Lead Author: Graham Noyes, Noyes Law Corporation
Report Contributers: Alfredo Arredondo, Haris Gilani PhD, Dan Sanchez PhD, Robin Vercruse
Woody Biomass Fuels Industry White Paper has been publicly released April 2022.
This Woody Biomass Fuels Industry White Paper has been developed to assist California and federal
policymakers chart an environmentally and economically sound course toward wildfire risk reduction and
carbon neutrality. This proposed course of action maximizes the highest and best use of woody biomass
generated by forest management activities: producing low-carbon transportation fuels using advanced
processing technologies. The production of transportation fuels is the highest and best use of woody biomass because this feedstock is abundant and reliable, advanced technologies drastically reduce criteria pollutants and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to fossil fuel refining, and transportation is the hardest economic sector to decarbonize.
Based on the work of the Institute for Transportation Studies pursuant to AB 74, to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, California must transition completely from fossil fuels to bio-based alternatives.1
Producing low, very low, and zero-carbon fuels from woody biomass provides California with the opportunity to reap the jobs and economic benefits of fuel production that other states are currently enjoying. While California leads the nation in decarbonizing its transportation fuels, this has been achieved primarily through the importation of liquid fuels from other states and countries, with California currently importing over 90% of its low carbon liquid fuels.2 In dramatic contrast to other feedstocks suitable for producing low carbon liquid fuels, California currently possesses forest woody biomass in overabundance.
The scientific feasibility of deploying forest woody biomass in transportation has been validated by the second Carbon-Reduction Pillar of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Getting to Neutral Report: Convert Waste Biomass to Fuels and Store CO2
“Waste biomass is widely available across California, with about 56 million bone dry tons per year
available from trash, agricultural waste, sewage and manure, logging, and fire prevention activities (…).
Today, this biomass returns its carbon to the atmosphere when it decays or burns in prescribed fires or
wildfires, or is used to produce energy at a power plant that vents its carbon emissions. (…)
Converting this biomass (primarily forest biomass) into fuels with simultaneous capture of the process CO2 emissions holds the greatest potential for negative emissions in the State. A broad array of processing options is available, and includes (…) conversion of woody biomass to liquid fuels and biochar through pyrolysis; and conversion of woody biomass gaseous fuels through gasification.”(…)3
As a result of the changed conditions in the forests coupled with climate change, California’s forests have
changed from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Wildfires nationwide have drastically increased in intensity and frequency in recent years, creating not only increasing risk to life, health and property but also generating substantial GHG emissions to exacerbate the effects of climate change.4 The national trend is particularly acute in California. However, due to its novelty and uncertainty, the new reality of wildfire GHG emissions from forests has not yet been integrated into California’s climate policy.
1 Institute of Transportation Studies, “Driving California’s Transportation Emissions to Zero,” (April 2021), available at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3np3p2t0)
2 California Air Resources, Board, Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) Data Dashboard, Figure 10, at
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/documents/lcfs-data-dashboard2