Cutting port’s emissions ‘ remains a challenge’
Improvements in fuel efficiency outpaced by facility’s anticipated growth
Port Metro Vancouver’s greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to increase by about 40 per cent over a 15- year period.
The port’s 2012 sustainability report shows that 2010 greenhouse gas emissions of 796,524 tonnes are expected to reach 1,107,754 tonnes by 2015, including emissions from ships, trucks, rail, and cargo- handling equipment.
In the report, the ever- growing port describes the movement of goods as an “energyintensive process requiring heavy industrial equipment that is primarily powered by diesel fuel.”
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions “remains a challenge because technological improvements in fuel efficiency cannot keep pace with anticipated growth,” the report adds. The port is exploring cleaner energy sources, including LNG, electricity and hybrid forms.
“The demand for Canada’s natural resources has been increasing internationally,” Ronan Chester, the port’s manager of strategic environmental initiatives, said in an interview Monday. “There is going to be more trade in the future.”
The port has come under fire in recent months over plans to increase the shipment of coal through Metro Vancouver, raising health issues associated with coal dust. The port’s emission estimates also do not account for burning of the coal post- export.
Chester said that to avoid “double accounting” of emissions globally the coal emissions should be calculated in the country in which the coal is burned.
He added that the port also does not account for the emissions from Japanese cars imported into Canada over their lifetime.
Tyler Bryant, energy policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation, argued that one tonne of coal can generate two tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. “Imagine all those train cars, that’s a significant amount of emissions flowing through that port.”
The Metro Vancouver board passed a resolution Friday opposing new coal shipments from the Fraser River, where a new $ 15- million coal terminal at Fraser Surrey Docks is under review by the port.
The port’s sustainability report also noted that emissions of particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less — a concern for lungs — are predicted to decline 56 per cent by 2015 to 291 tonnes and continue to drop slightly to 280 tonnes by 2025.
The port emitted 4,698 tonnes of sulphur oxides in 2010, a figure that should decline by 94 per cent to 324 tonnes by 2015, and is expected to reach 260 tonnes by 2025.
Emissions of nitrogen oxides totalled 12,452 tonnes in 2010 and are expected to drop by 15 per cent to 10,579 tonnes by 2025. Overall, the port accounts for less than five per cent of the region’s air emissions.
The port cites stricter international shipping standards, associated with designating the waters off the North American coastline an Emission Control Area, for helping to dramatically reduce sulphur oxides and particulate matter.
The port’s EcoAction plan also provides incentives to cleaner ships by offering discounted harbour dues to vessels that adopt emission- reduction measures. Trucks are required to emit particulate matter at levels equivalent to a 2007 model year engine or better by 2017.