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Zac Ziegler: I'm Zac Ziegler, and you're listening to Oregon Rainmakers from KLCC on this edition. How do we keep ports environmentally friendly while still doing their work? We hear a lot of talk about the green economy, businesses doing work in renewable energy, recycling, precision agriculture, or some other way of rethinking the goods we make while turning a profit. But if you take that idea and move it to our coasts and oceans, a new term arises, the blue economy, and an industry leader in that movement is the Port of San Diego and its Blue Economy Incubator. In fact, staff from the port are in the state for the Oregon Coast Economic Summit, which takes place September 25 and 26th in Coos Bay. We got a chance to speak with two people who are important to the port's efforts ahead of the conference to hear more about lessons Oregon's ports might be able to take from their efforts. Jason Giffen is the Port of San Diego's chief sustainability and innovation officer, and Paula Silvia is the director of the aquaculture and blue technology department. Paula starts by telling us the story of the Blue Economy Incubator.
Paula Silvia: So 10 years ago, in late 2015 the port created an aquaculture and blue Technology Program, or department, to look at environmental and economic opportunities in both of those spaces. And underneath that program, they simultaneously created what we call a Blue Economy Incubator. It allows the port to partner with early stage companies in the aquaculture and the blue tech or otherwise the sustainable ocean space with a core value proposition of facilitating pilot projects. So it's not a traditional incubator in the sense of providing office space or mentorship to early stage startup companies with a nexus to the port. But instead, it's really working with companies. We invest in companies, and we design mutually beneficial pilot projects with them to allow them to do a demonstration project and make a strong case study for commercialization coming out of a real world port environment that you know somehow their technology addresses a unique environmental challenge that a port faces, or otherwise informs new blue economy opportunities in our in our ecosystem.
Ziegler: Here's the question that everyone in your seat would probably love to get asked, What are the success stories from this so far?
Silvia: Yeah, I'll answer and then hand it over for Jason. For bigger context, you know, we've been around for almost 10 years, during covid and post covid, we didn't do any investments in companies up until 2020 there was only nine companies in our portfolio for a very long time, and so in the next in the last year and a half, we've brought in three more. So we're up to 12. So we have really good success stories. We have pilots in aquaculture that are very successful, seaweed and shellfish nursery pilots. We have enormously successful remediation projects for soil and water technologies. Problems that we face are our nature based solutions and shoreline resiliency initiatives, particularly with a company called E concrete is very, very successful, and we've just brought in, you know, new two new ocean data companies, as well as a new magnetic electrification company for shore power for marinas. So it's very diverse. And on purpose, we keep our application open on a rolling basis, and we didn't prescribe any particular category for folks to actually, you know, apply to us for anything specific. We let the market drive that. And as long as there's a nexus to the port, a company can apply to us with a technology that might, you know, solve a unique environmental challenge that we have or inform a new blue economy opportunity. So it's not hard to have a nexus to the port. We have a lot of different responsibilities and land and water rights that we manage, and I can let Jason pick up on that if he wants.
Jason Giffen: The other thing that I would just add is, when you start looking at, well, what does success look like? It's not a carbon copy for each one. Each one is very different, and success will look different based on whatever ocean based product and service that is being piloted and tested. The great thing about this is, when we start looking at these startups, many of the best ideas come from small and medium sized companies. And so what we're looking at doing is getting best in class solutions to address some of the issues that Paula just mentioned, whether it's related to ocean data or coastal resiliency, and although it's great if there's a financial upside for both the company and the port that then we can reinvest, but we're looking at more triple bottom line results that are like Paula said as a part of the. Mean to the conversation, which is benefits to the local economy, benefits in terms of financial returns, of course, but also looking at what we can do to make the fantastic asset that we're charged with managing on behalf of the State of California, which is San Diego Bay, a thriving resilience jewel of Southern California in terms of it being a destination that is known for ever increasing sustainability, environmental quality, because that's why these businesses in and around San Diego thrive. When San Diego Bay is also taken care of, it makes it be a great place that people want to come and visit, whether it's for business or recreation, or whether it's just locals that want to get out, get out on the water, whether it's to go on a fishing expedition or just to go sailing.
