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WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. So for folks following the news, you will have likely heard that the Humboldt Bay Harbor District was just recently awarded $426 million for a port facility, a terminal facility to construct offshore wind turbines. There's a lot of discussion about like what this could mean. What, what, what is our future for Humboldt Bay? What is it going to look like? And environmental groups and tribal nations have been pushing the Harbor District to commit to a green port, green port maybe a little bit kind of vague of a term, and maybe people don't know what that means. So we're going to kind of try to unpack this concept today. And I have two great guests with me. We have Ysabelle Yrad, the West Coast Ocean Alliance fellow at the Blue Lake Rancheria. Hey,

YRAD:

Hi, thank you for having us.

WHEELER:

Maddie Hunt, the Department of Energy, Clean Energy Innovator Fellow at the Blue Lake Rancheria. Hi. So y'all have gone and done some of the work to study what zero emission facilities, green ports, whatever term that we want to use, maybe we can talk about terminology, what these look like across the West Coast or across the planet, and what it might mean to bring a green port facility here to Humboldt Bay. So let's just start at the beginning. Let's try to define our term. What is a green port?

HUNT:

So a green port is usually shaped by a set of policies, strategies, anything like that, that's adopted by a port over time, for example. So these all have the goal of reducing emissions and environmental impacts to the port community. And it includes things like environmental programs, different policies, various mitigation strategies, and especially electrified harbor craft, which is what we dove into with our research.

YRAD:

Yeah and I'd like to add that the green port concept is widely used in global like container shipping. That's not necessarily what's gonna happen in the port of Humboldt. What they're calling it is a green terminal and so there's a difference between green ports where they have shipping containers they might have different equipment that are electrified and other strategies used but specifically for the port of Humboldt they'll have a green terminal. A green terminal is going specifically for operations of the offshore wind industry so they'll have different equipment they'll have different needs than other ports that we'll talk about but green terminal is what the Humboldt Harbor District is focusing on their strategy for electrifying and making a greener operation for the offshore wind industry initially.

WHEELER:

And thank you for that clarification, because I think that when people think about ports or they think about development, coastal development for port or terminal infrastructure, they probably are imagining the port of Oakland where you have large container ships coming in and you have the things that pick up the containers and move them and put them onto trucks that go out from there. That's pretty different than what's being proposed here. Can one of you kind of briefly describe what we're talking about when we're talking about a green terminal and how the sort of components are going to be necessary to build these large offshore wind turbines?

YRAD:

turbines. The port of Humboldt was chosen because of its proximity to the wind resources off of Humboldt Bay as well as its ability to vertically assemble the components of a wind turbine. So for instance, Port of Oakland and other San Francisco Bay ports have the Golden Gate Bridge obstructing towing out a vertical wind turbine out to sea, whereas here in Humboldt Bay we're able to bring the materials and components of a wind turbine to the bay, tow it out to the offshore lease area of the wind farm or the proposed wind farm, and then able to continue operations and maintenance of those wind turbines easily without any obstruction. What the terminal will actually look like is going to have laid out parts of blades, nacelles, the components of a wind turbine, and then have some wet storage on the bay to wait for good conditions out in the water to tow it out. And that could be one to two turbines per week once it's fully operational, and then they could also be towing it to other offshore wind lease areas, such as the one proposed in Morrow Bay.

WHEELER:

Right. So folks who live in Humboldt County probably are familiar with the smokestack out on the North jetty. That's I think 270 feet tall. So if we're thinking about the height of these wind turbines, imagine that then add another one on top and then add a little bit more on top of that. And that's the height that we're talking about here, right? Like so the Golden Gate Bridge, which I imagined to be this super tall structure is not tall enough for wind turbines to get out under it. So Humboldt Bay is really unique in that we don't have these obstructions. It's us and I, I think the Port of Long Beach are the two facilities that are being considered for this massive deployment of offshore wind turbines up and down the West coast.

YRAD:

Yeah, that's correct. These wind turbines will be approximately 1,000 feet tall, and that's larger than the Golden Gate Bridge. I've seen diagrams from the Harbor District as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and then their diameter of the actual blades, you can imagine them being, again, huge.

