BioEnergy Producers Association

The primary objective of AB 222 is to encourage the production of low-cost biofuels and green power from agricultural, forestry and urban biomass, and plastic wastes.  Its goal is to make possible the production of ethanol and other biofuels from non-food derived resources through processes that will have zero impact on Indirect Land Use Change. Carbon-based wastes are sustainable resources and their beneficial use as feedstocks for renewable energy production will contribute to local job creation, national security, economic stimulus, energy independence and a cleaner environment.  

AB 222 passed the California State Assembly by a vote of 54-13 in June 2009, after having been unanimously approved by the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee.  In July 7, it was approved by the Senate Utilities, Energy and Communications Committee.  However, the Senate Environmental Quality Committee elected not to act on the bill and put it over for consideration until 2010.   All that is required for this critical legislation to continue on its road to final passage is for two of the five Democratic members of the Environmental Quality Committee vote in favor of the bill. 

A wide range of biomass waste conversion technologies that can safely and efficiently produce alternative energy from urban waste feedstocks are now in development, construction or operation throughout the world.  However, virtually none of them are in California.

Much of the prevailing statute that governs the definition, permitting and operation of biomass waste conversion technologies in California, and which make their construction virtually impossible in this state, was written 18 years ago, before many of these clean 21st Century technologies had begun development.

In California, if you want to construct a thermal facility that produces advanced biofuels or green power from urban wastes, you must follow a more rigorous permitting pathway than is required to site and permit a major solid waste landfill. 

Existing statute equates many conversion technologies with incineration, whereas they are non-combustion, non-incineration processes.  It classifies and regulates these technologies by type, rather than standards of performance.

Here is what the bill does:

• It creates a new category in statute for a "biorefinery," which covers a wide variety of technologies that were in their infancy, or had not yet been contemplated, when AB 939 and AB 2770 were enacted.  These include acid and enzymatic hydrolysis, thermal, biological and other processes that can treat or fully dispose of carbonaceous wastes in the production of synthetic natural gas, from which a wide variety of products can be produced. These include chemicals, renewable fuels and electricity.

• The bill removes from statute a scientifically inaccurate definition of gasification, which requires zero emissions from the entire energy generation or biorefining process, a standard required of no other manufacturing facility in the state. This action is consistent with the unanimous recommendations of the California Bioenergy Action Plan and independent studies conducted by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the University of California, and the California Biomass Collaborative, which includes the Energy Commission as well as many State environmental protection agencies.

• It provides for the regulation of these facilities on the basis of standards of performance, subject to the State’s stringent standards for air and water quality, rather than attempting to define, categorize and regulate them by type.

• However, it clearly states that a biorefinery must meet or exceed all standards set by the State Air Resources Board, local air pollution control districts, or local air quality management districts regarding air contaminants or emissions (including greenhouse gases); and must meet or exceed all standards set by the State Water Resources Control Board or regional water quality control boards regarding discharges to surface or ground waters of the state.

• It fully protects the state’s commitment to a waste disposal policy that mandates 50% recycling, limiting conversion technologies to the processing of post-recycled organic wastes that are destined for landfills.

• Its provisions protect not only the existing recycling industry, but also those companies that have made a significant investment in Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and transfer stations, while providing new tools for jurisdictions seeking alternatives to the landfilling of their post-recycled waste materials.

• Consistent with provisions of the Waxman-Markey bill, it provides that electricity produced from the biogenic portion of California's waste streams will qualify as renewable electricity for the purposes of its Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Here is what the bill achieves:

It will help California, through the in-state production of biofuels from sustainable domestic resources, to meet the state’s mandate for the 10% blending of ethanol and assist the state’s investor-owned utilities in meeting the requirements for renewable electricity production under the Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Ethanol, when 10% blended with gasoline, will reduce California’s carbon dioxide emissions by seven million tons per year, also providing 50% of the goal of AB 2076 for 20% non-petroleum fuel use by 2020.  On a life-cycle basis, when produced from organic waste streams, it holds the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 90% as compared to an energy equivalent amount of gasoline.

The production of ethanol from organic wastes feedstocks is absolutely the only process that will meet or exceed California's goals for greenhouse gas reduction under its new Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

Just from the 35.5 million tons of post-recycled waste that California placed in landfills last year, conversion technologies could co-produce an estimated 1.6 billion gallons of ethanol and 1250 MW of green power--more ethanol than the state imported from the Midwest and foreign sources last year.  

AB 222 will: