Transportation Energy Use Research Articles

Globally regional life cycle analysis of automotive lithium-ion nickel manganese cobalt batteries

Electric vehicles based on lithium-ion batteries (LIB) have seen rapid growth over the past decade as they are viewed as a cleaner alternative to conventional fossil-fuel burning vehicles, especially for local pollutant (nitrogen oxides [NOx], sulfur oxides [SOx], and particulate matter with diameters less than 2.5 and 10 μm [PM2.5 and PM10]) and CO2 emissions. However, LIBs are known to have their own energy and environmental challenges. This study focuses on LIBs made of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC), since they currently dominate the United States (US) and global automotive markets and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The effects of globalized production of NMC, especially LiNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 (NMC111), are examined, considering the potential regional variability at several important stages of production. This study explores regional effects of alumina reduction and nickel refining, along with the production of NMC cathode, battery cells, and battery management systems. Of primary concern is how production of these battery materials and components in different parts of the world may impact the battery’s life cycle pollutant emissions and total energy and water consumption. Since energy sources for heat and electricity generation are subject to great regional variation, we anticipated significant variability in the energy and emissions associated with LIB production. We configured Argonne National Laboratory’s Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET®) model as the basis for this study with key input data from several world regions. In particular, the study examined LIB production in the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Europe, with details of supply chains and the electrical grid in these regions. Results indicate that 27-kWh automotive NMC111 LIBs produced via a European-dominant supply chain generate 65 kg CO2e/kWh, while those produced via a Chinese-dominant supply chain generate 100 kg CO2e/kWh. Further, there are significant regional differences for local pollutants associated with LIB, especially SOx emissions related to nickel production. We find that no single regional supply chain outperforms all others in every evaluation metric, but the data indicate that supply chains powered by renewable electricity provide the greatest emission reduction potential.

Reducing Transportation Energy Use—Opportunities to Scale

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reports that 28 percent of energy used in the United States is for transportation, moving people and goods. Transport vehicles in this context include automobiles, motorcycles, trucks (light, medium, and heavy‐duty), buses, trains, aircraft, and watergoing vessels. Of these vehicles, approximately 58 percent of the related energy use is from cars, light‐duty trucks, and motorcycles, with the remaining shares being other trucks (23 percent), aircraft (8 percent), boats and ships (4 percent), and trains and buses (3 percent). Pipelines account for 4 percent of transportation energy use, transporting liquids and gases across the United States. It is worth noting that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reported by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are greatest in the transportation sector (29 percent), followed by electricity (28 percent), industry (22 percent), commercial and residential (22 percent), and agriculture (9 percent), as illustrated in Figure 1. This suggests, as many know, that any serious effort to reduce GHG emissions—as many states and municipalities and businesses and consumers have pledged—requires reducing energy use and, therefore, GHG emissions in the transportation sector.

An integrated data-driven framework for urban energy use modeling (UEUM)

Many urban energy use modeling tools and methods have been developed to understand energy use in cities, but often have limitations in aggregating across multiple scales and end-uses, which adversely affects accuracy and utility. Increased data availability and developments in machine learning (ML) provide new possibilities for improving the accuracy and complexity of urban energy use models. This paper presents an integrated framework for urban energy use modeling (UEUM) that localizes energy performance data, considers urban socio-spatial context, and captures both urban building operational and transportation energy use through a bottom-up data-driven approach. The framework employs ML techniques for building operational energy use modeling at the urban scale with a travel demand model for transport energy use prediction. The framework is demonstrated using Chicago as a case study because it has significant variations in urban spatial patterns across its neighborhoods and it provides publicly available data that are essential for the framework. Results for Chicago suggest that, among the tested algorithms, k-nearest neighbor shows the best overall performance in terms of accuracy for a single-output model (i.e., for building or transportation energy use separately) and artificial neural network algorithm is the most accurate for the integrated model (i.e., building and transportation energy use combined). Exploratory analysis demonstrates that the urban attributes examined herein explain 41% and 96% of the variance in building and transportation energy use intensity, respectively. The UEUM framework has the potential to aid designers, planners, and policymakers in predicting urban energy use and evaluating robust theories and alternative scenarios for energy-driven planning and design.

