(Photo: Amazon Prime Air delivery drone. Credit: Amazon)A scientific study published this week in the journal Nature Communications shows that using small electrically-charged drones to deliver commercial packages generally consumes less energy per package than delivery trucks.
For the paper “Energy use and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of drones for commercial package delivery,” authors from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International, and the University of Colorado at Boulder developed scenarios to compare diesel truck and electric drone delivery.
As Axios’ Ben Geman explained, the researchers compared estimated emissions from trips in California to deliveries in Missouri since the two states have such different profiles for electric power production.
“In the base case, delivery of a small (0.5? kg / 1.1 lb.) package with the small quadrotor drone has lower impacts than delivery by diesel truck, ranging from a 59% reduction in GHGs in California to a 17% reduction in Missouri,” the authors wrote.
When they studied a larger octocopter delivering medium-sized packages (8 kg / 17.6 lbs., the results were less impressive.
The drone produced 17% lower GHGs than truck delivery in California, which the researchers noted was about equivalent to delivery trucks for an average US electricity mix. The drone actually produced 77% higher GHGs than truck delivery in Missouri, which has a carbon-intensive electricity grid. That said, drones large and small alike had lower GHGs per package compared to personal and electric vehicles for a single item shopping trip.
“Technological advances are more likely to improve energy storage technologies, allowing the drones to go farther and carry heavier packages, ultimately leading to higher emissions per package,” they wrote. “Over time then, large drone delivery could become the progressively worse option for package delivery.”
Another caveat the team uncovered was that the additional warehouse energy required and the longer distances traveled by drones per package greatly increased the life-cycle impacts.
Drone package delivery is still in the development stage. Amazon’s Prime Air, which promises to get packages safely to customers via drone in 30 minutes or less, remains conceptual although the company did make its first public US drone delivery last year, carrying sunscreen to attendees at a conference hosted by Amazon in Palm Springs, California. Environmental impact is one of many sticky drone delivery questions has yet to be resolved.
As far as emissions go, it looks like there are several key factors for companies like Amazon to consider when planning a deployment. That includes the local energy mix, package size, drone size, and powering warehouses for the unmanned aerial vehicles.
Still, the Nature authors say, “Results suggest that, if carefully deployed, drone-based delivery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in the freight sector.”
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