I started working for Biofuel Watch and because of previous experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the refinery corridor, in the northern part of the Bay, when the pandemic hit and there was so-called demand destruction and that everyone stopped driving, everyone stopped flying, well, the refineries went into a little bit of crisis mode. And two outcomes of that were that the Marathon refinery in Martinez and the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo announced their change from making petroleum-based products to making biofuel products. And in particular, they really elevated the making of renewable diesel. And so I had heard about renewable diesel previously, but it was suddenly in that summer of 2020 with the refinery conversions that what renewable diesel is became a really serious topic for myself, Biofuel Watch, and then our colleagues and partners here working in the refinery corridor. So what is renewable diesel?

WHEELER:

Tell me about it. What is it? Because I feel like this is a term that I've just started seeing in the last five years. Again, same maybe this COVID period, it feels new on the scene and it sounds good, right? I want things to be renewable. I'm sure that this is just greenwashing industry spin, but there's something that is appealable, inherent in its name. So what is it and why is that name wrong?

HUGHES:

Yeah, well, renewable diesel isn't renewable. Let's make sure about that. And it is an example of kind of the climate newspeak that comes out of how big oil is massaging it's like public face, right? So now they're gonna make renewable diesel. Now, renewable diesel in this instance is, first and foremost, people need to understand that it is a drop in diesel fuel. It is chemically identical to a diesel fuel that's made from petroleum, which is what distinguishes it from biodiesel. Biodiesel is made by an esterification process. And then the diesel product that is made has to be blended with another diesel, whether it's petroleum-based diesel or renewable diesel, they're absolutely identical chemically, but the biodiesel really can only operate at about a 20% blend. So 80% of the fuel when you buy biodiesel is still either a petroleum-based diesel or increasingly a renewable diesel. But renewable diesel, what makes it really different and why we've seen these refineries in the Bay Area pivot to this is because it's very convenient. It's very convenient for the oil companies. It's very convenient for political decision makers. And it's very convenient for a lot of people who would like to see decarbonization happen while business as usual continues to float.

But the problem is that the feedstocks that are used for making renewable diesel in many instances are food. We're talking about soy oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, and then internationally, palm oil. Another feedstock that can be used is used cooking oil. So like in the old days with the old biodiesel stuff. Of the feedstocks used, cooking oil might be the one that could be sustainable, but it is super, super, super constrained. There's hardly any of it. And so now they take these vegetable oils, these fats, oils, and greases, and they take them to an old refinery and they process them through the old equipment, the same equipment that's in those refineries, these hydro crackers, where they use hydrogen and basically use a process now that's called hydro treated vegetable oil. And they're able then to take these feedstocks with massive amounts of hydrogen. And that's what makes making these liquid biofuels like renewable diesel so emissions intensive and so climate damaging is the actual refining results in more emissions than making the fuel from petroleum. But then it comes out at the end and they have a product that is absolutely identical to making diesel from petroleum. And now it's here in Humboldt.

WHEELER:

And you might not have any idea that you are putting renewable diesel into your truck or, or whatever you're using diesel for. Is that right?

HUGHES:

You might not. It's likely, though, for instance, Phillips 66 is the owner of the Unocal or 76 retail spots. They're the gas stations in Eureka and up near McKinleyville. They sell renewable diesel. So that's renewable diesel that's definitely coming from their refinery. But what I found is really interesting over the last couple of years is to notice the emergence of renewable diesel at the Renner Cardlock retail distribution centers. And even the red dye now is renewable diesel, though what's really deceiving at Renner's is they call it biomass based. But that's really deceiving because it implies somehow maybe that woody biomass is involved. But even though lots of people and I've heard it happen in Humboldt County will talk about and it's in the Humboldt Climate Action Plan, the idea of making a liquid fuel from woody biomass, it's a unicorn. It's not going to happen. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole right now. It's a total unicorn.

