A groundbreaking highway project that could be key to reducing harmful pollution from heavy cargo is now underway in the Crossroads of America.
At the end of March, the Indiana Department of Transportationannouncedthat construction would soon begin on a first-of-its-kind quarter-mile segment of road that can charge electric passenger vehicles and heavy-duty trucks.
The system,designed by engineersat Purdue University, is similar toa project in Detroitthat uses copper inductive coils to charge EVs as they drive, idle, or park.
However, asexplainedin a press release by the university, highway charging requires higher levels of power because of the speed of travel and higher weight of cargo vehicles.
Purdue's system, being builtin partnershipwith Cummins Inc., will be able to charge semis traveling at65 miles per hour.
Electrifyingheavy-duty truckswould go a long way towardimproving air qualityby reducing pollution linked to health issues like asthma and rising global temperatures. TheEnvironmental Protection Agencynotes that medium- and heavy-duty vehicles account for 23% of heat-trapping gases generated by transportation in the United States.
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As Nadia Gkritza, a Purdue professor of civil engineering and agricultural and biological engineering,pointed outin a university press release, this part of the supply chain "is the most challenging part of the transportation sector to decarbonize."
According to Purdue, unlike similar projects that work with asphalt, itstechnologycan safely functionunderneath asphalt and concrete, the latter of which is used in roughly 20% of the country's interstates.
Indiana is a strategic transportation location, with80%of the U.S. within one day's drive of its highways. The Midwestern state also has the largest number of pass-through highways and the second-largest FedEx hub nationwide, according to manufacturing and logistics firmConexus Indiana.
In short,reducing the numberof gas-powered vehicles on the nation's crossroads could have a widespread positive impact on public health.
"Really the possibilities are endless," INDOT public relations director Blake DolliertoldInside Climate News in April after construction of the project on U.S. Highway 52 began. "And we're just hopeful that this is something that can really benefit a lot of people here in the state of Indiana and maybe even across the country going forward."
During the testing phase, the highway's charging benefits will only be available to vehicles with special transmitters, which draw power from the coils via magnetic fields.
"If you have a cellphone and you place it on a charger, there is what's called magnetic fields that are coming up from the charger into that phone. … We're doing something similar," professor of electrical and computer engineering Steve Pekarektold"American Innovators."
Inside Climate Newsreportedthat the pilot program is expected to officially begin when construction wraps up in the summer of2025. If all goes well, Indiana hopes to have a section of its interstate electrified over the next four to five years, according toPurdue.