WHEELER:

Right. So one of these turbines. So we have a bunch of deadbeat dams that are being taken out on the Klamath River right now, which we're all celebrating. One of these turbines, they're so big that one of these turbines can replace basically a dam. We're talking 15 megawatt plus turbines, which are just fantastically huge, amazingly complex machines that are, that are being proposed for offshore wind. And we also have this thing, right, where the turbines that we have now are really big. And the projection is that they're just going to keep getting bigger into the future, which I think probably will scare a lot of people in Humboldt County, big things in Humboldt Bay, industrialization, whatever. I get really inspired when I see wind turbines, because it makes me feel like we're not going to be doomed by the climate crisis. So when I see like a big wind turbine, I get really excited. Like the little kid nerd brain gets excited, like big, heavy machinery. So I am probably different than most people. Yeah.

YRAD:

Yeah, my background was in renewable energy technologies. In undergrad, I was really a proponent for wind turbines, solar energy. But there's a lot of nuances to the needs of Humboldt County and what people's concerns are for renewable energy as it's being proposed here. And I'll just add that these wind turbines, the Port of Long Beach in particular is talking about what you just mentioned about how huge these wind turbines are in order to have less turbines in the water. So it's an economy of scale, they're calling it. Larger turbines produce more energy, and then you'll have the need for less turbines out in the water versus more turbines that are very small.

WHEELER:

And for our bird lovers out there, some science is pointing to the fact that with larger turbines, you can have fewer of them and you can have fewer total impacts or, or bird deaths per unit of energy produced. So if we're replacing a lot of smaller turbines with bigger turbines, there can be kind of an environmental benefit to this as well. Although again, research is still mixed on this subject. Let's talk about what functionally, what is going to be required to construct these turbines. The sort of parts and pieces that we'll need to figure out to build these large structures. Tell us about like what this could look like out on Humboldt Bay.

HUNT:

Well, I don't think that we have the specific equipment necessarily that we know that they'll be using, but we can think that comparably there's things like rubber-tired Ganchi cranes or RTG cranes that we do have some data about when it comes to electrification and green ports and those being employed at, say, the port of Long Beach, but also just green ports globally. So I don't think I can necessarily speak to the specific terminal equipment.

WHEELER:

But I think that that's a good point. a nacelle for those who are not in the wind world. Can you describe it? It's like the core machinery hub thing, the spoke of which the blades come off of, right?

YRAD:

Yeah, you can think of it as the middle part of the wind turbine. In terms of the equipment, we did have a chat with the Harbor District just last week about some of the green port or green terminal strategies that we're proposing. And they let us know that they're going to have top loaders, crawler cranes, and forklifts. And some of the research we did was some of the electrification feasibility of forklifts and top loaders for zero mission port operations.

WHEELER:

These things already exist, green forklifts already exist, or electric forklifts already exist, this is something that we can just go out and purchase? Yes.

HUNT:

For most of the more general port operations equipment, like a forklift, there is already electric alternatives from multiple manufacturers, which is a big piece of our feasibility report, is that this market is still growing and developing, but there is existing technology that is currently employed at multiple ports, especially in California, which kind of leads me to different state regulatory agencies that are also supporting the shift from diesel to electric. Things like CARB, the California Air Resources Board, and their core voucher program, which supports transitions from diesel cargo handling equipment to electric. And the voucher program is eligible for multiple manufacturers of zero emissions port equipment.

YRAD:

Essentially ports can purchase the cargo handling equipment that is zero missions for at like

HUNT:

I think it's 80% of the cost, they'll cover the cost differential between the diesel and the electric.

YRAD:

And an additional 10% of the cost can be covered if the equipment is deployed at a priority population or priority community, including disadvantaged communities such as here in Humboldt.

