146. Reducing Carbon Intensity with Renewable Propane

Most propane used in the U.S. today is produced as a byproduct of natural gas processing and crude oil refining, which are not considered “green” technologies. However, renewable propane availability is growing. Renewable propane, like its conventional brother, is commonly made as a byproduct of other fuel production, in its case, often renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Renewable diesel and SAF are primarily produced from plant and vegetable oils, animal fats, and used cooking oil. Renewable propane has the exact same features as conventional propane, which includes excellent reliability, portability, and power, as well as reduced carbon emissions on a per-unit-of-energy basis compared to many other fossil fuels. While the scale of renewable propane production is fairly small at present, most experts agree that it has the potential to ramp up quickly. “Looking at what we’ve done for the past five years is we were shipping about 40 million gallons [of renewable propane]. By the end of this year, we’re going to be close to 100 million gallons, and by the end of 2024, we should be close to 200 million gallons. So, the scalability is coming up—there’s more refineries coming on,” Jim Bunsey, director of commercial business development with the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC), said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. One way to judge the environmental impact of a fuel is through its carbon intensity (CI) score. The concept was brought to many peoples’ attention in 2009, when the California Air Resources Board approved the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) regulation. The LCFS set annual CI standards, or benchmarks, which reduce over time, for gasoline, diesel, and the fuels that replace them. CI is expressed in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ) provided by a fuel. CI takes into account the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with all of the steps of producing, transporting, and consuming a fuel—also known as the “complete lifecycle” of the