San Pedro Bay Ports Emission Reductions: A Success Story
Jacqueline M. Moore, Vice President
This September saw the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles release their annual Emissions Inventory reports and they were impressive reductions indeed. The San Pedro Bay Ports (SPBP) smashed the Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) 2023 emission targets ahead of schedule and secured swift reductions beyond any COVID-19 pandemic induced emission impacts. The combined reductions reveal diesel particulate matter (DPM) is down by 90%, 97% for sulfur oxides (SOx), and 63% for nitrogen oxides (NOx), compared to the 2005 baseline year. The ports aren’t just “back to normal;” the SPBP ports are cleaner than ever and the model U.S. seaport.
To demonstrate this, one must need just consider the efficiency metric, whereby emissions are estimated in total tons per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU). It is no secret that since 2005, cargo throughput has generally climbed (less than previously forecasted, but that is a different story for a different day) as emissions have plummeted at the SPBP. This has produced remarkable emissions efficiency metrics with certain key pollutants in the 90 percent range: SOx at 98%, DPM at 92% and NOx at 73%, all the while, TEU’s grew 34%, on average, since 2005.
However, this metric shouldn’t be confused with erroneously assigning emissions per TEU, as one regional Air Quality Management District is potentially mulling over. Boxes do not produce emissions. Boxes come in all colors and sizes and hold about anything you can imagine of varying weights, but in the end, a TEU is simply the standardized container to hold stuff. The history of the box is actually a good read, see The Box That Changed the World.
Even with this CAAP success story, the ports are continuously touted as the largest single source of pollution in the South Coast Air Basin (SCAB). Ports are not single, area or point sources, much less a fixed facility. No other industry or facility is aggregated to include all collective emissions in this manner. As such, related emissions merit to be placed into context as a contribution to the total emissions in the SCAB. The SPBP ‘piece of the SCAB pie’ (yumm?) is small indeed, comprising just over 10%of the total NOx emissions, and approximately 14% of DPM emissions, with the ports being the smallest so called ‘source’ of both pollutants. If one analyzes the SPBP categories at a micro-level, many are hardly even visible, with heavy duty trucks comprising 1.4%, and cargo handling equipment at 0.6% of the SCAB totals. Yes, we now are measuring emissions in fractions of a percentage.
These impressive emission reductions prove that the voluntary CAAP is working. We’ve already surpassed the 2023 emission targets, but the supply chain isn’t going to stop there; we have, and will continue to make, transformational progress to strive towards the 2030 and 2035 zero emission goals. The industry is testing new and alternative fuels, technologies, as well as operational modifications, which will continue to reduce emissions across our region and state.