Abstract
The use of petroleum in transportation causes air pollution, water pollution, climate change, instability in energy markets, and other problems. In this talk, I draw on a wide range of energy, economic, environmental, and socio-demographic analyses to show that the best way to address these problems is to electrify transportation as part of an energy system based (almost) entirely on wind, water, and solar power. I define “best” broadly, based on a diverse set of criteria, with special attention to impacts on the most vulnerable persons and ecosystems around the world over long periods of time. I focus on motor-vehicles, but do touch briefly on other modes of transportation and the interaction of transportation with larger energy and urban systems. Electrified transportation is the best solution because of the relatively low lifetime cost of WWS power and electrified transportation, the wide range of unmatched environmental benefits – especially the near-zero CO2e GHG emissions of electrified transportation combined with the high social cost of CO2e GHG emissions – and a changing socio-cultural context that makes bolder solutions not only feasible but desirable. While more research is needed an all areas, it is most important to develop plans for interconnected urban, energy, and transportation systems.
Biography
Dr. Mark A. Delucchi is a research scientist with the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley. He does economic, environmental, engineering, and planning analyses of transportation systems and technologies in five main areas: i) comprehensive analyses of the full social costs of motor-vehicle use, with special emphasis on the costs of air pollution, noise, oil-use, accidents, and climate change; ii) Integrated Modeling Systems and Scenario Analysis (IMSSA), which combines Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) and Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) to estimate the climate and air-pollution impacts of emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria pollutants from the lifecycle of wide range of conventional and alternative energy systems; iii) development of the Advanced Vehicle Cost and Energy-Use Model (AVCEM), to simulate the energy use and estimate the social lifetime costs of advanced electric and internal-combustion-engine vehicles; iv) the design and analysis of a new dual-road transportation infrastructure and new town plan that minimizes virtually all of the negative impacts of transportation; and v) analyses of supplying 100% of the world’s energy needs with wind, water, and solar power. He is a member of the Alternative Fuel Committee and the Energy Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the U. S. National Research Council.