Learn more about our clean—fuel standards research:
- “UC experts detail new standard for cleaner transportation fuels,” News Service, 8.2.07
- “UC Davis expert named to Calif. air board,” News Service, 2.12.07
- “California’s New Fuel Standard: What It Means, How We Will Get There,” News Service, 1.18.07
- “UC Experts Will Draft Calif.'s New Auto Emissions Policy Announced Today by Gov. Schwarzenegger,” News Service, 1.9.07
- “A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard for California, Part 1: Policy Analysis, Institute of Transportation Studies”
- “A Low-Carbon Fuel Standard for California, Part 2: Policy Analysis, Institute of Transportation Studies”
- Institute of Transportation Studies
Our faculty involved in clean—fuel research:
- Daniel Sperling, director, Institute of Transportation Studies
- Tom Turrentine, director, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Research Center, Institute of Transportation Studies
- Bryan Jenkins, professor of biological and agricultural engineering
- Marc Melaina, project scientist, Institute of Transportation Studies
- Joan Ogden, co-director, Hydrogen Pathways Program, Institute of Transportation Studies
- Experts on Transportation, Energy and Air Quality
Clean-fuel standards
Here is a time-traveler’s look at the possible future of energy as influenced by UC Davis activities — a preview of everyday life as we might experience it five to 50 years from now.
Predicted timing: 2020
When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for a new “low-carbon fuel standard” for our cars in 2007, he tapped UC Davis transportation expert Daniel Sperling to write the policy. Good call: Sperling had first broached the idea in clean-fuel circles 15 years earlier.
Shortly after he brought it up again in 2005, environmentalists carried it to the governor’s office, which soon steered it into the fast lane.
The policy (which Sperling co-authored with Bryan Jenkins, Marc Melaina and Joan Ogden of UC Davis and Alex Farrell of UC Berkeley) has worked because it gave oil companies flexibility in choosing how they met the low-carbon requirement.
How companies have responded
Some have used new technology to reduce carbon emissions in the refining process. Others blend gasoline with low-carbon biofuels or make low-carbon hydrogen fuel. Still others buy carbon credits from utility companies selling clean electricity that is used to power plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles.
With leadership from Sperling and the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, California has become a global model for clean-vehicle policy.
Implemented in 2010, the new fuel standard has cut lifetime, or “well-to-wheel,” greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels sold in California by 12.5 percent, exceeding the goal of a 10 percent reduction by the year 2020.
What’s more, after California enacted its new standard, 32 other U.S. states and the European Union followed our lead.
— Sylvia Wright