The use of drones to deliver packages might reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in the transportation sector, according to research conducted by the University of Colorado, Carnegie Mellon University, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and SRI International.
Drones are beginning to be utilized by companies like Deutsche Post DHL, UPS, Google and Amazon for package delivery. This caused researchers to wonder whether drone deliveries use as much energy and produce as many emissions are traditional truck deliveries.
Researchers discovered drones consume less energy per package-mile than delivery trucks, but that the farther the drone must travel, the more energy is used.
“A light package — say, a pair of sunglasses — flown by a small drone over a few miles, saves a lot of energy and greenhouse gas emissions compared to a delivery truck,” LLNL scientist Joshua Stolaroff, lead author of the research paper published in of Nature Communications, said. “But a larger package — say, a computer monitor — flown by a drone large enough to carry it, probably does worse than a delivery truck.”
Other factors affecting drones’ energy use include drone size, the weight of the package being delivered, and the types of power plants on the regional electricity grid.