Multimodal Model of Coal Transportation Emissions for Infrastructure Resilience

Abstract:

Modern infrastructure is highly interconnected, with many systems mutually relying on each other, so multiple systems and their interconnectivity must be analyzed to properly assess any portion of infrastructure. This project focuses on the energy sector of infrastructure, particularly that of the common yet inefficient fossil fuel, coal. Despite relatively cleaner sources of energy steadily taking its place, fossil fuels and otherwise, coal-burning power plants still provide about 30% of the US electricity production capacity. Efforts have been made to reduce coal-firing emissions in the plants themselves, such as using cleaner coal and recapturing CO₂. However, the extensive distances between many coal mines and power plants in the US cause the coal transportation itself to contribute upwards of 35% of the total CO₂ emissions attributed to coal.

This project builds on previous work by John Sherwood involving coal transportation emissions through railroads. By further including coal pathways through highways and waterways, as well as transition terminals between each transportation mode, a multimodal model has been developed to more holistically evaluate coal transportation emissions. Coal transactions from 2008 to 2018 serve as the basis for a GIS routing analysis to empirically model how coal was transported in the US for the last decade. As each transportation mode has its own vehicle emissions rate, the model predicts how much of each of the three available modes a particular route uses, allowing the total emissions to be determined with a weighted sum. Akin to Sherwood’s railroad analysis, the resulting output from this multimodal model demonstrates the necessity of curbing emissions from both burning coal as well as transporting it. In terms of resilience, these results demonstrate how modern infrastructure has developed throughout a long history of relying on inefficient technology and unsustainable energy sources. Not only is it necessary to fortify the infrastructure we rely on, but also to optimize it for resilience in the long-run, paving the way to establishing sustainability.