Comment Log Display

Maas Energy Works (Maas) is a family-owned digester development
company committed to effectively reducing methane emissions from
dairy and swine manure in order to ensure a sustainable and
renewable future. We express our deepest gratitude to the
California Air Resources Board (CARB) for your continued support
and development of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

The LCFS is a crucial player in the continued success of Renewable
Natural Gas (RNG), and thus a crucial player in the possibility of
an optimally clean future. As a digester developer, Maas assumes
responsibility in supporting growth factors contributing to the
LCFS. Therefore, Maas humbly and respectfully submits the following
comments in response to CARB's LCFS Workshop (Workshop) held on
August 18, 2022:

At the Workshop, CARB presented the concept of a temporary credit
true up at time of Certified carbon intensity (CI) score approval.
This kind of true up would rectify under crediting to pathway
holders, limit unnecessary costs to producers, and reduce the
urgency from pathway applicants for CARB to process Tier 2
applications quickly.

Under crediting pathway holders under temporary CI score use is not
a most accurate representation of a project's carbon negative
effect. Not only would reduced emissions be accurately depicted,
but the incentive to pathway holders would bolster further project
development within the LCFS program.

Developers typically seek time-consuming, complex, and expensive
storage contracts in order to avoid use of a temporary CI score.
Adoption of a temporary credit true up would eliminate a
dispenser's need to accumulate large portions of storable gas
inventory as well as allow for more market incorporation of
smaller, local fleets that may not have access to such large fleets
to dispense stored gas in bulk. A temporary credit true up would
near immediately streamline and smooth the gas storage and
dispensing processes.

Furthermore, Maas supports the concept of a retroactive, consistent
annual credit true up between verified operational and certified CI
scores. 

Currently, in existing LCFS regulations CARB requires invalidated
credits if a project's verified operational CI score is higher than
the certified CI score. Maas recognizes and accepts the need of
these invalidated credits to prevent credit overgeneration.
However, if a project's verified operational CI score is lower than
the certified CI score, no benefit is recognized. The result is
under crediting pathway holders and therefore an unnecessary,
inaccurate representation of a project's reduced emissions.
Consequently, GHG benefits of the LCFS program are
underrepresented. As the LCFS program's targets grow more
progressive, underrepresentation is a detriment to the program's
long-term success.

Tier 2 Pathways will especially benefit from a consistent annual
credit true up given the potential for factor variability. For
example, a simple fluctuation in annual average temperature could
serve a driving factor in carbon negativity or positivity. To
offset uncontrollable variables, a dairy digester project is
currently incentivized to verify conservative CI scores so as to
avoid the potential for exceeding the year prior's certified CI
score. There is not incentive to achieve a lower score, as
maintenance of a lower score year-to-year is difficult to achieve.
In that case, it is almost always inevitable that achieving a lower
CI score will result in ultimate invalidated credits in future
verification(s) with no credit reward to offset the loss.

Oregon's Clean Fuel Standard is considering a full annual true up.
Maas partners with pathway holders to suggest language adopted from
Oregon's proposal as an incorporation into the California LCFS
rules: 

Annual Credit True-up. CARB will automatically issue additional
credits from the prior year to correct for any difference between a
verified operational carbon intensity and any certified carbon
intensity (including temporary and provisional) if all of the
following is true: (A) The pathway holder has successfully
completed annual verification by receiving a positive or qualified
positive verification statement for the relevant Annual Fuel
Pathway Report, (B) The verified operational carbon intensity value
for a given pathway is lower than the certified carbon intensity
value used for initial crediting, and (C) the credit generator has
received a positive or qualified positive verification statement
for the relevant Quarterly Fuel Transaction Reports.

Allowing not only a temporary credit true up, but also an annual
credit true up would mitigate the tendency to certify conservative
CI scores. Mitigating this tendency alongside resolving the
underrepresentation of projects' annual emission reductions would
serve a most realistic depiction of RNG impact. Incentivizing lower
CI scores would encourage process efficiency, carbon capture,
methane leakage, and all other carbon negative factors playing a
crucial role in achieving CARB's and the industry's goal of carbon
neutrality.
 
Thus, approval of both temporary and annual credit true ups is
approval of optimal LCFS program success and approval of industry
development. Maas thanks CARB as these comments are reviewed and
considered.