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The Technology Advancement Program (TAP), a joint program created and funded by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, has been recognized by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as among the nation’s most innovative government programs.

Of approximately 600 programs considered, 173 were selected for the Bright Ideas Program. In its inaugural year, the Bright Ideas Award is designed to recognize and share creative government initiatives around the country with interested public sector, nonprofit, and academic communities. This year’s Bright Ideas were chosen by a team of expert evaluators made up of academics, practitioners, and former public servants.

The ports’ Technology Advancement Program is designed to accelerate the verification or commercial availability of new emissions reduction technologies. TAP identifies, evaluates, and demonstrates new and emerging emissions reduction technologies and strategies applicable to the port industry that could be used to control port-related emissions.

Both the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have each contributed $1.5 million annually since 2007. The funds have helped develop, among other projects, a hybrid tug and a pollution control device that attaches to the boiler and auxiliary engine stacks of an container ship.

The device, known as the Advanced Maritime Emissions Control System, uses a “bonnet” or “sock on a stack” to capture emissions from a docked ship’s smokestack. The exhaust is then processed in an on-shore scrubbing system to clean it and then expel the cleaned gases into the air. A demonstration project was funded through the Clean Air Action Plan Technology Advancement Program and has been tested as an alternative to cold ironing or shore power.

Last year, Metropolitan Stevedore Company (Metro Ports), a bulk export terminal operator at the Port of Long Beach, was recognized at the second annual San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan Air Quality Awards for 'taking extraordinary steps' to slash air pollution from their business operations. The company was commended for assisting a local environmental response firm in testing the new pollution control technology.