But but when you see a biomass based diesel, they're really deceiving the consumer, because what we know here in California is that for the most part, that fuel is being made from soy oil, from food. So with that, then, which is what over these last couple of years, I've tried to get the word out quite a bit, did a series of radio episodes for KMUD from behind the Redwood Curtain, from beyond the Redwood Curtain, trying to expose what was happening in the refineries, published a piece in the Times-Standard a little while back. Renewable diesel is not renewable. And then last November, we published a piece in the Eco News magazine that really tries to highlight how Humboldt County is stumbling blindly into the climate dead end, a liquid biofuel. So we've kind of described what renewable diesel is. We haven't gone that far into why people should be concerned about it.

WHEELER:

Yeah, so let's talk about the sourcing of these oils and fats. We have, as you said, multiple renewable diesel refineries here in Northern California in the Bay Area. Where are they sourcing the oils and fats, the things that are going to become the diesel that goes into the truck? Where is it coming from?

HUGHES:

It's coming from a lot of different places. One of the sources that we're able to use for tracking what feedstocks are being used for making renewable diesel is from the actual applications for credits under the low carbon fuel standard mechanism, which is a state regulatory mechanism that's actually incentivizing the use of these high emissions fuels. And we were able, for instance, to look at applications from Phillips 66 for the making of renewable diesel at their refinery in Rodeo. And they have credit pathways now for bringing soy oil from Argentina, from Argentina, which if you know the geography of South America and how the soy business works, that means we're bringing in soy oil from Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina to make renewable diesel in California. And anyone who's studied issues and dynamics around tropical deforestation knows full well that it is the extension of the soy agro industrial frontier into intact ecosystems in South America that is one of the major drivers of deforestation in the world.

Another feedstock that Phillips 66 is getting low carbon fuel standard credits for making renewable diesel from now is used cooking oil, but being imported from Malaysia, from Singapore, from Japan, and even Australia. But what we are noticing now because biofuel watch is an international organization, and we're most of our staff are in Europe, is that there is phenomenal amounts of fraud in the used cooking oil trade on a global level. And that increasingly, we're finding cases of where palm oil is being laundered, maybe cooked just a little bit so it can be sold as used cooking oil because the incentives and the opportunity for profits are so high if you make a fuel from something that's characterized as as UCO is used cooking oil are driving this fraud. We also know that millions of gallons of renewable diesel come into California from a company's a company called Nestea from their refinery in Singapore, which as well is telling us that they're making this fuel from used cooking oil. But the fraud is so high and the amounts of used cooking oil that are being claimed for making fuels in Europe, and the United States and California far exceed the amounts of used cooking oil that are available in the real world. Palm oil is another known driver of global deforestation.

WHEELER:

You are listening to the Econews Report. We're talking about renewable diesel with Gary Graham Hughes of Biofuel Watch.

So we have sourcing issues, obviously, and that is changing the way that we manage the earth or that we cut down trees, convert ecosystems. Also, there's a lot of embedded carbon costs in all of this production as well, from the fertilizers to the machines, the transport. So we have all of that. And then we bring this oil to the refinery. These are converted petro refineries, right? And I can't imagine that the communities that live among these refineries probably notice much of a difference whether or not they're refining crude oil or if they're refining soybean oil from Argentina. So what are the impacts for folks in these communities who are often black and brown, poor communities on them? What do we know about the refinery impacts?

HUGHES:

Yeah, I'm really glad that you're willing to look at the refinery impacts because it's often times that most of us will focus on the feedstock issues. And I think tropical deforestation merits all of our attention. And that's enough reason to be really concerned about this pivot to biofuels. But what happens at the refineries is really crucial. And you're correct. There's not really any relief happening. And in particular, one dynamic, even though for labor and for employees, is really traumatic and very problematic and is a dilemma that needs addressing. But the Marathon Refinery in Martinez actually shut down in 2020. And it was the pivot to renewable diesel that kind of brought that refinery back online. So the community there has been dealing with two refineries, majorly problematic.

And then the other thing to really flag with making renewable diesel, because it requires so much hydrogen, and it happens at such a high temperature, that the communities that live near the refineries have noticed a real spike in the amount of flaring that's occurring. And in particular, in November 2023, at the Martinez refinery of Marathon, Marathon and Nestea, Nestea is an investor in that project, there was a horrible fire. And one worker ended up in the burn unit at UC Davis for more than nine months. And there have been some real concerns about the intensification of flaring at the Phillips 66 refinery as well.