Ziegler: So you all down there are not far from two of the big boys on the west coast, the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, the area up where our listeners are here in Oregon, has a bit of a similar situation. You know, we're a little south of Portland and Seattle, some big ports there. How can ports that are near an industry behemoth innovate and compete when they have that giant neighbor next door?
Giffen: So I think we talk about this a lot when you think about ports and harbors. And it's said a lot that if you've seen one port, you've seen one port, we say that in the business quite a lot. But what we have at the Port of San Diego is a very diversified portfolio. Some of the much larger ports that have very mature business models for let's just say cargo as an example, they're moving a lot more from a trade standpoint, and their economic drivers very important, not just regional hubs, but national hubs, especially when you look at our partners to the north, at LA and and Long Beach. But what we've looked at doing is kind of embracing the ability for us to be flexible and adaptable and be able to embrace innovation. And since we're not a large port, we're more of a medium sized port, a lot of the best ideas when it comes to ingenuity and innovation oftentimes come from small and medium sized ports and small and medium sized businesses when you look at the larger economy. So we look at that from the standpoint of that's a competitive advantage, and we've been leaning into that because we don't necessarily have the same level of of staffing and bureaucracy. For example, you don't just so we can be a little bit more adaptable and flexible to also give that customer service and business relationship that startups need, right? Because we're working with startups that sometimes have very few employees, and the employees there wearing multiple hats. And at the Port of San Diego, we're used to wearing lots of hats. We're a landlord, an operator, a regulator, and we've talked a lot about stewardship, environmental stewardship, we wear that hat as well. So we've packaged that all together. And it's not unique to San Diego. This is a model that other ports and harbors could also adapt, if they're willing and interested in leaning into innovation and also focusing on what they're willing to do in terms of de risking the opportunity for going into a into a business that maybe is slightly outside of their mainstream
Ziegler: We're going to take a break. I'm Zac Ziegler, and you're listening to Oregon rainmakers from KLCC.
Barbara Dallenbech: I'm Barbara Dillon back host of KLCC. Oregon grapevine land trusts are growing as a way to preserve natural resources. Max Beacon explains their value
Max Beacon: So that communities can exercise some control over the lands that they depend on, for water, for food, for wildlife habitat. It's a way that communities can pool their resources to invest in the protection of land where they are
Dallenbech: Saving land on the latest Oregon Grapevine at klcc.org
Ziegler: We're back. I'm Zac Ziegler, and you're listening to Oregon rainmakers. Our conversation with the Port of San Diego's Jason Giffen and Paula Sylvia continues. They'll be presenting at the upcoming Oregon Coast Economic Summit. So tell me a bit about what are the big environmental challenges of the port business right now and how they can be fixed either in standard practice. Probably something you can talk a bit about Jason or Paula. Maybe something you can talk about is how innovation is happening in this sector.
Giffen: So I would say, I'll lead it off. And in general, ports are very engaged across the entire country, looking at, we've always been involved in, looking at how we can be cost effective, right, and more efficient. But a big piece of that is also looking at, from a sustainability standpoint, how can we move forward? Forward new products and solutions to deal with issues like decarbonization and emissions reduction. When you think of ports, we've traditionally relied on a lot of diesel powered equipment. But the other thing is, most ports are the larger ports anyway, tend to be in very urbanized areas, and there's a lot of that land is already kind of maximized, and it's very dense. And so a lot of ports are looking at, how can we be more efficient with our transportation and logistics? How can we start thinking about having a lighter footprint on neighboring communities? So from a sustainability standpoint, it's some of the traditional urban issues that maybe any other city actually would face, but it has a port focus in an urban environment. And then the other things that we're looking at is there's constant threats related to invasive species, whether it be harmful algal blooms that might have an impact on fish populations, and then how that then matriculates up the food chain to also impact potentially marine mammals. That's one example. There's other issues related to water quality. We're down here and, you know, close to the border, and so we are in a in a binational area, and there are some concerns with that we've been dealing with for many years, dealing with pollution in in the Pacific, in the south end, towards the border by Imperial Beach. There are a couple examples. The only other one that I would put forward is we are a strategic port, which a strategic commercial port, and one of 18 across the country. And it's really important that our assets and infrastructure are maintained, and whether it's an episodic event like a storm, or whether it's something more significant, we're looking at what we can do to make our infrastructure more resilient, so looking at how we manage the shoreline that and dealing With coastal flooding, whether it be from, you know, a seasonal storm, or it's related to some more significant trends, related to what we're seeing with increases in sea level rise. They just to give you some of the give you some examples of the things that we're working on, and Paula can probably give you some more specific examples of solutions we're trying to tackle through the incubator.
