New federal requirements for biofuel content in Canadian gasoline will officially kick in on Dec. 15.
The government on Wednesday announced it has finalized its regulations, which call for an “average renewable fuel content” of five per cent in gasoline sold at Canadian pumps.
The renewable fuel requirement in gasoline will require about two billion litres a year of renewable fuel across Canada, a volume estimated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about one megatonne a year, the government said.
When fully implemented, the federal regulations, combined with provincial regulations, are expected to ensure a total volume of renewable fuel that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to four megatonnes in 2012 — about the equivalent of taking one million vehicles off the road, the government said.
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The regulations are also expected to give the fuel industry the “regulatory certainty it needs to secure investments to build new biofuel production plants, which the government in turn expects will “create jobs in rural communities and opportunities for farmers.”
The government reiterated Wednesday that it also still plans to regulate a two per cent requirement for renewable content in diesel fuel and heating oil by 2011, subject to “successful demonstration of technical feasibility” across Canada’s climates.
Gordon Quaiattini, president of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, described the government’s announcement in a separate release as “a milestone day for renewable fuels in Canada.”
He also noted that the government’s own analysis of its new regulations “incorporates the cost advantage of ethanol over gasoline. We believe ethanol-blended gasoline could save Canadian consumers $1.7 billion over the next 25 years.”
The CRFA on Wednesday also cited its own “first-ever comprehensive third-party economic impact assessment of renewable fuels investments in Canada. The assessment, handled for CRFA by “econometric” firm Doyletech, concluded `”the grand total of the annual positive economic impact of renewable fuels is $2.013 billion.”
Doyletech’s report studied 28 ethanol and biodiesel plants across Canada and laid out major benefits from renewable fuels in “rural re-vitalization, increased oil exports from Western Canada, industrial development, and valuable options for re-balancing the fuel “mix.”
The government’s analysis of its renewable fuels regulations suggests a “total cost” to Canadians of $1.3 billion, the CRFA said, but added that the government “does acknowledge that the economic benefits of the federal renewable fuels policy as a whole were not considered.”
