Chevron USA kicked off a road trip across the US Gulf Coast to showcase an innovative new gasoline blend with more than 50% renewable content. People from Chevron and Toyota will be driving Toyota’s Tundra, RAV4 and Camry on this road trip with the objective of demonstrating the fuel, which is more than 40% less carbon intensive than traditional gasoline on a lifecycle basis, according to Chevron.

Chevron (as well as fellow oil major ExxonMobil) has been developing co-processing—adding biomass-derived feedstocks to the fossil-based feedstocks of existing petroleum refinery process units—as a way to produce fuels with increased renewable content more cost-effectively.

In February 2022, a team from Argonne National Lab published a report “Carbon Intensities of Refining Products in Petroleum Refineries with Co-Processed Biofeedstocks”. The chart from the report shows the product-specific WTW GHG emission results of co-processed renewable fuels for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and LPG in terms of gCO₂e/MJ renewable fuels, compared with the WTW GHG emissions of petroleum products. Lee et al.

The road trip will run from Mississippi through Louisiana before concluding in Texas. During the tour, Chevron representatives will talk with members of the public about the benefits of lower carbon fuels such as biofuels and renewable gasoline blend. Renewable gasoline blend can notably reduce lifecycle emissions and be used in the existing automotive fleet and with the existing fueling network, Chevron said.

Chevron believes the future of transportation is lower carbon and is growing its offering of biofuels solutions for customers. The company produces and markets biodiesel, renewable diesel, and renewable natural gas, and is currently building hydrogen fueling infrastructure in California. To complement these efforts, Chevron has developed, produced, and tested blends of renewable gasoline with the goal of such blends being manufactured using today’s infrastructure and used in almost any gasoline-powered vehicle to deliver an immediate carbon intensity reduction over traditional gasoline.

Renewable gasoline blends use a variety of feedstocks and technologies to achieve carbon intensity reductions. Along with innovation from engine manufacturers and public policy supporting lower carbon fuels, renewable gasoline blends are intended to reduce the carbon intensity of light- and medium-duty vehicles already on the road.

Chevron and Toyota are also exploring new technologies for fueling light- and heavy-duty vehicles and are pursuing a strategic alliance to explore new hydrogen-fuel solutions in the transportation sector.

Separately, Toyota announced that it is working with ExxonMobil to explore its innovative fuel blends which offer the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from road transportation up to 75% compared to conventional fuels available today, according to ExxonMobil.

Toyota has determined that these innovative formulas are compatible with older vehicles as well as its current model line-up. These lower carbon fuels are intended to be compatible with existing fueling infrastructure.

Resources

• Lee, Uisung, Lu, Zifeng, Sun, Pingping, Wang, Michael, DiVita, Vincent, & Collings, Dave (2022) “Carbon Intensities of Refining Products in Petroleum Refineries with Co-Processed Biofeedstocks.” United States. doi: 10.2172/1846005