It seems that UMass has jettisoned its leadership in the energy transition. The administration proposes to use “renewable diesel” to power its cogeneration plant, instead of rapidly electrifying the campus, to get to carbon neutrality. It won’t work. Worse, at the faculty senate meeting on Dec 6, 2024, the administration claimed that “renewable diesel” is net zero. It isn’t.
Renewable diesel has been around a long time, but its modern use in the US stems from the “renewable fuels standard.” It is not the same as “biodiesel,” which here in the Northeast usually refers to locally sourced waste oil used to power diesel engines, but is more generally an additive to diesel fuel. “Renewable diesel” primarily comes from soy, palm or rapeseed (canola) oils, from crops planted for that purpose. Sometimes it comes from so-called “waste” oils. It is refined in converted fossil fuel refineries to make diesel that is chemically identical to fossil fuel diesel.
I cannot find any reports that suggest “renewable diesel” should be used in power (or heating) plants as part of the energy transition. It was expected to play at least a temporary role in air and sea transportation, replacing fossil-based aviation and diesel fuel. All literature on “renewable diesel” refers to its use in transportation.
Additionally, no reputable sources ever claimed “renewable diesel” was “net zero.” The carbon cost of land use changes, fertilization, monoculture, refinement, and transportation, always drives the carbon impact up, not to mention other environmental and economic impacts of using agricultural land to grow fuel oil. Even made from so-called “waste” oil, its lifecycle carbon impact is not net zero.
As a replacement transportation fuel, “renewable diesel” compares unfavorably with other choices. See Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change, particularly concerning is its comparison with corn ethanol. A recent study published in PNAS on the “Environmental outcomes of the US Renewable Fuel Standard” focused primarily on corn ethanol, and showed that “the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher.” The land-use impacts of soy, palm, and rapeseed (the primary stocks for “renewable diesel”) are worse than that of corn, so we can reasonably expect the carbon intensity of “renewable diesel” to be worse than that of corn ethanol as well.
From a direct emissions standpoint, when used in a power plant, “renewable diesel” should be expected to burn essentially the same as diesel, which releases somewhere between 73-75 kg CO2 per mmBTU (distillate fuel oils #1,2,4). This is dirtier than methane (“natural” gas) previously used by UMass, which releases 53 kg CO2 per mmBTU. (GHG Emission Factors from https://www.epa.gov/climateleadership/ghg-emission-factors-hub).
“Renewable diesel” also has exactly the same air quality impacts as diesel. The air in our valley will get significantly worse if UMass goes ahead with this plan.
Here’s the loophole that allows UMass to make the outrageous claim that this fuel is “net zero:” According the protocols for GHG reporting, all emissions are put into 3 categories: scope 1, 2, and 3. Because calculating the emissions from biofuels accurately is still nearly impossible, their direct emissions, which for any other fuel are reported as “scope 1,” are reported separately from any of the scopes, but along with the “scope 1” emissions. Ultimately the plans are to include their emissions in scope 3, but there is as yet no standard for doing that. So they do not contribute to “scope 1” but nonetheless get reported along with scope 1 emissions. If UMass is going to use biofuels they need to tell us what the direct emissions are, separate from scope 1, as required by the GHG protocols. This is particularly important for renewable diesel, which also has significant air quality impacts.
UMass is buying its “renewable diesel” from Neste: they are a major petroleum company in Finland with refineries in Europe and Asia. At the faculty senate meeting, the administration claimed that the fuel we would get from them would be 100% from waste products and net zero. This is impossible given the recent exponential growth of renewable diesel production (see plot near the bottom of the linked page). Even Neste doesn’t claim their product is 100% from waste, and nowhere do they say it is “net zero,” claiming instead a still unbelievable 75% reduction in CO2. No one ever expected biofuels to be net zero. How could UMass claim that this one is?
It is worth noting that Neste’s greenwashed website looks a lot like Enviva’s did. Enviva is a pelleted biomass producer that was until recently the largest in the world. They claimed to be sustainable, to use only wood waste products, to never cut forests for pelleting. In fact they were clearcutting forests (in some cases permanently converted to industrial use) in the US Southeast, and then shipping pellets to converted coal plants in Europe and Asia. Their “sustainable” [not] business grew up over a few years and then crashed this year even more quickly after an excellent series of articles on Mongabay.com (the world’s largest environmental news service). Enviva is still in business, but has declared bankruptcy and is being sued by their investors for fraud. The story has the world reconsidering the use of biomass.
This problem is larger than UMass. The exponential growth in the demand for “renewable diesel” noted above is very troubling. Every major oil company appears to be retooling their refineries to make the stuff. Where is it going? Are other power plants converting, lured by this newest greenwashing scam? I’ll edit this post when I figure it out – but it seems for now to be a secret. The sad fact is that this reporting loophole is allowing companies to continue their business as usual without regard to the planetary destruction that is now well underway.
UMass needs to reconsider its use of “renewable diesel” and return to its original plan to electrify the campus.
For more information on renewable diesel, see this post: https://websites.umass.edu/lgoldner/on-renewable-diesel/