So that's the kind of thing that we're monitoring with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. There are some rules around flaring, so we're able to see the data. And the data has shown that since these biofuel refineries came online, that there's been an increased amount of flaring. The other thing really is to remember that though clearly processing petroleum can result in a number of very serious air pollution issues, benzenes and other things. When we are checking out what's happening with air quality around the refineries that are making renewable diesel now, there's really still very serious issues with nitrous oxides. There's still very serious issues with particulate matter. And then again, with the flaring, the sound, and another issue that's been brought up is the issue of odors. Because one of the primary feedstocks is animal tallow. For people to think about how there are tanker loads of animal tallow now coming in to California to make these fuels. And so there's a lot of overlap too between the livestock industry and the ag sector making these high deforestation risk commodities. And then you add it into what's going on with the refineries.

It's really been a full-time job, as it is, to try to raise the alarm and help people understand that renewable diesel is not renewable. And we're really facing a tremendous challenge when local authorities like Humboldt County begin to lean in really hard to elevating a very destructive product like renewable diesel as though it offers some sort of pathway to decarbonization.

WHEELER:

So let's, let's get into that. So I know that you have reviewed the Humboldt County Climate Action Plan. The Climate Action Plan relies in part on renewable diesel to meet its emissions reduction targets. Why, why is renewable diesel and the lie behind renewable diesel? Why is it useful for these jurisdictions or why are they, why are they engaged in this greenwashing of renewable diesel? What, what's the, what's the rationale here?

HUGHES:

Well, it's so convenient. Yeah.

WHEELER:

Cause it's just, you plug...

HUGHES:

It's just like, oh yeah, here we've got this new product. It happens to be chemically identical to petroleum-based diesel, but somehow burning it is like emissions-free. And they just wave a magic wand at this product to say that emissions are being reduced. The political convenience of converting fossil fuel infrastructure to bioenergy infrastructure is one that far too many political leaders who know better have taken refuge in. And that's what we're seeing right here. And the whole question of diesel fuel is a tremendous dilemma. There's no question about it, how it is, for instance, that the forest products industry in Humboldt County could continue to operate in any form whatsoever if they didn't have liquid diesel to burn, right?

And so this is what we've seen in different instances now that operators are saying, hey, we're reducing the emissions of our operations of heavy machinery because we're using renewable diesel. It's just, it's incredibly convenient. But when we then put on the table with regulators or, for instance, with Humboldt County, because we definitely provided comments during the development of the Climate Action Plan, but we put on the table these concerns about this fuel product, they're largely just being ignored because it's convenient right now and it is a very unfortunate dynamic because of the total energy chaos that these dead ends are going to result in.

WHEELER:

So I want to get back for a moment to impacts, cause I realized that we talked about land use impacts and we talked about the impact to adjacent communities. And we, we touched on briefly the larger climate impact, but I think that that's what a lot of people are going to care significantly about is you've said that it is more carbon intense than petrodiesel. And so let's, let's, let's get into that subject. You, you, you've mentioned how hydrogen is necessary for its refinement in larger amounts than petrodiesel. What, what is, what is the carbon calculation here look like? How, how carbon intense is it relative to petrodiesel and where are the most significant carbon emissions associated with its production?

HUGHES:

The best review of the methodologies that the California Air Resources Board relies on for estimating the emissions from the feedstocks that are used for these fuels has come from scientists at Princeton and Yale, and they've been able to show that because of the lack of scientific validity of those methodologies, if you do a real life cycle analysis of those feedstocks, and include impacts like from the refineries, that the use of these fuels like renewable diesel is resulting in more greenhouse gas emissions than just the fuel made from petroleum. But it can always depend because there's so many different feedstocks being used, and we tend to kind of stay away from some of that carbon determinism.