CO2-Preis jetzt – sozialverträglich und verursachergerecht

Abstract The urgency of effective climate action measures and the practical experience in the context of the existing European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) are striking arguments for the introduction of uniform prices on CO₂ emissions: as a minimum price in the ETS and as a reform of existing tax rates on fossil fuels (CO₂ tax) for heating and transport (Non-ETS). In order for CO₂ pricing not to become a mere instrument of rising government revenues, the options currently under consideration are the counter-financing of existing taxes and levies that reduces electricity prices or a per capita refund (climate bonus) for households. Both result initially in very similar distributional effects: the lower the household income, the higher the initial financial relief. Compared to the counter-financing of the EEG levy, climate bonuses are expected to have stronger rebound effects and the reduction of bureaucracy and promotion of the efficient use of renewable energy in heating and transport (sector coupling) would be waived. Thus a counter-financing, in particular the EEG levy in order to lower electricity costs, is a priority. In order to adequately address social hardships, only few socio-political accompanying measures would be needed that are largely independent of the pricing mechanism.

The impact of community sustainability: A life cycle assessment of three ecovillages

Abstract This study uses life cycle assessment (LCA) to develop a comprehensive model of the environmental impacts of residents of three ecovillages (Sirius Community, Earthaven, and Ecovillage at Ithaca) across four areas of activity: home energy use, transportation energy use, food consumption, and waste disposal. In addition, a model of the average U.S. resident was developed to provide a basis for comparison. Using models for residents of each ecovillage and the average U.S. resident allows the investigation of the impacts of different practices at each ecovillage while also demonstrating that ecovillage residents have substantially lower environmental impacts than the average U.S. resident. The combination of the comprehensive results provided by the LCA and the examination of multiple ecovillages provides a rich understanding of the impacts of these communities and their potential as models for the development of more sustainable communities.

The energy use and environmental emissions of high-speed rail transportation in China: A bottom-up modeling

China's booming economy and rapid social development have resulted in the large-scale construction of high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure. In addition to the reduced travel time and enhanced safety of HSR transportation, the construction of HSR infrastructure involves substantial up-front investments of capital and resources, yielding energy and environmental burdens. This study calculated the energy and environmental footprints of HSR transportation in China using a bottom-up modeling approach, with the Beijing-Shijiazhuang line selected as a case study. The results show that the cradle-to-gate energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the HSR infrastructure are 104 PJ and 9.2 million tons of CO2e, respectively, mainly from steel manufacturing. For a high-speed train occupancy rate ranging from 100% to 30%, the cradle-to-wheel GHG emissions per passenger kilometers traveled is 54–178 g CO2e, enabling 10–60% and 46–73% mitigation compared to road vehicle travel and air transportation respectively. Opportunities to advance green HSR in China include cleaning the electricity supply available on the grids through renewable and nuclear power technologies, enhancing the ridership rate of high-speed trains by leveraging market and policy approaches such as the floating train fares mechanism and a cap-and-trade program for GHG emissions, and increasing the life-cycle mileage of high-speed trains.

Life Cycle Analysis of Lithium-Ion Batteries for Automotive Applications

In light of the increasing penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) in the global vehicle market, understanding the environmental impacts of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) that characterize the EVs is key to sustainable EV deployment. This study analyzes the cradle-to-gate total energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, SOx, NOx, PM10 emissions, and water consumption associated with current industrial production of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) batteries, with the battery life cycle analysis (LCA) module in the Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model, which was recently updated with primary data collected from large-scale commercial battery material producers and automotive LIB manufacturers. The results show that active cathode material, aluminum, and energy use for cell production are the major contributors to the energy and environmental impacts of NMC batteries. However, this study also notes that the impacts could change significantly, depending on where in the world the battery is produced, and where the materials are sourced. In an effort to harmonize existing LCAs of automotive LIBs and guide future research, this study also lays out differences in life cycle inventories (LCIs) for key battery materials among existing LIB LCA studies, and identifies knowledge gaps.

Potential Diversified Transportation Energy Mix Solutions for the ASEAN Countries

The objective of this study is to investigate potential diversified transportation energy source solutions and their effective use up to 2030 in order to establish sustainable energy use in road transportation. Five Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam) are examined by considering their economy, energy status, and automotive market scale. In this study, existing energy policies, fuel supply, demand status, petroleum and alternative fuel products, such as natural gas and biofuels, and oil refining/biofuels production capacity are investigated as components of energy mixing. If there are gaps between oil reduction targets and Business as Usual (BAU) consumption, or the required amount of biofuel use to achieve introduction target and possible supply, measures such as improved new vehicle fuel economy, adjustment of biofuel utilization, and natural gas utilization are considered to minimize gaps or to meet policy targets. An appropriate and cost-effective combination of measures is proposed as an alternative case for each country’s needs. Results show that biofuel utilization is one of the measures that is crucial in meeting policy targets. Even in the alternative case, however, estimated demand volume of biofuel exceeds domestic supply volume in some countries, while estimated demand volume of biofuel is lower than domestic supply volume in other countries. In order to solve these gaps and cultivate bio-fuel security within the ASEAN region, a concept of multi-national cooperation of biofuel is proposed. Creating policies to diminish barriers that prevent the trade of biofuels between neighboring countries is the key to success.

