Assessing the Potential of Alternative Fuels to Decarbonize Long-Haul Trucking in the United States

This work presents the costing and emission analysis
of four alternative
fuels for decarbonizing long-haul trucking in the United States: methanol
and Fischer–Tropsch (FT) diesel derived from biomass, and Liquid
Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHCs) and ammonia produced using green
hydrogen. First, we model fuel synthesis pathways using ASPEN and
perform discounted cash-flow analysis to obtain the fuel production
cost. Next, we consider fuel-specific distribution costs and powertrain
models to obtain the total cost of ownership. In addition, a well-to-wheel
emissions analysis is conducted for each fuel. Cost and emissions
are combined to report the cost per tonne of CO2e avoided,
and this metric is used to compare the different alternative fuel
options. It is computed to be $125 for biomass-derived methanol, $238
for biomass-derived FT diesel, $455 for green H2-LOHC,
and $647 for green ammonia. For today’s baseline scenario,
methanol has the lowest cost of decarbonization for long-haul trucking.
Break-even scenarios are also presented at varying biomass costs and
electricity prices, along with additional case studies, such as using
blue hydrogen for LOHC and ammonia production in the short and midterm
until the viability of green hydrogen improves. This analysis indicates
that using blue hydrogen lowers the cost per tonne of CO2e avoided to $80 for LOHC and $175 for ammonia, respectively, which
are more comparable to biomass-derived methanol. In the long run,
biomass scarcity and expected reductions in clean hydrogen production
costs favor zero-carbon fuels for long-haul trucking.