Stax Engineering and U.K. startup Seabound hope that the solution for in-port emissions capture may lie in their partnership.

In a joint demonstration last week, Stax provided one of its proprietary barges designed to absorb particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, while Seabound attached its own equipment that absorbs carbon dioxide. Together, the companies captured the diesel emissions of an auto carrier vessel moored at the Port of Long Beach and ejected simple oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor into the air. Not bad for a port complex that is the single largest source of air pollution in Los Angeles County.

“Today, we have a solution in place to provide zero emissions, and we’re looking for California to lead the way on that,” Stax Chief Executive Mike Walker told attendees at the demonstration.

The Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach have long been among the largest economic engines for L.A. County and the surrounding region. The decades of diesel-powered ships coming in and out of the ports, along with the container-handling equipment and the trucks to haul containers in and out, unfortunately created a large carbon footprint for the area. Even after strides have been made to reduce emissions, the sheer volume of activity means that solutions still need to be scaled up.

“I used to live in Long Beach, and if you opened the screen door for more than two hours, you’ve got a film of particulate matter on your furniture,” said Stax founder Bob Sharpe. “That can’t be healthy.”

Engineering a solution

When Sharpe founded Stax in 2016, he admitted that he was a recovering climate change-denier.

“In 2005…I could tell you all the reasons why climate change was a hoax; also in 2005, I started working on pollution control equipment for the barge-based systems that are largely existing today here at the ports,” he explained. “While doing that, I ran across the science of climate change, and it turns out that we’re rapidly approaching irreversible climate change events. I changed my tune, went 180 degrees and founded Stax with the purpose of solving 1% of climate change.”

To do that, Sharpe turned his attention to the variety of ships that, once moored at ports, must continue running their engines to keep themselves powered. What ultimately emerged was a small barge that anchors itself next to a ship and uses a large boom to vacuum emissions from the ship and process them.

“I remember the first day when we were out there going onto a vessel. This vessel’s just emitting black smoke out,” Walker recalled in a separate interview. “The guys positioned the hose there and boom, no more black smoke. I looked back at our system and there was clean exhaust coming out.”

To be clear, there are other solutions that have developed or are being implemented. The ports here pioneered shore power, in which docked ships plug into the local electricity grid in lieu of using engines. And major shippers like A.P. Moeller-Maersk have developed vessels capable of running on so-called green methanol.

However, shore power is an infrastructure-intensive ask for most ports and the market for green methanol and other clean fuels is extremely nascent.

“Alternative fuels are 20-30 years away and 100% shore power is impossible,” Walker said. “Let’s say, ambitiously, it takes 15 years to get to alternative fuels. You’re not going to be able to build 100% shore power in that time. It takes six months to build a Stax barge.”

Scaling up and signing deals

Stax first got rolling with a grant from the California Air Resources Board – CARB for short. Its barges are usually repurposed fuel barges from the U.S. Navy; the booms and processing units are manufactured in nearby Wilmington, and everything is assembled at Pier D at the Port of Long Beach.

Since going live last year, the company has eight functioning barges, with four more slated to come online this year. It began servicing container ships and auto carrier vessels and is awaiting approval to service fuel tankers.

Stax barges operate at the Port of Long Beach, Port of L.A., Port of Benicia and Port of Hueneme. (Walker noted the company was in negotiations for a fifth port.) At the barges, Stax offers “emissions reduction as a service” – its employees operate and maintain the barges at long-term fixed rate contracts with terminal operators and shippers.

To date, Stax has raised about $150 million, including a February raise of $70 million from Firstime Credit and Deutsche Bank Private Credit & Infrastructure that is helping propel the demonstration with Seabound.

Based in London, Seabound manufactures devices that are mounted on vessels making transcontinental trips to capture CO2 emission as it goes. Using balls of calcium oxide – lime – the CO2 creates a chemical reaction that produces limestone, which can either be sold as construction material or re-separated for the carbon to be used in fuel production.

Deploying in ports, especially alongside a company like Stax, creates an opportunity to close the loop to full emissions capture.

“This opportunity to capture CO2 in ports has been very opportunistic for us,” said Alisha Fredriksson, chief executive of Seabound. “We see this as a nice extra use case for our system.”

Walker said Stax was currently in discussions to form a longer term business partnership with Seabound and noted it, like other partnerships, would depend on end-use opportunities for the captured material.

“We think in the future, there will be a financial model that makes sense for carbon,” he added. “We’ve gone through several trials with them and the results are super positive. We’re really bullish about it. Zero emissions has always been the goal and now we’re able to demonstrate it.”