Prospects for hydrogen as a transport fuel

Early forecasts for hydrogen's role in transport usually proved over-optimistic, with several seeing hydrogen as an important transport fuel by year 2010 or even much earlier. Over the past century, vehicular passenger transport has experienced hypergrowth in terms of task, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. For a variety of reasons, future decades may well see a significantly reduced global passenger transport task, as well as a widespread phasing-out of internal combustion engine vehicles, especially in cities. In contrast, the global freight transport task is unlikely to decline much, and could even grow, so that freight transport will dominate total transport energy use. Even if the world does finally respond seriously to climate change, likely policies will not favour hydrogen for private passenger vehicles for many decades. Nevertheless, hydrogen has clear superiority over electric vehicles for heavy freight transport. Given this advantage, it may be desirable to promote hydrogen for freight well before large amounts of renewable hydrogen are available from surplus intermittent renewable energy electricity.

Quest for Sustainability: Life-Cycle Emissions Assessment of Electric Vehicles Considering Newer Li-Ion Batteries

The number of battery electric vehicle models available in the market has been increasing, as well as their battery capacity, and these trends are likely to continue in the future as sustainable transportation goals rise in importance, supported by advances in battery chemistry and technology. Given the rapid pace of these advances, the impact of new chemistries, e.g., lithium-manganese rich cathode materials and silicon/graphite anodes, has not yet been thoroughly considered in the literature. This research estimates life cycle greenhouse gas and other air pollutants emissions of battery electric vehicles with different battery chemistries, including the above advances. The analysis methodology, which uses the greenhouse gases, regulated emissions, and energy use in transportation (GREET) life-cycle assessment model, considers 8 battery types, 13 electricity generation mixes with different predominant primary energy sources, and 4 vehicle segments (small, medium, large, and sport utility vehicles), represented by prototype vehicles, with both battery replacement and non-replacement during the life cycle. Outputs are expressed as emissions ratios to the equivalent petrol internal combustion engine vehicle and two-way analysis of variance is used to test results for statistical significance. Results show that newer Li-ion battery technology can yield significant improvements over older battery chemistries, which can be as high as 60% emissions reduction, depending on pollutant type and electricity generation mix.

Urban Transport and Eco-Urbanism: A Global Comparative Study of Cities with a Special Focus on Five Larger Swedish Urban Regions

Urban transport is critical in shaping the form and function of cities, particularly the level of automobile dependence and sustainability. This paper presents a detailed study of the urban transport eco-urbanism characteristics of the Stockholm, Malmö, Göteborg, Linköping, and Helsingborg urban regions in southern Sweden. It compares these cities to those in the USA, Australia, Canada, and two large wealthy Asian cities (Singapore and Hong Kong). It finds that while density is critical in determining many features of eco-urbanism, especially mobility patterns and particularly how much public transport, walking, and cycling are used, Swedish cities maintain healthy levels of all these more sustainable modes and only moderate levels of car use, while having less than half the density of other European cities. Swedish settlement patterns and urban transport policies mean they also enjoy, globally, the lowest level of transport emissions and transport deaths per capita and similar levels of energy use in private passenger transport as other European cities, and a fraction of that used in lower density North American and Australian cities. Swedish urban public transport systems are generally well provided for and form an integral part of the way their cities function, considering their lower densities. Their use of walking and cycling is high, though not as high as in other European cities and together with public transport cater for nearly 50% of the total daily trip making, compared to auto-dependent regions with between about 75% and 85% car trips. The paper explores these and other patterns in some detail. It provides a clear depiction of the strengths and weaknesses of Swedish cities in urban transport, some key policy directions to improve them and posits possible explanations for some of the atypical patterns observed.

