Energy use and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of drones for commercial package delivery
Open accessAbstract
The use of automated, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to deliver commercial packages is poised to become a new industry, significantly shifting energy use in the freight sector. Here we find the current practical range of multi-copters to be about 4 km with current battery technology, requiring a new network of urban warehouses or waystations as support. We show that, although drones consume less energy per package-km than delivery trucks, the additional warehouse energy required and the longer distances traveled by drones per package greatly increase the life-cycle impacts. Still, in most cases examined, the impacts of package delivery by small drone are lower than ground-based delivery. Results suggest that, if carefully deployed, drone-based delivery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in the freight sector. To realize the environmental benefits of drone delivery, regulators and firms should focus on minimizing extra warehousing and limiting the size of drones.
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Small AVs such as delivery robots and drones could reduce energy consumption of last-mile delivery, though with regulatory challenges.
“First, small AVs, such as delivery robots and drones, could reduce the energy consumption of last-mile delivery [758], though they come with regulatory challenges [517].”
From Tackling climate change with machine learning (2023) · cites this paper as [758]
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References 49 · Cited by 518
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- [31]Anderson, D. F. & Eberhardt, S. Understanding Flight (McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, USA, 2010).
- [33]Hoffmann, G. M., Huang, H., Wasl, S. L. & Tomlin, E. C. J. in Proc. of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Hilton Head, South Carolina, USA (AIAA, 2007).
- [44]IPCC. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Stocker, T. F., et al.) (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013).
- Authors
- Stolaroff, J. K., Samaras, C., O’Neill, E. R., Lubers, A., Mitchell, A. S., & Ceperley, D.
- Affiliations
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- SRI International (US)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Corresponding author
- Stolaroff, Joshuah K.
- Samaras, Constantine
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2018-02-13
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 409-409
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5811440
- OpenAlex
- W2800687011
- Cited by
- 518
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 74 · 2025: 66 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 16
- FWCI
- 35.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2018-03-08)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (DE-AC52-07-NA27344, 0949710)
- U.S. Department of Energy (DEAC5207NA27344, AC52‐07NA27344)
- Carnegie Mellon University (SES-0949710, DE-AC52-07NA27344)
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DE‐AC5207NA27344, 07NA27344, DE-AC52, AC52-07NA27344)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Urban and Freight Transport Logistics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Advanced Aircraft Design and Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Keywords
- drone delivery, unmanned aerial vehicles, multirotor drones, life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, battery range, environmental regulation
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