This year’s 2016 Argus California Carbon and LCFS Summit was held at the Silverado Resort in Napa, California. The conference featured two tracks, one focused on Carbon markets and the other focused on Fuel markets.
The keynote speaker was Daniel Sperling, Founding Director of UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies, board member for the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and long-time expert on fuel policy and carbon markets. He reflected on the lessons of developing the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and the necessity of a more complex regulatory framework to incentivize carbon reductions in the fuel sector.
Other sessions included a review of the lawsuits brought against the federal Clean Power Plan and California’s cap-and-trade regulation, the outlook for LCFS and RFS carbon prices and demand for specific biofuels, a discussion of whether we should be concerned about hitting ethanol and biodiesel blend walls, and a great deal more.
While debate continues as to which types of low carbon fuels will be most successful in the years to come, there was general agreement about the importance of California’s ambitious climate change goals as an example for the rest of the world, and the fact that the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is vital to their success.