Advanced BioFuels USA – Ship Pollution Is Rising as the U.S. Waits for World Leaders to Act

by Anna Phillips (Washington Post) ... Customers are pressuring the industry to reduce its carbon footprint, and a small number of shippers are experimenting with alternative fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia. The Danish firm Maersk has ordered a dozen ships that can run on both conventional fuel and what the industry calls green methanol, which is made using renewable energy and captured carbon dioxide. Smaller vessels are leading the way, advancing new technology that may later guide the decarbonization of cargo ships. Crowley Maritime, the company building the first fully electric U.S. tug boat, expects it to be operational by mid-2023. The first hydrogen fuel cell passenger ferry in the United States will begin serving stops along San Francisco’s waterfront this summer.

But carbon-neutral fuels cost more, are not widely available and require significant upgrades to the infrastructure at ports and on the ships themselves. The bipartisan infrastructure law President Biden signed last year included billions of dollars to support hydrogen development, which may eventually lower its cost in the United States. Although it provides $2.25 billion to modernize American ports, only one of the projects receiving funding so far includes upgrades that would directly reduce emissions from ships.

For more than a year, Angelo Logan and other environmental justice advocates have been pushing Biden officials to act.

Logan lives in Long Beach, a portside community where adults are hospitalized because of asthma at higher rate than across California, according to a 2019 health survey. Other members of the nationwide activist network hail from inland port and seaport communities on the East Coast and in Texas, where air pollution from thousands of diesel engines on ships, trucks and cargo-handling equipment poses a constant threat. Although the Environmental Protection Agency regulates these pollutants separately from greenhouse gas emissions, supporters of stronger regulation say the two are linked — tighter pollution controls could be impossible to meet with diesel engines, forcing the industry to adopt zero-emission fuels.

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Environmentalists and others say that by waiting for the international agency to act, the United States is ceding the authority it has to lower shipping emissions on its own and bolstering the industry’s arguments for delay. They want Biden to set specific targets for all ships calling on American ports to zero out their greenhouse gas emissions, as well as new rules requiring ships to turn off their engines and plug into the power grid while docked.

The Moving Forward Network, where Logan works as campaign director, is pushing the EPA to require all new marine engines to stop emitting carbon dioxide by 2035. Agency officials haven’t made any commitments.

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Yet the EPA’s power is limited. The Clean Air Act doesn’t give it authority over the majority of vessels docked in American ports. It can regulate only domestic ships, which make up a small fraction of the global problem.

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Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), whose district includes the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, plans to introduce a bill this month that would establish the nation’s first monitoring and reporting system for carbon emissions from large ships, modeled on the European Union’s.

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Aoife O’Leary, an attorney and economist who focuses on the shipping industry, said states have extraordinary power to regulate the fuel ships use near their coastline. California has long required that vessels within 24 miles of its coast use cleaner fuel to protect nearby communities.

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California started regulating oceangoing vessels in 2007, when it approved a rule requiring most visiting ships to connect to shore power. One year later, it ordered ships calling on its ports to switch to low-sulfur fuel. The California Air Resources Board recently set the nation’s first zero-emission standard for ferries and mandated cleaner engine upgrades for tugboats and other harbor vessels.

Bonnie Soriano, chief of the board’s freight activity branch, said regulators are now having “serious discussions” about whether to write tougher rules reigning in ship emissions. READ MORE