The bill defines a biobased product as one of two types: composed, in whole or in significant part, of biological products, including renewable agricultural materials, algae, and forestry materials; or an intermediate ingredient, feedstock material or compound made in whole or in significant part from biological products – including renewable agricultural materials, plant, animal, and marine materials, including algae, or forestry materials – that are subsequently used to make a more complex compound or product.

It specifies that the biosynthetic motor oil must meet minimal standards for biodegradability, stipulating the amount of biobased content within the lubricating oil is not less than 25 percent and that the biobased content is biodegradable.

The bill would require the use of biobased motor oil in all state vehicles and state contractors vehicles by January 2016. After Jan. 1, 2017, all motor oil sold or distributed in the state for use in passenger cars, light-duty trucks or vans would need to meet the 25 percent standard.

The states director of resources recycling and recovery could grant a one-year extension from the requirements of the director finds the lubricating oil is not commercially available. The bill would require the department to inform local agencies and individuals of the benefits of biobased lubricating oil.

The bill says that, a significant source of storm water pollution will be reduced with the introduction of new technologies, such as biosynthetic lubricants, that will improve water and air quality in the state and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Allen Barbieri, chairman and CEO of Irvine, Calif.-based Biosynthetic Technologies, spoke in support of the bill at a Jan. 27 event. The companys Estolide base oils are base oils synthesized from fatty acids found in vegetable oils. The base Estolide molecule structure, which performs similar to polyalphaolefins, was invented by researchers at the USDA. The company sells the base oil under its Lubrigreen brand.

I think that what the bill is doing is trying to motivate the industry to move as quickly as possible towards using something more environmentally friendly, he said. They wanted to move towards something that would have a quality standard for motor oil sold in the state where some portion of that would be nontoxic, biodegradable and biobased. The premise of the legislation is by some date in future, motor oil sold in state would have some portion meet the requirements. They see it as a quality standard, and they see this as a way to start to mitigate all of the pollution damage caused by used motor oils in state of California.

He noted that the bill is largely based on the USDAs BioPreferred program and the Environmental Protection Agencyss Vessel General Permit, both of which in 2013 put forth regulations or proposals that moved us – the country – towards more environmentally acceptable lubricants.

Since the bill is specific to passenger car motor oil, Barbieri said it will require products based on biobased base oil. Its going to have to be from one of the many companies that makes a synthetic base oil derived from biobased content, he said. Our product clearly would work under this legislation. Were not the only company that would be moving forward with these kinds of products, but we are working with most of the oil majors, and I think that a lot of them will end up using our base oil to meet the standard. The day will come when there will be a lot of biobased base oil in the market. We think this [bill] should have a pretty big impact on us.

Another California-based company making biobased base oils is Emeryville, Calif.-based Novvi, a joint venture of Amyris and Cosan. Amyris modified yeast converts sugar cane syrup into Biofene, which is chemically processed to make base oils.

Jeffrey Brown, president and CEO of Novvi, said the company was familiar with the bill and supportive of efforts to promote awareness and adoption of green lubricants.

A standard for renewable and biodegradable lubricants that California state agencies and affiliates are required to meet will result in increased sales of products like Novvis synthetic base oils and lubricants, Brown told Lube Report. While legislation and a supportive regulatory environment can help early adoption of renewable lubricants, we are mindful that our products must be able to compete without government support. Novvi has witnessed strong demand for its base oils and finished lubricant products in the market without regulation in California, and we expect this to continue. We are going to be watching the developments of this bill carefully, as our Novaspec base oils will be a very strong option for the California lubricant marketers.

View bill SB 916at the California governments legislative information web site.