Emissions reduction policies in transportation can have significant consequences on the economy and materials use, and can fail due to unintended results that can offset environmental gains, said Steven Skerlos, associate professor of mechanical engineering at U-M.

Specifically, we want to know if proposed policies would have unintended and undesirable consequences on the function of the automotive market, on the industry’s life cycle environmental impact, or on the industry’s demand for materials.

—Steven Skerlos

The researchers will look at how the effectiveness of government policies is constrained by producer incentives, consumer preferences and technological constraints. For example, if the best economic choice for producers to respond to greenhouse gas policies is to increase their use of lighter-weight aluminum rather than steel, that could offset emissions reductions because aluminum production requires more electricity. This electricity can come from either highly intensive CO₂ sources such as coal generation or less intensive sources such as hydroelectric generation.

To predict these unintended consequences, researchers must integrate models of market decisions and technological performance with life cycle assessment and materials flow analysis, a process that marries public policy, engineering, natural resources and behavioral research. The project will culminate with the development of an analytical tool called CAPA (the computational automotive policy analysis software program).

Skerlos presented the framework for the study at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Skerlos and James Winebrake, chair of the public policy department at Rochester Institute of Technology, are co-directors of the $1.9 million, five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation since October 2006. Other universities include the University of California at Berkeley and Northeastern University.

The project arose by chance, beginning when RIT’s Winebrake happened to be in the audience for a talk by Skerlos on government policy and sustainable design. Winebrake, an expert in public policy with experience in modeling and an interest in technology systems, approached Skerlos, an expert in environmental technology with experience in modeling and an interest in public policy.

The project is funded though the National Science Foundation MUSES program (Materials Use: Science, Engineering and Society), which supports programs that study the sustainable use of materials and the mitigation of adverse human impact on the environment.