Climate change means regional opportunity

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Rex Burkholder is a Metro Councilor representing District 5, which includes Northwest Portland, North Portland, Northeast Portland, downtown Portland, a portion of Southwest Portland and a portion of Southeast Portland.

Take a little Rorschach test for me: What do the words, climate change, peak oil and energy conservation mean to you?

If you think like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the alarm bells of regulation, taxation and invading greenies go off in your head. But, if you are like the leading businesses in Europe, it's visions of Pounds, Kroner and Euros dancing in your mind. What many here see as a threat to America's economic future is an economic as well as environmental imperative in Europe.

With support of the German Marshall Fund, I visited three cities very like Portland — Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Birmingham, England and Bologna, Italy — all ex-manufacturing, second-tier cities with large immigrant populations struggling to redefine their futures and their economies.

The countries these cities are located in are also very dependent on imported energy, having almost exhausted their domestic supplies of coal, oil and natural gas. Imagine being at the mercy of Vladimir Putin.

During the trip, my interviews with over two dozen leaders in business, government, academia and nonprofits consistently combined urgency with a strong sense of opportunity.

An example: The Port of Rotterdam is the fourth largest port in the world and largest in Europe. A private company — with a sizable public equity stake — it is in the process of moving its main port 45 kilometers downstream to accommodate the new generation of super sized container ships. This leaves 4,000 acres of old quays and port buildings bordering low-income, mostly immigrant neighborhoods in the center of the city begging for creative re-use.

In a collaborative process involving DeltaLinqs (a large business association), the city of Rotterdam, the port and the national environmental agency, plans are underway for floating neighborhoods, incubators for energy conservation companies, energy retrofits in the low-income areas, high-end waterfront housing, and co-locating technical colleges with high-precision manufacturing companies.

I see a lot of parallels with the Port of Portland's struggles to maintain container shipping service 160 miles upstream from the ocean and the potential for the Portland harbor as a center for innovation, waterfront living and clean tech in the center of the city. All aboard for Astoria!

Being a major port also has its challenges. Most of northern Europe’s oil is imported and refined in Rotterdam, adding huge amounts of carbon and air pollution to the local air. Three new refineries are being built in addition to the two there today. The city of Rotterdam negotiated higher air quality requirements, carbon capture and connections for district heating.

The funny thing is, the refineries will actually make money out of these investments. The carbon dioxide will be piped to southern Holland’s extensive greenhouse-based agricultural sector to replace the previous practice of burning natural gas and provide carbon dioxide for growing plants. Instead of dumping excess heat into the Maas River, the refineries are building piping systems to supply high-grade heat for industrial users in the same industrial park and then on to residential areas that can use the cooler water for space and water heating.

As I said, the Europeans are finding Euros in their energy conservation and carbon reduction strategies.

Other examples include the City University of Birmhingham selling automotive expertise and efficiency technology to China. And in Emilio-Romagna, Italy, where the pride in locally produced food and wine is intense, manure-powered bio-gas generators provide energy and income to help keep farmers in business.

Smart business looks at trends as opportunities. The urgent need to convert to new forms of energy, and use it more wisely, carries opportunities galore. Reducing our energy bills will increase everyone's wealth. And, as our friends across the Atlantic clearly see, the innovators who can get energy saving and renewable energy products and services to market first will make a fortune.

The report on my trip, available here, has links to the organizations I met with as well as descriptions of their work. A brownbag discussion at Metro this Thursday at noon will cover the report in more depth.