Opportunities for Reducing U.S. Transportation's Petroleum Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

While the U.S. has set formidable goals around cutting oil consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these will likely remain out of reach as long as we continue our romance with big, powerful cars, says John Heywood. This unshakeable passion, alongside the well-established habit of petroleum use, and the expanding consumption of private vehicles in developing nations, foretells a major crisis in sustainable mobility. Although we’ve known for years this was coming, says Heywood, “We seem to be stuck.” He is leading efforts at MIT to develop strategies for moving forward -- identifying the “grand challenges and opportunities” that might bring real transformation to our transportation system.

Heywood presents data illustrating different angles of our current fix. For instance, there’s the “horrendous problem” of growth of light duty passenger vehicles, accompanied by even faster-growing freight and air transportation, emitting ever more CO2 between now and 2050.

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