Liquid biofuels: not a long-term transport solution

Because of concerns about global climate change, possible global oil depletion, and because of potential benefits for both urban air pollution and rural employment and industry, many countries both in and out of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), are promoting liquid biofuels as a replacement for oil-based transport fuels, and global output is rising steadily. In fact, bioenergy use in general is promoted, and is expected by many to play a major role in climate change mitigation. But bioenergy use in general faces competition for resources such as land, water and fertiliser from the two other general biomass uses, food production and biomaterials. Ethically, food production should take precedence over the other two uses (and at present all bioliquids are made from foodstuffs), and using biomass for biomaterials will in many situations reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than using the same amount of biomass for energy. Where a given amount of biomass is available for transport energy use, it will usually produce more greenhouse gas reductions per vehicle-km if used to produce electricity rather than liquid biofuels. Finally, there are signs that internal combustion engine vehicles could be phased out in the coming decades. If so, liquid biofuels will be phased out along with existing oil-based transport fuels. In conclusion, except for specialist uses, liquid biofuels do not appear to have a long-term future.

Urban Form and Mobility Choices: Informing about Sustainable Travel Alternatives, Carbon Emissions and Energy Use from Transportation in Swedish Neighbourhoods

The lack of mobility choices in many Swedish neighbourhoods and cities designed for automobiles hinders the possibilities to shift towards more sustainable travel alternatives. Urban designers and planners can help with redesigning these neighbourhoods and creating urban forms that encourage walking, cycling and increased use of public transportation if they are informed about the environmental performance and carbon implications of transportation systems in existing and newly planned neighbourhoods. This paper proposes a mobility choices model based on urban form and accessibility factors commonly used in urban planning and design practices. The mobility choices model produces heat maps and visually informs about the integration with walking, cycling, public transportation and private car, modal shares, carbon emissions and transportation energy use. This information can (potentially) trigger urban transformation or redesign to better integrate sustainable travel alternatives in these neighbourhoods and contribute to more sustainable cities. Many houses can have an excellent environmental performance as buildings but they can be located at a distance where it is impossible to walk, cycle or use public transportation. The benefits of energy efficient and carbon neutral home then disappears with extensive travel and commuting by automobile.

Personal Carbon Trading: Trade-off and Complementarity Between In-home and Transport Related Emissions Reduction

Personal carbon trading is a downstream version of the cap and trade approaches to mitigating carbon emissions from individual energy use. Although there are studies that investigate the theoretical and implementation issues, there is little evidence over the potential ways people could reduce their emissions when subject to a PCT policy. Especially little is understood about how people make tradeoff between or complement reducing emissions from transport and in-home energy use. This paper addresses this gap by reporting the findings of a questionnaire survey of stated intentions under the policy. Results show that, more people (53.6%) preferred to reduce their emissions from both transport and in-home energy use compared to from only one of these. This shows the flexibility offered by a cap including transport and in-home energy use is more efficient compared to a PCT covering either of these separately. Nearly three-fourths (76.2%) opted to reduce their emissions following a PCT policy. However, among those with above-budget initial emissions, a large share (79.6%) still could not reduce their emissions to below the budget and opted to purchase at least some permits to cover their emissions, indicating the difficulty in reducing emissions at the personal and household level.

Assessment of optimal location for a centralized biogas upgrading facility

Since the 1990s, the volume of biogas produced in the world has been increasing. Biomethane (upgraded biogas) is a more versatile renewable fuel. Biogas transportation from production sites to upgrading facilities induces a scale advantage and an efficiency increase. Therefore, exploration of costs and energy use of biogas transportation using dedicated infrastructure is needed. A mathematical model to determine the optimum location for a certain biogas upgrading plant has been presented. It was developed to describe a local biogas grid that is used to collect biogas from several digesters and to deliver it to a central upgrading point. The model minimizes operational and maintenance costs per volumetric unit of biogas. The results indicate that cooperation between biogas producers in collecting biogas by means of a star layout reduces the cost of biomethane production (investment costs by 22.4–24.8% and operating and maintenance costs by 1.7–10.9%) relative to using a decentralized method. Merging smaller digesters into a smaller number of larger biogas upgrading plants reduces the biomethane production costs for the same biogas volume source.

Economic growth and transport energy consumption in the Latin American and Caribbean countries

Transport is a strategic sector for economic development whilst being one of the most polluting sectors of the economy. The Latin American and Caribbean countries have been consolidated as the region with significantly faster energy consumption growth. This paper analyzes how the GDP per capita affects the transport energy consumption, testing possible non-linear relationships between variables. A transport energy consumption function depending on GDP and its squared and cubed value is estimated for 22 LAC countries, over the period 1990–2014. The results support an N-shaped curve, while the elasticity values of transport energy consumption, with respect to GDP per capita, do not show a tendency to decrease in the long term. Fourteen LAC countries show absolute coupling levels at the end of the period, while the rest exhibit partial couplings. Likewise, trade openness, population density, degree of urbanization and structural changes in the economy have positive effects on the transport energy consumption. This paper proposes some energy efficiency measures to control the growing energy use, and the promotion of biofuels and electric vehicles is also considered necessary to reduce the negative effects of transport energy use.