HUNT:

Mm-hmm. Here's my example right now. There's lots of zero-emissions yard tractors available at market and that are also core eligible For example, you could take a ZE yard tractor and it could be purchased with a voucher up to $180,000 plus an additional 10% so it'd be another 1,800 for operations within a disadvantaged community of which Samoa and a lot of the Humboldt Bay region is considered a disadvantaged community There's lots of programs pushing for this transition

WHEELER:

So this also fits in line with federal direction through Inflation Reduction Act, other EPA grant programs, the $426 million, I believe, was from the DOT, actually, the Department of Transportation's grant program. I think that there's a lot of excitement at the federal level as well about, can we do a new kind of 21st century port, something that is different from the things that have somewhat plagued communities, fenceline communities that are experiencing the pollution and the impacts from ordinary ports. Can we re-envision what this means in the 21st century? I think that there's a lot of excitement that Humboldt County gets to start fresh. Right? We don't really have that much kind of built infrastructure that's going to be retained for this green terminal. So we get to plan anew and start from basically a blank slate here, which is really cool, really inspiring. So as we are planning for this port facility, are there other ports, other areas that can serve as inspiration for us that have already kind of gone down the path of planning for zero emission facilities?

HUNT:

Yeah, I mean, we've touched on Port of Long Beach a couple times in the conversation already, but they're definitely a front runner for green port operations and something that we can look to for like a blueprint as a California port. Some of the strategies that you'll see like trending for green port operations generally are mainly focused, as we said, on diesel to electric transitions for a lot of the port equipment, but also shore power facilities in the form of like microgrids or other renewable energy, so an on-land localized energy grid to, it's basically the infrastructure to support the charging of various zero emissions equipment that we hope they'd be employing.

YRAD:

including Harborcraft, so shore power allows vessels to turn off their engines at birth and plug into the local electrical grid. So that obviously saves reductions and that reduces emissions at the port from vessels coming in and going out, as well as having that infrastructure for charging of the port operational equipment itself. So yeah, the Port of Long Beach does it. San Diego has shore power as well. And other examples around the world are doing it as well.

WHEELER:

Econews report and we're talking about green terminals and what it's going to take for Humboldt to have a zero emissions terminal for offshore wind energy development. So one of the pieces of marine equipment that's going to be necessary are tugboats for this because we have these big wind turbines that are going to need to get out to sea, so we're going to have to have big tugs to bring them out to sea. I think that there's already been some experimentation with electric tugs. Can you talk about that?

YRAD:

Yeah, there's a electric tugboat actually manufactured by Crowley that is deployed in the port of San Diego and they studied that in the ten years of operation, it's reduced 3,100 tons of CO2 carbon dioxide emissions in the port itself That's one main component of the wind terminal is Is Having vessels that are electrified It's gonna be different than what is seen in the East Coast where they need what's called jackup vessels to

WHEELER:

You construct the wind turbines out there, right? Because it's a different form. We're doing the floating offshore wind turbines because our ocean depth is so great that we can't have the floor-mounted big turbines that go from the ocean floor to the sky.

YRAD:

Exactly. So the jackup vessels in the East Coast obviously need more fuel reliance and they're used to construct that wind turbine and fix it to the bottom of the ocean, whereas here we don't need that. So we'll just need tugboats and maintenance vessels. We don't need anything huge like on the East Coast.

HUNT:

Yeah, which is why it's also exciting that they're employing something, I think the official name's like the eWolf by Crowley who is also staged to be the port developer or the terminal developer here in Humboldt, that there's these new technologies that are already being implemented now and this project is going to take a long time, a few years to develop and in that timeframe, there probably will be more options for especially like electrified ocean-going vessels that are currently in the works.

WHEELER:

Right. Well, that's a really good point. So it's, it's 2024. Now I always have to stop and pause and think about the year. Cause how is it 2024 already, but it's 2024. Now we will be lucky if this is operational, if we have wind turbines operational by 2035, that would be the, the most, the most timely scenario. We have a decade in which we can also learn and new things are going to come on the market. It's, it's not just port facilities that are looking to electrify. It's basically all the U S economy is looking to electrify. So I think that we'll have a lot of tech that gets developed. A lot of lessons learned vehicle to grid, charging possibilities where vehicles or heavy machinery could potentially store energy in their batteries, release it back into the grid during opportune periods. There's a lot of things that can still come online that may not be feasible or marketable yet, but in the next decade, maybe there, which brings me to a question about, so there's a lot that we already can do, right? We have electric tugs. We have electric forklifts. We have other sorts of electric cranes. What is the kind of tech that we're still missing? What can't be electrified or, or, or fixed at this moment to have a zero emissions facility?

