British Columbia to update, expand LCFS regulation

Advanced Biofuels Canada lauded the British Columbia government’s progress on expanding the province’s single most impactful climate initiative with the introduction of new legislation. The new Low Carbon Fuels Act proposes to expand coverage to aviation and marine fuels, require revenue reinvestment for some utilities, and enable broader participation in the LCFS’s credit market. Facilities that directly capture and sequester carbon dioxide will also become eligible to earn compliance credits.

The province also announced that the LCFS credit program will support expansion of advanced biofuels production at the Parkland refinery in Burnaby, British Columbia. The province will contribute more than 40 percent of the $600 million capital investment to significantly expand coprocessing production capacity to 231,000 gallons per day and establish 273,000 gallons per day of new renewable diesel by 2025. Establishing new clean fuel production capacity will reduce the province’s ongoing reliance on imported fuels and help mitigate price shocks from global supply interruptions.

“In its first decade to 2020, BC’s LCFS was responsible for reducing provincial greenhouse gas emissions by over 12 megatonnes, making it the single largest contributor to reducing BC’s emissions,” said Ian Thomson, president of Advanced Biofuels Canada. “For the decade ahead, the LCFS is expected to represent over 30 percent of the total reductions under the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030. With today’s announcement to expand and strengthen the LCFS coming at a time of record-high fuel prices, it underscores the role for advanced biofuels to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and how expanding clean fuel choices will reduce the harm to British Columbians from volatile and record-high gasoline and diesel fuel costs.”

The joint BC-Parkland announcement moves the province an important step closer to realizing the CleanBC Roadmap goal of doubling domestic renewable fuel production to more than 343 million gallons by 2030.

“Parkland has also announced the successful use of residual bio-feedstocks from the province’s rendering forestry sector,” Thomson added. “Our members are rapidly advancing new biobased feedstocks from wastes and residues, and carbon capture technologies, to scale up and decarbonize refined clean fuels. These cleantech innovations will accelerate BC’s transition to a circular economy that keeps wealth in the province, leading to new jobs and a sustainable tax base for communities across BC.”