California has negotiated an agreement requiring the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) related to ships, trains and trucks moving in and out of the port.
State Attorney General Edmund Brown reached the agreement with the POLA – one of the largest ports in the US – on 7 December. It did not specify a level of reductions, but the port must offset the GHG impact of a planned $1.4 billion expansion that will increase ship calls by 30%.
Under the agreement, the POLA will conduct a GHG inventory covering: emissions of ships bound for the port, encompassing the points of origin and destination; rail transit to and from port terminals, including distribution points in the US; and truck transit destination and distribution points.
After completing the inventory, the port will pursue GHG mitigation projects, including setting fuel and engine standards for ships, trains, trucks and cargo handling equipment. It will also impose vessel speed reductions, reduce truck idling and increase energy efficiency at port facilities.
One measure the settlement requires is construction a 10MW solar photovoltaic facility at the port, which would be one of the largest PV installations in the US. This would displace power from fossil fuel sources and save the equivalent of 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The POLA would have ships tap some of this solar power while in port, instead of running their engines.
The settlement will stay in effect until 2012, when California begins enforcing the Global Warming Solutions Act, meant to reduce the state’s GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
This is the second recent GHG agreement negotiated by Brown, following a September accord with ConocoPhilips to offset GHGs from a refinery expansion. He said GHG reduction efforts must include ports, because imports of foreign goods represent a growing source of emissions in the US.
State Attorney General Edmund Brown reached the agreement with the POLA – one of the largest ports in the US – on 7 December. It did not specify a level of reductions, but the port must offset the GHG impact of a planned $1.4 billion expansion that will increase ship calls by 30%.
Under the agreement, the POLA will conduct a GHG inventory covering: emissions of ships bound for the port, encompassing the points of origin and destination; rail transit to and from port terminals, including distribution points in the US; and truck transit destination and distribution points.
After completing the inventory, the port will pursue GHG mitigation projects, including setting fuel and engine standards for ships, trains, trucks and cargo handling equipment. It will also impose vessel speed reductions, reduce truck idling and increase energy efficiency at port facilities.
One measure the settlement requires is construction a 10MW solar photovoltaic facility at the port, which would be one of the largest PV installations in the US. This would displace power from fossil fuel sources and save the equivalent of 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The POLA would have ships tap some of this solar power while in port, instead of running their engines.
The settlement will stay in effect until 2012, when California begins enforcing the Global Warming Solutions Act, meant to reduce the state’s GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
This is the second recent GHG agreement negotiated by Brown, following a September accord with ConocoPhilips to offset GHGs from a refinery expansion. He said GHG reduction efforts must include ports, because imports of foreign goods represent a growing source of emissions in the US.