HUNT:

I would imagine it would be whatever equipment is needed specifically for the staging and integration or manufacturing piece of the wind turbines. I'm not exactly sure what that specific equipment is again, but I don't think that there's currently any electric versions of those from the research that we've done.

YRAD:

The things to keep in mind with electrification of the port equipment is the specific needs of the daily charging and shifts needed to make them optimal. Basically saying, will this port equipment, like a forklift, be able to handle the regular daily operational shift that somebody needs to use it for without having to charge it so often or have reliance on maybe a hybrid diesel need, like fuel reliance. That's some of the studies that still need to be done for Humboldt Bay, including figuring out what kind of charging infrastructure is needed in order to make it a reduction in cost for implementation.

HUNT:

I would say specifically in Humboldt, when it comes to technology needs, one of the biggest hurdles will probably be the development of some sort of shore power facility to provide enough of the electrical infrastructure to support diesel to electric transition for port operations. As our current grid is, there is not enough power generated in Humboldt County to charge, say, a whole fleet of electric vehicles for the terminal. So that's something that I think our research has shown will need to be one of the harder things to address for a green port strategy.

WHEELER:

As a little bit of a nerd, one of my favorite things about thinking about offshore wind is the various kind of interlocking components. It's like a puzzle, right? And you need to do something over here so you can do something over there. It's like, it is so wonderfully complicated and you can go down so many fun rabbit holes. So you are both with the Blue Lake Rancheria. Blue Lake Rancheria has been a leader in renewable energy tech for a long time. The microgrid at the Blue Lake Rancheria has been, I think, an inspiration for all of Humboldt County. Everybody wants a microgrid now because they see that during storms, Blue Lake is able to keep operations going and is able to provide emergency services in a way that other governments are not able to. What is the kind of inspiration for the Blue Lake Rancheria to engage in this topic? Why the interest in green port facilities?

YRAD:

Start us off and just give a disclaimer that we in no way capture or represent some of the views of the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Council, Tribal Government. We're not tribal members. We specifically are hired to do some of that research and engagement, especially as it surrounds the needs of the offshore wind industry and being able to be engaged in those topics for the tribe on behalf. I will say that the tribe has a lot of initiatives, like you said, pushing towards renewable energy and energy sovereignty. As a smaller tribe, it's important to remember that rural communities here in Humboldt need the energy accessibility and, of course, lower reliance on the grid sometimes when there are issues with energy needs. Do you have anything else to add, Maddie?

HUNT:

I'd say that the reason why we conducted this research, as Ysabelle said, is because of the tribe's involvement with all of the offshore wind activities in the region, and the consideration kind of taking that seven generations approach and that lens to how will this terminal development impact our community over time, which is what led to the Greenport research. Just seeing that the region is home to disadvantaged communities and tribes as it is, lots of neighboring natural resources, roadways, and port operations could have substantial community health effects on both air and water quality, noise and light pollution on our small little rural communities. So the purpose of this research was just to show that there's a path forward for this development that hopefully doesn't fall into a pattern that we've seen play out here in the Humboldt Bay and just within the history of the county.

WHEELER:

Yeah, I, I'm sure the, the tribe is well-versed with the economic history of Humboldt County and the exploitation that has come from previous kind of boom and bust industries coming in here. So I imagine that the tribe is, is looking to avoid that same economic future for ourselves. And I really like the point though, that that green port development is not just greenhouse gas emissions, right? This is important. We want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We want to do the right things in the right way. It's also for the people of Humboldt Bay. It's for the ecosystems of Humboldt Bay. If we don't have diesel machinery out there, then we don't have diesel spills next to Humboldt Bay. If we don't have diesel machinery out there, then we don't have loud, obnoxious engines that are causing the port workers to lose their hearing. We don't have the nitrous oxides, the sulfur oxides, the particulate that are going to impact the workers on the port and also impact the, the residents that are adjacent to the port facility, because we have little towns scattered around the port facility as well. So it's not just about climate change, although climate change is a huge, huge reason to do all of this. It, it is the reason why offshore winds we've talked about at all, but it's more than that. It's trying to, trying to reimagine something to be better. Yeah. So that that's a wonderful thing to bring up. We are already headed in the right direction in so many ways. So the grant application that got us that $426 million had provisions within it that directed the money to be used for low emissions operations. And the Harbor district itself just recently passed a resolution more explicitly committing themselves to a green terminal as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?

