Energy use and life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of drones for commercial package delivery

Stolaroff, J. K., Samaras, C., O'Neill, E. R., Lubers, A., Mitchell, A. S., & Ceperley, D. · 2018

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This is the public reference that discusses energy and life-cycle greenhouse gases for small delivery drones, including extra warehousing. It spread the point that short range implies a network of depots. The card is citation-level and does not recompute the supplement.

With the batteries of that time, the authors describe the practical range of multicopters as short enough to require urban warehouses or waystations. Drones can use less energy per package-kilometre than trucks, yet extra warehouses and longer distance per package raise life-cycle impact. In most cases they examined, small-drone delivery was still lower than ground delivery, provided deployment is careful.

The sign of the result can change with the electricity factor, aircraft size, and where warehouses sit. The base is a 2018 battery and a U.S.-style delivery assumption. Do not extend the numbers, unrevised, to later aircraft or another grid.