Post by HardTimeTrucker on Apr 28, 2009 6:15:12 GMT -5
Maritime industry, SPA tout new green initiatives to reduce emissions
By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published April 27, 2009
Maritime-related businesses and the S.C. State Ports Authority announced a series of green initiatives last week.
The SPA’s $1.7 million project included three components, which are being funded in part through an Environmental Protection Agency grant with additional matching funds from the SPA and the local companies that are participating.
Some of the EPA grant will go toward the repowering of 21 rubber tire gantry trains located at various Port of Charleston terminals.
The SPA will spend roughly $1.1 million upgrading the engines on the large container stacking cranes, from a ranking of Tier 0 to Tier 3, meaning they will run cleaner and more efficiently.
The SPA says this will lead to a 57% reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions and a reduction of nearly 37% in particulate matter emissions.
The remaining $575,000 of the grant is going toward two separate programs to reduce truck emissions. The rebate program covers projects to reduce idling and to retrofit trucks’ tire systems.
SPA spokesman Byron Miller said the agency received 10 times more applications than funding for the truck program.
“That’s a good problem to have,” Miller said.
Miller called it a “win-win for the environment and for businesses in and around the port.”
Fourteen companies received grants for new idle reduction technology and nine companies received grants for truck retrofits.
The retrofit involves replacing the trucks’ dual tire system with singlewide tires. The change cuts down on the rolling resistance on the asphalt, said Pat Barber, who owns the local trucking company Superior Transportation.
Barber said the retrofit can boost a truck’s fuel efficiency by 4%.
The idle reduction technology saves one gallon of fuel every hour it is in use, said Ritchie McQueeney, president of Thermo King Columbia Inc., which installs the technology. The system is ideal for long-haul truckers who sleep in their trucks and need to keep the heat or air conditioning running, he said.
When gas reached upward of $5 a gallon, “we couldn’t get them installed fast enough,” McQueeney said.
The SPA also announced last week that a local tugboat operator is switching half its fleet to cleaner-burning fuels as part of a separate grant from the EPA awarded through the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
With the money, Morgan Charleston will upgrade one tug to ultra-low sulfur diesel three years ahead of a federal mandate and another tug to a biodiesel blend. The grant will cover the additional cost of the purchase of cleaner fuel, which is 10 to 22 cents more per gallon than regular diesel.
Morgan Charleston provides ship docking and harbor towing services to vessels using the Port of Charleston.