YRAD:

Sure, yeah. The adoption of the Green Terminal Strategy and Roadmap Resolution by the Humboldt Bay Harbor District commits them and their staff to develop that Green Terminal Strategy by 2025. That would include goals and timelines for the Harbor District to have net zero carbon emissions along with other pollution mitigation methods. We're excited also to see any commitment for implementing zero emission charging infrastructure and equipment as it relates again to that health of the community and the environment. Those are some of the topics that they're working on for the strategy and roadmap. It's up to the community, however, to ensure that the roadmap, the strategy is something that they'd like to see as well, what their goals are, what their deployment looks like for a green terminal. For instance, we know that ports that have the opportunity to build out the electric infrastructure in the beginning versus those transitioning away from fossil fuels at other ports, they have lower implementation costs and can get ahead of the curve for implementing zero emission equipment. Hopefully, this strategy and roadmap that they're working on will include some information about how they'll deploy something like that early on.

WHEELER:

Well, I appreciate that. And I think that the taxpayers who are going to help fund part of this also would appreciate reduce project costs by doing it right the first time. One, one thing that we should probably touch on is as we've been talking about green ports, something that might be leveled as a critique is that we've been overly focused on the air missions part of this. And there's, there's more to being green than just the emissions. And so I want to flag that as an absolutely valid critique and maybe something for the future is to figure out what are the other sort of things that are going to be necessary for the sport to not impact the the fisher people of of Humboldt Bay, the oyster people of Humboldt Bay that can help improve transportation, access and equity for residents of the of the North Jetty. Imagine all the other sort of things that could come along with a massive development. We need to ensure that those things are right, too. So as as a community, we've been focused on on electrification because I think that that's going to be a major challenge. We want to get up front on this. We need to drive investment and research and development. But there's a lot of other things, too, that we will follow through on as we collectively move towards our renewable energy future.

HUNT:

And I'd like to say thank you for that critique, and that things like programs for vessel speed reduction or other environmental policies about ships coming in and out of the bay to protect the health of our, say, aquaculture, all of those programs or policies are things we don't have to wait for development, and they're already being employed at many ports, especially in California, that can kind of model their efficiency, and I think we're hopeful that a lot of those types of policies would be integrated into a green port strategy, and just as much attention should be given to that, especially as input from the Humboldt Bay community.

YRAD:

I'll add to that and just say there's no specific ask or need that is too big to ask for or not feasible. So the strategies deployed in the port of Humboldt will look completely different than other ports around the world. There's just a few strategies such as electrification that's been used. The port can have policies that don't necessarily even touch on renewable energy, such as protections for missing and murdered indigenous people. They might have strategies for including workforce development within the port that's local. They might have strategies that ensure accessibility of the energy from the offshore wind industry, transmitting it through our region. So there's a lot of other discussion that's apart from the Greenport that can still be connected to all of the discussion from the harbor districts. 426 million. 426 million grant. Yeah.

WHEELER:

And that's a wonderful point. And if you want to hear more on the energy transmission and the impacts for rural communities, primarily indigenous communities, you can listen to last week's show with Arnie Jacobson, where we talked about this. Well, friends, this has been a fantastic half hour. Thank you so much for coming in, Maddie, Ysabelle. I really appreciate that you're you're working on this. And I appreciate the Blue Lake Rancheria for hosting you and your fellowships. What a what a fantastic resource you've provided to the community.

YRAD:

Thank you for having us.

WHEELER:

Thank you for listening to the Econews Report. Join us again next week on this time channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California