Purdue University Associate Professor Nadia Gkritza Lecture at NTUA, February 2015

Nadia Gkritza, NTUA Alumni and Associate Professor at Purdue University, Lyles School of Civil Engineering, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, gave a lecture at NTUA titled: “Transportation and Energy Interdependencies: Implications for Infrastructure Design”, on February 26th 2015.

Most of the energy consumed in the United States is used for electricity production and vehicle transportation, two interdependent infrastructures. The freight/passenger transportation and energy systems interact mainly at two different stages, namely, operation and investment. At the operational level, each system needs to satisfy its demand with the existing capacity. However, operation of the two systems, and ultimately investment, are interdependent; while the transportation sector demands energy in the form of fuel, the energy sector requires the movement of primary energy sources (e.g., coal, biomass, or natural gas for thermal power plants). Given the potential for increased coupling between (conventional and renewable) energy and transportation systems, it is apparent that better designs can be achieved if both systems are studied in tandem. This presentation will characterize the interdependencies between the electric and freight/passenger transportation systems with an emphasis on the transportation demand for energy and the energy impacts on transportation. To illustrate the renewable energy impacts on transportation infrastructure, the results of a case study in Iowa will be presented., An impact calculator was developed to determine the incremental cost of new traffic generated as a result of a biofuels plant based on plant capacity, quantity of raw material, and pavement thickness data.