Ziegler: Yeah, yeah. Paula, please tell us about that.
Silvia: Yeah, sure. You know, we said earlier that there's no requirement for any particular type of bucket for technology as long as there's a nexus to the port we can consider these innovation opportunities. And really, you know, we started this to really look at how to compliment or enhance or support new sustainable business lines at the port. So, really increase our diversity of businesses at the port. But we naturally kind of fall into buckets of seaweed and shellfish aquaculture, the ocean data, the maritime awareness, security, that kind of thing that Jason was talking about. Climate resiliency is a big bucket that covers things like maritime decarbonization but also nature-based solutions. A growing portfolio of things that help us improve. We've got a company called Crete that developed a to allow, it was an additive to add to marine concrete to lower the PH of concrete and allow habitat to settle on those structures. And then you form those structures into different things. In our case, this companies pilot project was forming that concrete into interlocking tidepools that were installed along our shorelines as a substitute for traditional wrap or rocks that don't have any habitat value but provide structural integrity to the shoreline.
Ziegler: So one last question as we wrap up here, the biggest piece that people often think of with the port industry are the cargo ships that are moving in and out. Those are often known for burning dirty fuel, dumping waste overboard, other environmental issues. Is there much that ports can do as they innovate to fix this industry, when really one of the biggest problems is things that are happening in international waters.
Giffen: Absolutely so when you start looking at where ports are going from a sustainability standpoint, and integrating environmental stewardship and consciousness as a part of the industry. There is a there is general consensus that's growing across the globe that is understanding where the industry needs to change now. There's some leaders in this space. There's some leaders in Europe. There's leaders right here in California, which are making change. Changes, including us as one of the California ports where we're looking at, instead of having ships run their generators when they're at birth, they can plug in so they're not running generators and having diesel emissions enter into the atmosphere and said they're plugged in, so they're more efficient. We're looking at electrifying essentially every link in the chain. We have a maritime clean air strategy. And other ports on the West Coast are looking at what they can do to be more sustainable, drive down emissions, while at the same time having a greener footprint. So we're looking at electric cargo handling equipment. We have the first all electric tug boat in the United States, which is operating down here in San Diego, we have recently to ultra heavy lift cranes. So San Diego doesn't, we don't do what a traditional cargo port does, container port does. We move vehicles like automobiles, large things that don't fit in boxes. And so we have these very large, ultra heavy lift cranes that together can lift about 400 metric tons, and they're powered by electric power. And even when they move back and forth, we've got a micro grid at our terminal, which is also battery storage as well as solar power. So even when we're moving those cranes in a backup sense. It's not even using a backup diesel generator. It's literally 100% electric. So there's some things that we're doing at the port. We also can focus on being more efficient in terms of how vessels transit. So we have a voluntary vessel speed reduction program where we slow speeds down so the engines are operating more efficiently, therefore releasing less emissions. And there's a lot of work being done across the Pacific on green shipping corridors, where they're looking at exploring renewable or alternative fuels that essentially burn cleaner. We've got a long ways to go though to start thinking about international shipping, but there's lots of conversations, and there's some active pilots at some of the larger West Coast ports connecting to Asian markets that are looking at Green shipping, green shipping lanes.
Ziegler: Thank you both very much for taking some time to chat with me today.
Silvia: Thank you.
Giffen: Thanks so much. It was a pleasure to meet you.
Ziegler: That was my conversation with Port of San Diego's Jason Giffen and Paula Silvia. This has been Oregon rainmakers from KLCC. I'm Zac Ziegler. Thanks for listening.
