pollution strategies through the San Pedro Bay Port Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP). CAAP projects include a Clean Truck Program, vessel pollution-reduction programs, and advanced new technology. Each port operates an air-quality network that collects continuous data on ambient air quality and meteorological conditions in the San Pedro Bay region. “The plan is a sweeping strategy to reduce or eliminate air pollution emissions from every port-related source,” says Noel Hacegaba, executive director of the Port of Long Beach. BUILD FOR THE FUTURE In addition, the Port of Long Beach is investing $2.6 billion in strategic projects over the next decade to enhance marine terminal productivity, deliver greater ef ciency to customers, and improve the sustainability of its overall operations. In late October 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration announced $703 million in grant awards for the national Port Infrastructure Development Program, a greater amount than any year in the program’s history. The grants encompass a wide range of sizes, from $68.7 million for a shoreline reconstruction project for the Port of Alaska in Anchorage, to $353,500 for the Putnam County Port Development Plan Project in Palatka, Florida. At the Long Beach port, $329.1 million already had been budgeted for capital projects in FY 2022, a gure representing 53% of the port’s total spending plan. For FY 2023, $322 million is budgeted for capital improvements, about 47% of the port’s total spending plan. In April 2022, the Port of Long Beach completed construction of the Pier G to Pier J Double Track Rail Access project, adding a second rail line that enables four terminals in the port’s south basin area to simultaneously handle arriving and departing trains. The $34.7 million project minimizes con ict with neighboring terminals’ on-dock rail operations and improves overall safety in the vicinity.
ROTTERDAM MODELS COLLABORATION As U.S. ports innovate, expand, and forge a more sustainable future, they may well look to Europe—and particularly to the continent’s largest seaport, the Port of Rotterdam, in the South Holland province of the Netherlands—as a model for collaboration. In its quest to be the world’s number one port for the import of sustainable energy, the Port of Rotterdam Authority is exploring importing hydrogen from countries where it can be produced cost- e ectively. This has resulted in more than 80 connections with the most likely exporting countries. “We look at countries that have a strategy for the production and export of hydrogen and that have sucient renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydropower, and geothermal,” says Monica Swanson, the port’s program manager for hydrogen corridors. One of Rotterdam’s key projects is with the Pecém Industrial Port Complex in Ceará, located in the northeast part of Brazil on the Atlantic coast, where the Port of Rotterdam Authority is a shareholder. “We have a joint venture with the state to manage the Pecém Industrial Port Complex,” Swanson explains. Together with the state government, the Federal University of Ceará and the Federation of Industries of Ceará, the port has established an e ort to create a green hydrogen hub. “That multidisciplinary approach is what makes the di erence,” says Duna Uribe, executive commercial director at Pecém.
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