One impact, for instance, that we haven't talked about at all is that on food systems. So we know, for instance, from research that was done by Oxfam, and they published a report late last year called Biofuel Blunders, but they're very clear in stating that on a global level in 2022, that crops used for biofuel production could have met the basic minimum energy requirement of 1.6 billion people if they'd been used for human consumption. And so it's really clear that the biofuel industry has an impact on food security in many ways, increasing food prices and results in food price volatility, reducing the availability of food and resources for food production, using disproportional power in the food system over the agency of smallholder farmers and communities, and simply making food systems less sustainable.

And this is an argument that I would hope would really resonate with people in Humboldt County who are so committed to the development and maintenance of a sustainable food system. But as it is right now, California has leaned hard into making fuel from food. And what is really very sobering is that attorneys from Earthjustice were looking very hard at the package of amendments for the low carbon fuel standard that the Air Resources Board worked to move last year. And it's very clear in even the Air Resources Board analysis that they are willing to accept an increase in global hunger to meet California's climate goals. And this is in their own documentation. And so this is another reason why I would really hope that people in Humboldt County might try to make it very clear to their supervisors that this climate action plan, as it stands right now, has a cornerstone around renewable diesel that is untenable. It's not a viable road forward. And the food security issue is a major issue and as important easily as the climate and greenhouse gas emissions questions.

WHEELER:

So does the state of California subsidize the production of renewable diesel? Is there some sort of kind of an opportunity cost here by investing money in renewable diesel? Are we not putting it in some more logical climate solution?

HUGHES:

Well this is a good chance to learn a little bit about the low carbon fuel standard and to understand first off that the low carbon fuel standard is not a subsidy. People will oftentimes mischaracterize the low carbon fuel standard as somehow using taxpayer money or somehow being a subsidy. Now other than the state putting money in the budget to fund the Air Resources Board to oversee the low carbon fuel standard, which is very extensive, the low carbon fuel standard does not qualify as a subsidy. It would qualify as an incentive mechanism and so the low carbon fuel standard without going too far into the weeds basically requires that a fuel producer and a fuel distributor take a look at the fuel product that they have and where the methodologies from the Air Resources Board assess the quote-unquote carbon intensity of that fuel and then that product is either going to create a debit because it's too carbon intensive and it's causing too much emissions by the analysis of the Air Resources Board or a credit so the renewable diesel forms a credit.

So it's a kind of a hermetically sealed incentive program. The low carbon fuel standard is its own monster. It's on its own. It's a carbon pricing mechanism. The credits are given a price depending on how the market is doing and it just operates. Their Phillips 66, even though now they're closing their petroleum refinery in LA, you can imagine for a while they're making gasoline from petroleum which counts as debits in the LCFS program but then they're also making the renewable diesel which counts as credits and they're able to offset their gasoline production with the fuel production. So the low carbon fuel standard merits a lot of attention. I've tried to just describe it quickly here. I was also very disappointed in the climate action plan that they didn't really, I don't need a long treatise on the low carbon fuel standard but they kind of don't really inform the reader of what the low carbon fuel standard is or how it relates to the climate plan and a product like and I keep calling it the climate plan. It's the climate not a plan.

WHEELER:

Well, it is out for public comment right now. If you care to review it and you can find a link to it on the Lost Coast Outpost and in the show notes for this program. Gary, unfortunately we only have about a minute left. In one minute, what do you want folks to take out, take away from this episode?

HUGHES:

I really think you closed it up right there. I hope that people listen to the show and think about letting their supervisors know that they're concerned about this regional climate action plan putting such a priority on renewable diesel. And then I hope that this gets people a little bit interested in continuing to learn more about where it is that the fuel that you're putting in your vehicle comes from and to know that it's not always quite as simple as it might seem.

WHEELER:

Well, Gary Graham Hughes, thank you so much for joining the Econews. You can find a link to Biofuel Watch at the Lost Coast Outpost or in the show notes and everything that we've talked about. Again, check out the show notes here. Yeah. Gary, thank you so much for joining the show.

HUGHES:

Thank you. Thanks to Fred for all the editing

WHEELER:

Yeah. Thank you, Fred. All right. Join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.