A presentation officially unveiling a new, cleaner diesel fuel was given to media atop the 860-foot Matson container ship M/V Manoa at the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 18 on Harbor Island Friday, July 31.

Agencies represented in the presentation included the Port, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Pacific Merchant Shipping Agency and Matson Navigation. Matson has done business with the port since 1904.

Unveiled was the At-Berth Clean Fuels, or “ABC Fuels” program. At the heart of that program is a diesel fuel that is more refined than the common diesel “heavy bunker fuel,” as some call it.

The heavy diesel is not transparent, and requires heating before it can be pumped to the ship. The highly refined diesel is translucent and thinner.

The new diesel’s appeal is that it is a low sulfur fuel and reduces emissions over 60 percent in diesel particulate matter, the stuff people breath into their lungs, and over 80 percent in sulfur dioxide. The fuel is now used in the auxiliary engines of ships but not in their main engines for now.

The auxiliary engines run as the ships are “hotelling” in port, meaning burning while docked, so the reductions in pollution are in close proximity to where people live, and of course where laborers on the docks work.

“About one third of particulate emmisions from King County come from marine related activities,” said Dennis McLerran, executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

Those include the trucking and railroad industries that carry shipped freight. That agency provides a $1,500 incentive to participating ships at each port of call in Seattle.

There are 37 different vessels participating in six shipping lines and one cruise line. The year 2009 will enjoy reductions of more than 35 tons of sulfur dioxide.

“Many other ports are waiting for international requirements to kick in for using the cleaner fuel,” said McLerran. “We’re ahead of the curve and will be prepared in the future as the U.S. and Canada have petitioned for emission control areas within 200 miles from our ports by 2015.

“In Southern California there is a lot of politics and litigation over conflicts between environmental ports, air agencies and shipping companies,” added Mike Moore, of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. “Here in the Puget Sound we are working arm in arm and demonstrating that the industry and regulators can work together successfully.”