5 minute read
Infrastructure
MUSSEL BED PROTECTION
New Zealand’s Ports of Auckland Ltd (PoAL) has partnered with conservation group Protect Our Gulf Inc (POG) on a mussel bed restoration project, fi nds Dave MacIntyre
The project is taking place within the Hauraki Gulf, through which ships approach and leave Waitematā Harbour and the port.
POG is based on Waiheke Island, which sits within the gulf. The group has been in a three year court battle with PoAL with regard to dredging plans. The port requires deepening of the Rangitoto Channel for the safe passage of larger ships, while Protect Our Gulf is committed to ensuring that any work undertaken by PoAL is done in a way that is respectful of Māori cultural values and results in more positive environmental outcomes for the Hauraki Gulf.
The groups have now come to an agreement which has the mussel bed restoration joint initiative as a cornerstone. The agreement also ensures that PoAL will support ongoing monitoring of the site for disposal of dredged material and look for opportunities to relocate as much of the dredgings as possible back within the dredge precinct rather than disposing it at a consented disposal site.
Proactive partnership
As part of the agreement, PoAL will provide funding on behalf of POG to the mussel bed restoration work being done by Revive Our Gulf (ROG). ROG’s restoration project work is also in partnership with iwi/hapū (local indigenous tribes and sub-tribes) and local communities - bringing together expertise in marine science and Mātauranga (local knowledge), consenting and biosecurity.
Looking forward, POG and PoAL have committed to engaging and working positively and proactively together, including the possibility of setting up a joint working group, to ensure that better environmental and conservation outcomes are central to the Port of Auckland’s ongoing activities.
Following the agreement, PoAL received the consent required to dredge the Rangitoto Channel and dispose of dredged materials at the designated disposal site. The consent had been held up by the legal challenges.
POG says its main aim in bringing the litigation was to challenge the need for dumping in the Hauraki Gulf and to highlight the potential effects the activities might have on Māori cultural values and the environment.
“Having achieved this, we are pleased that the way forward is not ongoing and expensive court cases but instead proactive discussions with all stakeholders as to how to better look after our very degraded oceans,” says Shirin Brown, chair, POG.
“The important focus now must be how we can best protect the moana (sea) and its organisms. Notwithstanding that Auckland is a port city, we have to actively do better into the future as businesses and communities to question all projects which represent significant degradation to our marine environment,”
Ports of Auckland CEO Roger Gray says he is committed to engaging with and working with the community and stakeholders for the health of the harbour.
“As one of the largest users of the Waitematā Harbour, we are committed to ensuring we do our part to look after it. Over the past ten years the port has been working proactively on the protection of Brydes whales in the gulf and we are now pleased to partner with Protect Our Gulf on the mussel bed restoration also. We believe this partnership and work with other stakeholders will lead to more positive environmental outcomes.”
Auckland is New Zealand’s largest import port, serving the country’s main population base.
8 Mussels being
dropped into the Hauraki Gulf to seed beds on the gulf seafl oor
PAVING THE WAY FOR GREEN METHANOL CORRIDORS
Opportunities are abound to lease port areas for sustainable methanol production and secure new income streams, writes Gregory Dolan, CEO, The Methanol Institute
Photo: Global Energy Group
Ports are vital to shipping’s energy transition and their role in a net carbon neutral future is set to grow as more of the fuels needed to support a low carbon industry are produced in port locations..
The much-touted ‘green corridor’ concept is founded on the availability of low and carbon-neutral fuels at set points in the global logistic chain, giving owners confidence that the fuels they need will be available to bunker their vessels.
The ability of the industry to achieve low carbon operations is a function of clean fuel production and much of the discussion reflects the chicken and egg status of fuel availability. Demand for fuels including methanol is rapidly increasing as shipowners order more vessels compatible with the liquid alcohol fuel, the most recent being COSCO’s order for 12 24,000 teu methanol dual-fuel container ships.
While conventional methanol produced from natural gas is widely available at more than 100 of the world’s leading ports, the production of renewable products is currently low.
Key locations
Ports hold the key to providing the locations, the facilities and in some cases the carbon sources that could be used to create a sustainable supply of marine fuel. With the right policy signals and investment from public and private sources, they could become hubs for decarbonisation beyond conventional diesel fuel bunkering.
Ports need to achieve several goals; reduce emissions across their port complex and develop critical services that meet new demand for cleaner fuels while creating long term employment and income.
Alongside cargo handling and distribution this will increasingly include production sites for renewable fuels using electricity produced from offshore wind and feedstock sources such as municipal solid waste to create clean fuel.
Such projects reflect and expand on the regional role that ports play in their local economies, providing employment into the logistics chain and in supporting the local workforce as well as related manufacturing and skills.
Projects like Bia Energy Operating Company’s plans for a US$550m blue methanol production plant at the Port of Caddo-Bossier in Shreveport, Louisiana would create 75 direct, high skilled jobs and would result in 390 indirect jobs, according to the local development agency. Nearly 350 construction jobs would be created at peak construction for the project.
At the other end of the scale, plans by a consortium including AP Moller-Maersk will see the construction of an industrial-scale production facility for sustainable road, maritime and jet fuels in the Copenhagen municipality to include e-methanol. Bringing together the demand and supply side of the equation the partners believe it could result in one of the world’s largest electrolyser and sustainable fuel production facilities and in the process establish an entirely new local industry.
8 Global Energy
