My name is Sophia Dubrovich. I'm a longshore worker for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, part of Local 13, as well as a community advocate. My name is David T. Ross Jr. and I am part of the International Longshore Warehouse Union, Local 13. I am from San Pedro, CA. As so my
father and my grandparents were before me. I lost my father at the age of 19,
passed away with pancreatic cancer. Health is very important to me,
whether it's taking care of yourself at home, clean up your
environment right, eating right. Those are things that are very
crucial to me because I saw what my father went through,
and I hope that the next generations don't have to go through that as well. The LA/Long Beach port complex
remains Southern California's largest single source of pollution. Neighboring communities are hit the hardest
by the emissions from the ships, trucks, locomotives,
and cargo handling equipment. But this pollution also impacts
the rest of Southern California, increasing smog as far away as the Inland Empire. Green hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced from renewable resources, is key to our clean energy transition away from fossil fuels, especially in hard to decarbonize sectors. Historically, hydrogen for industrial uses has been produced from fossil fuels. Today, we have the technology to make hydrogen from renewable resources like wind, solar, and organic waste. So in 2016, I realized that to rapidly decarbonize every sector,
we were going to need an alternative fuel. Hydrogen has been around for many, many decades. It's a mature industrial commodity. Almost 100 million metric tons
are produced and sold and traded all over the world today. One of the reasons I'm so
excited about green hydrogen is not only is it an opportunity to
reimagine our energy system away from one that's based on fossil
fuels to one that's based on renewable resources, but it's also
an opportunity to reimagine our energy ecosystem considering
the community value proposition, considering skilled family
sustaining careers in clean energy, and making sure that the
men and women who have worked on our energy system for the last 100 years and our community members, who have suffered
from the effects of fossil fuels, are included and benefit from this
transition that we're undergoing today. Diesel use and long haul
trucking and port logistics is one of the largest sources of
pollution in and around ports for communities. Fenix Marine Services is the
second largest terminal operator in the combined ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach and they are showing terminal operators
all over the country how to make progress with green hydrogen and
directly displace diesel use here at the port. Hydrogen is one of those things
that's like a Swiss Army knife of energy. Right now we're focusing on the
cargo handling equipment. We've taken a previously fossil
fuel burning asset that hit its high hour mark of 25,000 hours of operation and typically what's done at that point
is the asset is sold off to South America or another market where
it would continue to pollute. Toyota Tsusho and US Hybrid are
our partners on this and they converted it to a hydrogen fuel
cell powered top handler. We have a couple 100 hours of
operating on it so far. The machine just left our
terminal to go back to US Hybrid for its final modifications. When it comes back, fully
expected to outperform its diesel counterparts. We feel
like it's going to really help us achieve our energy goals. We endeavor to be zero emissions by
2030. If we were in a position to
switch every fossil fuel burning asset to green hydrogen in the
LA Port complex, you would have an air quality, an instant air
quality improvement. The pollution in this area in
the LA and Long Beach area has a tremendous effect on all sorts of communities in the area, such as minorities, even older folks
and especially the working class here at the ports. I see the source of the
pollution being right here in the port area. I love the idea of converting to
green hydrogen. Retrofitting with the fuel cell
can keep human operated cargo handling equipment clean and
operable by our brothers and sisters down at the port. My first impression that it was
intriguing. It was intriguing because it was
something new, something I hadn't thought of, hadn't looked into. I had to look at safety because
one of my primary functions is the safety of my membership on
the job. If you're willing to accept the
risk of traditional petroleum products, there's no greater
risk with hydrogen. As a matter of fact, in my
opinion, it is less. My advice on hydrogen to everybody is simple. Approach it with an open mind. If you approach it with an open
mind, you'll come up with the same conclusions that I have. This is the future. I also think that the Union
would embrace this technology because at the end of the day,
we go back home, we invest into our neighborhoods, we give back
to the community, and we want to help protect our community and
have our children be raised here in this community. So clean environment, great
paying jobs, I'm all for it. A terminal or port ecosystem is
the perfect place to prove green hydrogen can decarbonize, hard
to decarbonize sectors. If we can prove it works here it will be a shining example
for the rest of the world about what can be done. The challenge to faster adoption
of renewable hydrogen and alternative fuels is scale. And because all of these
technologies are commercially available today and they have
not scaled, they tend to be higher cost than the fossil
fuels we use today. So the chicken and egg problem
is how do we scale to drive down cost? And the answer to that is
in infrastructure. Infrastructure that can help us
produce the renewable hydrogen at large scale, safely
transport it, store it, and deliver it to end users who are
currently using diesel and gas and enable them to rapidly
switch over. Projects like this is how we advance
cleaner, healthier communities, combat climate change, and reduce our
reliance on fossil fuels. With green hydrogen we can
achieve clean and just energy transition right now.