A formal strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector prioritizes maritime and rail over trucking to more quickly get to net-zero emissions by 2050.
The U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, released Tuesday by the Biden administration, is billed as a “first-of-its-kind” plan to cut GHG emissions in both passenger and freight transportation, building off funding incentives included in the 2021 infrastructure package and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The blueprint lays out three main strategies for attaining its goal: increasing user convenience, improving vehicle efficiency and transitioning to clean fuels and vehicles.
“While the first two strategies will contribute to reducing GHG emissions and produce significant co-benefits, transitioning to clean options is expected to drive the majority of emissions reductions,” according to the plan.
But in detailing the vehicle efficiency strategy, the blueprint points out that trucks and vans are the largest contributor to freight emissions. “Heavy road freight vehicles in particular can be difficult to decarbonize,” the administration states. “This energy- and emissions-intensive paradigm is a significant reason why transportation has become the largest GHG emissions source in the United States.
Source: U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization (Argonne National Laboratory, EPA)
“Using more efficient modes and vehicles is essential to reduce overall transportation emissions and energy use. The use of more efficient modes could also reduce the number of vehicles on the road and reduce congestion, improving travel time and traffic flow thereby further reducing GHG emissions and other harmful air pollutants. For freight, maritime and rail offer the cleanest options, followed by trucks and aviation, which results in the highest emissions. Industry can prioritize shifting parts of shipment journeys away from trucks to rail and water shipping when feasible.”
The blueprint acknowledges, however, that choosing the best mode for any given trip “is complex and depends on available mobility options, as well as cost, speed, safety, convenience, and other factors. … Additionally, emerging vehicle technologies and fuels will reduce emissions for many of these travel modes over time and will require an ongoing evaluation of mode-specific emissions and energy efficiency.”
The strategy also calls for continuing to improve and optimize transportation systems within each mode to reduce energy use and emissions — good news for companies developing load-matching services and software. Such services that increase vehicle routing and load factors “will improve efficiency while reducing fuel costs,” the strategy notes.
“In addition, new technologies can help improve multimodal freight transport and logistics and enable the use of shared transport assets and services, and more effectively respond to changes or unexpected delays using real-time data.”
Emissions reductions will also come with improvements to supply chain management that reduce freight miles, such as ensuring vehicles travel with full loads as often as possible, cutting “deadhead” miles, and optimizing routes, according to the administration.
“For example, just-in-time queuing at ports can enable ships to optimize their speed, thus reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Advanced computing and data analytics (e.g., sensors, big data analytics, blockchain) have the potential to improve supply chains by optimizing truck routing and freight logistics.”
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Tommy W
U know u just can’t make this stuff up. What u think the ship and train graph will look like when u swap plus you will put a million people out of a job. Cut the airplane and trains out of equation and you would be better off. But no jump the gun and mess everything up. Sounds like the way this administration does things Way to go
Frank Hammond
Another Biden Cheerleading article by John Gallagher – John, hope your constant praise of Biden earns you a Senior Appointment in the Second Term – You have earned it.
Hugh Cutler
From Google data (high level):
In the USA trucks moved 10.93 billion tons of freight in 2021
1 freight train of 200 rail cars hauls 100 tons of freight
To get to no trucks by 2050 would mean:
109,300,000 more freight trains of 200 rail cars each per year in 27 years
310,511 more freight trains of 200 rail cars each day in 27 years
Of course this does not take into account any logistics/operational issue ect
Joe and Pete have no idea what they are talking about, I guess they hope some will believe them
Richard M Rehmer
It would be good if the Biden administration could figure out a way to get goods from rail heads, ship ports, and other central hubs to small committees without using semi-trucks to move them. But anyone with any common sense will see that there isn’t any other way to do it, period. His push for electric vehicles is stupidity at its finest. As for reducing carbon footprint, nice try; if you figure it out, they produce a bigger carbon footprint than diesel power semis do, read the statistics. Electric vehicles may do well in a big city but will never do well over the road or regional. The sheer weight of the electric semi is not conducive to an economic load; the drain on the electrical power grid and the many charging stations that will need to be constructed due to the short battery charge life will negatively impact local electrical grids. No Biden administration’s lofty climate agenda is a no-win for America, period, and less of a win for the transportation industry
Richard Young
This seems to ignore the fundamental tradeoff of inventory investment vs. transportation expenditure. First, there are many goods that do not lend themselves to longer transport times; second, if there is that shift then there is going to be a massive increase in the demand for warehouse space; third, trucks do provide the most accurate adherence to schedules and hence lower levels of safety stock otherwise needed to accommodate variations in transit time. As a nation U.S. consumers are very accustomed to short lead times, hence I want to see the overall reaction of the electorate when this goes into action.
Eric Manfull
Once again a fantasy of moving freight, this idea of rail and ships are only a very small piece of the puzzle. Look at the meltdown at LA and Longbeach. And besides newer trucks run cleaner
Charles Hawk
Absolutely insane.
Did these genius’ not watch the last 3 years ?
Everything shifted to Sea Shipping and they were pushed beyond their limits.
Rail was crushed.
This administration has gone completely off the reservation.
Willy B Cargopilot
Carbon-lies and NetZero are Bolshevic lies. You all hate prosperity…”Quick Zues! Don’t let the regular people have fire! (Energy) It’s only for the ‘gods!’ “