Tough transportation modes
Through the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, companies across multiple sectors, each with a unique stake in the tough-to-decarbonize transportation modes of trucking, shipping and aviation, convene and link with MIT researchers to amplify and extend their own efforts in this space. Companies engaged in these efforts span both users of these modes and stakeholders in their supply chains. The engagement facilitates information flow and value-chain opportunities across sectors – with the goal to identify, launch, and execute cross-sector strategies for tough-to-decarbonize transportation to meet net-zero climate goals during the first half of this century.
MCSC focused efforts in this area include:
- Identifying key barriers, bottlenecks, and knowledge gaps in transitioning tough transportation modes to low-carbon energy carriers, including both economic and supply chain feasibility.
- Working closely with industry stakeholders to address knowledge gaps and develop collective strategies to overcome key transition barriers.
- Developing novel technology and policy innovations
- Constructing data-driven analyses, models and interactive tools to support industry stakeholders in making informed fleet transition assessments targeted to their operational profile and region.
Snapshot of the MCSC’s Geospatial Trucking Industry Decarbonization Explorer (Geo-TIDE) Tool created by MCSC Impact Fellow Danika Eamer (MacDonell).
News Highlight
New MCSC Geospatial Tool Supports Strategic Decision-making for Decarbonizing Trucking Fleets
Recent White Paper
Alternative Fuels and Powertrains to Decarbonize Heavy Duty Trucking
Get Involved
Is this area relevant to your company’s climate and sustainability goals?
Find out more about membership.
All of our areas of interest have links to the MCSC Seed Awards projects.
MIT faculty members, researchers, and students interested in this impact area: we’ve got all kinds of ways for you to work with us and our member companies.
Projects
- Geospatial decision support for trucking fleet decarbonization (MacDonell)
- Interactive geospatial mapping tool to support regional decision-making for stakeholders in the trucking industry considering the transition to alternative fuels and powertrains. Read more.
- Global biomass availability (Daehn, Coleman)
- Quantifying global biomass availability, in particular from waste biomass streams, for estimating the global production capacity of biofuels
- Assessing the viability of the global low-carbon fuel supply chain for maritime applications (MacDonell, in collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative)
- Assessing the supply chain viability of alternative low-carbon maritime fuel pathways for the global shipping fleet based on science-informed technology and process improvement potential, and evaluating associated GHG and non-GHG impacts.
2024
- Optimization and collaboration toward a scalable charging infrastructure in logistics (Amin, Jacquillat)
- This project will contribute new algorithms in large-scale integer optimization (building upon vehicle routing and facility location methodologies) and mechanism design (building upon network formation games and pricing mechanisms). It will contribute new decision tools and policy recommendations to support the ongoing transition toward the electrification and decarbonization of long-haul logistics.
2022
- Powertrain and system for LOHC-powered long-haul trucking (Green)
- This team proposes a different energy carrier for long-haul trucks and certain ships: Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC), room-temperature liquids that can release gaseous hydrogen fuel. The proposed decarbonization concept for trucking and some shipping has the potential for relatively easy worldwide implementation, delivering needed reductions in GHG emissions from the transport sector.
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Seed Award Summary
- Hydrogen storage and delivery solutions for trucking (Winter)
- This team is designing and prototyping new hydrogen storage design for heavy-duty hydrogen fuel-cell trucks.
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Seed Award Summary
- Climate and air quality impacts of ammonia in shipping (Selin, Barrett)
- This team is studying the potential climate and air quality impacts of large-scale utilization of ammonia for maritime shipping.
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Seed Award Summary
- Logistics electrification through scalable and inter-operable charging infrastructure: operations, planning, and policy (Jacquillat)
- This project will contribute new models and algorithms for optimization of road freight, combining vehicle routing and facility location models. It will contribute new decision tools and policy recommendations to support the ongoing transition toward electrified logistics.
- Sustainable separation and purification of biochemicals and biofuels using membranes (Lienhard)
- This investigation will begin by building a computational platform to predict the chemical potential of molecular species in complex multicomponent mixtures – combining group contribution and neural networks. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo combined with Gaussian process regression will be used to directly estimate and bound chemical potential estimates in multicomponent mixtures. The chemical potential model will be used to estimate the energy savings attainable using RO for two key biochemical and biofuel separations, guiding future membrane and materials development.
Contact Us
If you would like more information, please e-mail mcsc@mit.edu.
Who’s studying this
Research Scientist
Research Scientist
MCSC Impact Fellow
Member companies participating
