The Renewable Crude Derived Energy Association (RCDEA) is an alliance of companies to promote the development of renewable crude derived energy.
Activities include:
- Education and information on this website
- Aggregation of news on this website
- Lobbying for the development of programs to monetize the social benefits of RCDEA and promote the economics of renewable crude projects.
- Combatting the ban on Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) vehicles which can be carbon balanced using renewable crude.
- The development of industry standards for renewable crude derived energy
- Lobbying the EPA to allow for renewable crude to generate RINs as a bio-intermediate.
- Technical conferences
Membership
Membership is on a fee basis. Contact [email protected].
Benefits include board membership, the ability to post press releases on the news aggregator, ability to contribute to technical and marketing data on the website and, in the future, participate in technical conferences promoting the development of industry standards for renewable crude derived energy.
Advertisements
Members and companies that benefit from the renewable crude industry can advertise on our website at cost. Contact the RCDEA at [email protected] for more information.
Mission
To promote renewable crude derived fuels to carbon balance existing infrastructure and the transportation fleet.
Vision
The carbon balanced usage of existing technology and infrastructure through the production and use of renewable crude derived fuels.
Why?
Electrification would require a complete rebuild of global electricity distribution system and transportation fleet, new sources of renewable electricity and mass production of rare-Earth-mineral batteries. This effort would be expensive with environmental consequences associated with battery production and disposal. Use of nuclear power plants for carbon balanced power may also result in considerable radioactive waste.
Electrification requires the use of relatively disposable or expensive to recycle batteries containing rare earth minerals and a complete replacement of existing energy infrastructure and transportation fleet. Electric vehicles as well are not as convenient with respect to proven and inexpensive Internal-Combustion-Engine (ICE) technology. Electric cars for instance are more expensive, difficult to repair, require battery replacement over time and have long charge periods.
Renewable crude on the other hand is a drop-in solution compatible with the existing transportation fleet and energy infrastructure. Existing internal combustion vehicles (ICE) for instance are inexpensive and convenient. As opposed to the disposing of this convivence we urge governments and companies to promote the development and usage of renewable crude.
Renewable Crude balances the existing carbon cycle while maintaining the convenience the existing transportation fleet and energy infrastructure provides.
Sequestration of carbon dioxide rich streams from the balanced conversion of biogenic biomass to drop-in renewable fuels offers a path to profitable carbon negative intensities, something unachievable with electrification. Renewable Drop-in fuel production offers a path to profit
What is renewable crude?
Biomass and biofuels made from biomass are alternative energy sources to fossil fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Burning either fossil fuels or biomass releases carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas. However, the plants that are the source of biomass for energy capture almost the same amount of CO2 through photosynthesis while growing as is released when biomass is burned, which can make biomass a carbon-neutral energy source. Under the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines fuels derived from biomass are carbon balanced [1]
Under the Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the combustion of biomass or biomass-based products are captured within the CO2 emissions in the AFOLU sector through the estimated changes in carbon stocks from biomass harvest, even in cases where the emissions physically take place in other sectors (e.g., energy). This approach to estimate and report all CO2 emissions from biomass or biomass-based products in the AFOLU sector was introduced in the first IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC 1995), reflecting close linkages with data on biomass harvesting, and for the pragmatic reason to avoid double counting.
Because biomass is accounted for in the land use sector it should be treated as zero (ie carbon neutral) in the energy sector otherwise emissions would be accounted for twice. [2]
There are various paths and more in development. In theory the production of biomass through use of renewable crude derived energy would completely balance the carbon cycle of such products. While some renewable crude biofuels such as ethanol are blendstocks comparable with existing infrastructure others such as hydrotreated renewable diesel are completely drop-in and can substitute for petroleum based fuels. RCDEA promotes the development of pathways to completely replace petroleum fuels.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biomass/biomass-and-the-environment.php
[2] 2019, Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Volume 2, Energy, IPCC
How can renewable crude completely replace petroleum fuels?
Over the next decades REDEA aims to encourage the production of low cost fast growing biomass feedstock including energy crops, recycling of wood and organic waste and macroalgae that does not compete with foodstuff production and projects which can convert this biomass to drop-in renewable crude and the refining of this renewable crude to drop in energy products.
Why is electrification and Electric Vehicles not sufficient?
While there is certainly a place for electrification and EVs in a net zero energy strategy a caution against those who push full electric vehicles (EVs) and electrification over the carbon balancing of existing Internal-Combustion-Engine (ICE) vehicles and infrastructure. Over 60% of the net electrical generation capacity in the US is still from fossil fuels natural gas and coal (EPA, 2020). These stations must be retired and replaced and then augmented for EVs to be net zero. The electrical grid then have to be expanded with new power generation coming online.
The cost of full electrification would be high. According to United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimation of material requirements, “1 MW of wind capacity requires 103 tonnes of stainless steel, 402 tonnes of concrete, 6.8 tonnes of fiberglass, 3 tonnes of copper, and 20 tonnes of cast iron.” As IEEE puts it, to produce 25 percent of the global electricity demand using wind energy, we would require roughly 450 million metric tons of steel. And steel is manufactured predominantly using coal, implying that we would require “fossil fuels equivalent to more than 600 million metric tons of coal.” Solar and wind being intermittent sources of energy will require plants to be designed not just for peak power but for offsetting power in times of unavailability.
Electrification will require batteries not just for the EVs but energy storage as well. Battery disposal and/or recycling will be a carbon intensive process with production highly dependent on rare earth metals such as europium, lanthanum, and neodymium mined under potentially environmentally disastrous conditions.
This would also require a complete replacement of the existing energy infrastructure with refineries, pipelines, gas stations, aircraft and cars having to be replaced.
Renewable crude offers the chance for this existing infrastructure and fleet to be recycled as part of the net zero energy mix.
Sequestration of carbon dioxide rich streams from the balanced conversion of biogenic biomass to drop-in renewable fuels offers a path to profitable carbon negative intensities, something unachievable with electrification. Renewable Drop-in fuel production offers a path to profit
EPA (2016, October 3), Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, EPA-HQ-OAR-2016-0041 (Oct. 3, 2016) (Submitted for publication to the Federal Register) [hereinafter NPRM Oct2016], Environmental Protection Agency, Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-standard-program/proposed-renewables-enhancement-and-growth-support-regs-rule
EPA (2020), “U.S. energy facts explained – consumption and production – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)”. Environmental Protection Agency, www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-16 from
EPA (2020), “Electricity in the U.S. – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)”. www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
Hongquio, L (2016 August 25), “The Dark Side of Renewable Energy”, Earth Journalism.net, Retrieved from: https://earthjournalism.net/stories/the-dark-side-of-renewable-energy
Smil, V. (2016, Feb 29), “To Get Wind Power You Need Oil”, IEEE Spectrum, Retrieved from https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/to-get-wind-power-you-need-oil
Wilburn, D. (2011), “Wind Energy in the United States and Materials Required for the LAnd-Based Wind Turbine Industry from 2010 through 2030), US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey, Retrieved from https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2011/5036/sir2011-5036.pdf