Electric Trucks in the Port of Los Angeles

[daniel]

A story on the radio today (NPR) talked about the new commissioner of the Port of Los Angeles who plans on converting the Port's trucks to pure electric, and in the longer term, to use PVs to produce the electricity.

The article talked about the particulate pollution produced by the Port's diesel trucks, which frequently haul containerized cargo from ships as little as 20 miles or less, to local warehouses or railroads, or even to warehouses within the Port itself. It quoted him as saying that some number between 200,000 and 300,000 deaths (per year???) are caused by all that pollution, and his predecessors had resolved to cut the pollution in half; but he said, Why not eliminate it entirely?

If this goes forward it would be great news indeed.

[Devil's Advocate]

I'd like to see those death stats. 20 mile radius from the Port of LA gives you maybe 3 million people. That means that "pollution" killed %10 of the people living in that area last year alone! Sounds like bloated hyperboly to me.

Not to say electric trucks wouldn't be bad, it would get all the illegals out of there and get their unsafe trucks off the road, sine CA isn't enforcing its laws

[daniel]

I thought the death stats were odd, also. I suspect he may have been talking the entire L.A. metro area. Or he may have been inventing numbers. Either way, particulate pollution is nasty, and he wanted to get rid of it. And a lot of prominent electric 18-wheelers would give the EV movement a boost.

[drees]

I think the death numbers are probably a factor of at least 100 too high, but even then, it seems worth it to me.

Ports are a very dirty place - I saw a chart of particulate concentrations of the Bay Area and west Oakland is a very filthy place because of all the shipping and trucks. I'm sure that Long Beach/Los Angeles is similar.