Well-to-Wheels Fossil Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in China

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) have the advantage of high energy efficiency and zero tailpipe emissions. They have been progressively commercialized in recent years. Hydrogen production has diversified technological pathways, which vary greatly in terms of energy and environmental impacts. In this study, the life cycle assessment (LCA) method was applied to evaluate well-to-wheels (WTW) fossil energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of FCVs using various hydrogen production pathways. The greenhouse gases, regulated emissions, and energy use in transportation (GREET) model, developed by the Argonne National Laboratory, was applied as the assessment tool, and a China-specific database was investigated and developed to evaluate typical hydrogen production pathways. Then, we compared the WTW fossil energy consumption and CO2 emissions of FCVs with those of gasoline vehicles (GVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The results indicated that renewable-energy-based electrolysis of water and biomass gasification are two prospective hydrogen production pathways with significant WTW energy and climate benefits which can help FCVs reduce fossil energy consumption and CO2 emissions by approximately 90% more than GVs. Among the current pathways with mass adoption, hydrogen production from coke oven gas (COG) has substantial energy and CO2 mitigation benefits, which enables FCVs to achieve a lower WTW fossil energy consumption than HEVs and lower WTW CO2 emissions than HEVs and BEVs. Considering the resource reserves and technological maturity in China, hydrogen production from COG and other industrial by-products is recommended for hydrogen energy and FCV development in the short term. In the medium and long terms, utilization of renewable energy to produce hydrogen should be promoted.

Lifecycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from corncob ethanol in China

AbstractConverting corncobs into fuel ethanol is different from converting stover because cobs have higher hemicellulose and lower lignin than stover. Current research provides life‐cycle assessments of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for stover ethanol but lacks such assessments for corncob ethanol. This study attempts to fill this gap by estimating the lifecycle energy consumption and carbon emissions for corncob ethanol using the GREET (Greenhouses gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation) model. Our well‐to‐pump (WTP) estimate of fossil fuel consumption is 0.51–0.84 MJ MJ−1 of ethanol produced. The estimated GHG emissions are 39.44–49.97 gCO2eq/MJ of ethanol; about 90% is attributed to the conversion process. If glucose and xylose are co‐fermented, it requires 10% less energy and emits about 20% fewer GHGs from well to pump. The estimates are sensitive to the variations in corn yield and hydropower supply. Pump‐to‐wheel emissions are also assessed for representative vehicles with spark‐ignition engines in China. We find that hybrid and plug‐in hybrid electric vehicles have 18–20% lower emissions than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), and flexible‐fuel vehicles using E85 have similar WTP emissions to ICEVs. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Transport emissions and electric mobility in private transport in the Republic of Slovenia

Since the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol more and more emphasis is laid on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The article analyses the feasibility of introducing electric vehicles into traffic rather than vehicles with internal combustion engines. From standpoint of emission sources use of electricity for transport is analysed with stress on private cars and typical emissions from power sector by energy conversion in Slovenia. Results of research shows that electric car has a little more than twice better efficiency of the primary energy use, taking into account only efficiency in the energy chain. Electric mobility brings a more efficient use of energy in road transport with demand to reduce emission at power generation. So presented number can vary greatly, depending on the electrical energy source. In the present research problems connected with immediate initiation of the electric cars are not analysed.

EFFECTS OF THE EU BIOFUEL USE DIRECTIVE ON THE RURAL AREA DEVELOPMENT IN POLAND

The directives obligating the use of renewable energy in transport stimulate the biofuels demand. The aim of the paper was to review the impact of EU directives related to biofuel use on the rural area development in Poland. The research scope covered the rapeseed oil methyl ester production in Poland from 2011 through 2017. The study applies the descriptive comparative methods based on the subject literature as well as data from KOWR, GUS, and PSPO. The findings indicate that the biofuel production not only allows for diversification of energy used in transportation, but also constitutes an important element of the development of rural area. In Poland, the increase in the biofuel demand is conducive to the increase in the agricultural production profitability and reduces disparities in agriculture income. Moreover, it significantly contributes to the increase of feed components supply due to the rape cake production resulting from the oil pressing.