David L. Greene

Research Professor

Biography

David L. Greene is a Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Senior Fellow of the Howard H. Baker, Jr. School for Public Policy and Public Affairs.

From 2021 to 2023, Greene served on an Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignment as an advisor to the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards. With Greene’s assistance, NHTSA’s CAFE team completed a rule-making for 2024–2026 and a proposed rule-making for 2027–2032. The Secretary of Transportation recognized these accomplishments by presenting the Department's 2023 Sustainability Award to the CAFE Team.

In 2013, he retired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Corporate Fellow. He is an author of more than 275 professional publications on transportation and energy issues, including 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 12 National Research Council reports.

The 2012 recipient of the Transportation Research Board’s Roy W. Crum Award, Greene is also an emeritus member of both the Energy and Alternative Fuels Committees of the TRB and a lifetime National Associate of the U.S. National Academies. He received the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Barry D. McNutt Award for Excellence in Automotive Policy Analysis, the Department of Energy’s 2007 Hydrogen R&D Award, DOE 2011 Vehicle Technologies R&D Award, and DOE Distinguished Career Service Award. Greene was recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for contributing to the IPCC’s receipt of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

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Research

Greene’s research interests are focused on energy use in transportation and policies to reduce petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and achieve a transition to sustainable energy sources. He has published extensively on automotive fuel economy and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and served on all four National Research Council committees that evaluated US fuel economy policy for cars and light trucks.

How technology and policy can accomplish a transition to sustainable energy for transportation is a current focus of his research and modeling. Other research interests include the costs to the US economy of petroleum dependence, the “rebound effect” of increased vehicle use due to increased fuel economy, and modeling consumers’ choices of vehicles and fuels.

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Research Sponsors

• Energy Foundation
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• Argonne National Laboratory
• US Department of Energy, Fuel Cell Technologies Office
• US Department of Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office
• Energy Information Administration
• Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Transportation and Air Quality
• Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics
• International Council on Clean Transportation
• California Air Resources Board
• Pew Center on Global Climate Change (Center for Climate and Energy Solutions)

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Education

PhD, The Johns Hopkins University, Geography and Environmental Engineering, 1978

MA, University of Oregon, 1973

BA, Columbia University, 1971

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Publications

Greene, D.L. and B. Leard, 2024. “Trends in scrappage and survival of U.S. light-duty vehicles”, Transportation Research A: Policy and Practice, 180: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2024.103982.

Leard, B. and D.L. Greene, 2023. “Coordinating the Electric Vehicle Transition and Electricity Grid Decarbonization in the U.S. is Not Essential to Achieving Substantial Long-Term Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reductions”, Environmental Research Letters, 18(7) 074035 DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/acdd85 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/acdd85.

Ledna, C., M. Muratori, A. Brooker, E. Wood and D. Greene, 2022. “How to support EV adoption: Tradeoffs between charging infrastructure investments and vehicle subsidies in California”, Energy Policy, 165 112931.

Yeh, S., D. Burtraw, T. Sterner and D. Greene 2021. “Tradable performance standards in the transportation sector”, Energy Economics, 102, available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105490.

Muratori, M., M. Alexander, D. Arent, M. Bazilian, E. Dede, J. Farrell, C. Gearhart, D. Greene, A. Jenn, M. Keyser, T. Lipman, S. Narumanchi, A. Pesaran, R. Sioshansi, E. Suomalainen, G. Tal, K. Walkowicz, J. Ward. "The rise of electric vehicles – 2020 status and future expectations", Progress in Energy, 3, 2021.

Muratori, D.L. Greene, E. Kontou and J. Dong, 2020. “The role of infrastructure to enable and support electric drive vehicles: A Transportation Research Part D Special Issue,” Transportation Research D: Environment, 89: 1-5.

D.L. Greene, J.M Ogden and Z. Lin, 2020. “Challenges in the designing, planning and deployment of hydrogen refueling infrastructure for fuel cell electric vehicles,” eTransportation, 6, published online 10/28/2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.etran.2020.100086 .

D.L. Greene, J.M. Greenwald and R.E. Ciez, 2020. “U.S. fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards: What have they achieved and what have we learned?,” Energy Policy, 146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111783 .

D.L. Greene, C.B. Sims and M. Muratori, 2020. “Two trillion gallons: Fuel savings from fuel economy improvements to US light-duty vehicles," 1975-2018. Energy Policy, 142:111517, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111517 .

Greene, D., M. Muratori, E. Kontou, B. Borlaug, M. Melaina, A. Brooker, 2020. Quantifying the Tangible Value of Public Charging Infrastructure, CEC-600-2020-004, California Energy Commission, July, available at https://efiling.energy.ca.gov/Lists/DocketLog.aspx?docketnumber=19-AB-2127 .

D.L. Greene, E. Kontou, B. Borlaug, A. Brooker, M. Muratori, 2020. “Public charging infrastructure for electric vehicles: What is it worth?,” Transportation Research D, vol. 78: 102182, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2019.11.011 .

D.L. Greene, 2019. “Implications of Behavioral Economics for the Costs and Benefits of Fuel Economy Standards,” Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, pp. 1-16 in Topical Collection on Transportation, D. Chen, ed., https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40518-019-00134-3 .

Behram Wali, Asad J. Khattak, David L Greene & Jun Liu, 2018. “Fuel economy gaps within and across garages: A bivariate random parameters seemingly unrelated regression approach,” International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, DOI: 10.1080/15568318.2018.1466222, published online 9/11/2018.

D.L. Greene and J.G. Welch, 2018. “Impacts of fuel economy improvements on the distribution of income in the US”, Energy Policy, vol. 122, pp. 528-541.

D.L. Greene, A. Hossain, J. Hofmann, G. Helfand and R. Beach, 2018. "Consumer willingness to pay for vehicle attributes: What do we know?," Transportation Research A, vol.118, pp. 258-279.

D.L. Greene, A. Hossain, J. Hofmann and R. Beach, 2018. "Consumer Willingness to Pay for Vehicle Attributes: What is the Current State of Knowledge?," EPA-420-R-18-016, Assessment and Standards Division, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ann Arbor, MI, July, 2018.

Wali, B., Greene, D. L., Khattak, A. J., & Liu, J. (2018). “Analyzing within garage fuel economy gaps to support vehicle purchasing decisions–A copula-based modeling & forecasting approach,” Transportation Research Part D, vol. 63, pp. 186-208.

D.L. Greene and G. Parkhurst, 2017. “Decarbonizing Transport for a Sustainable Future: Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Change,” in Proceedings of the Fifth EU-US Transportation Research Symposium of the same name, Transportation Research Board, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Washington, DC.

D.L. Greene, J. Liu, A.J. Khattak, B. Wali, J.L. Hopson and R. Goeltz, 2017. “How does on-road fuel economy vary with vehicle cumulative mileage and daily use,” Transportation Research Part D, vol. 55, pp. 142-161.

"Cost, Effectiveness and Deployment of Fuel Economy Technologies for Light-Duty Vehicles, Report of the Committee on the Assessment of Technologies for Improving Fuel Economy of Light-Duty Vehicles," Phase 2; Board on Energy and Environmental Systems; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; National Research Council, Washington, D.C.

Greene, D.L., A.J. Khattak, J. Liu, X. Wang, J.L. Hopson and R. Goeltz, 2017. “What is the evidence concerning the gap between on-road and Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings?,” Transport Policy, vol. 53, pp. 146-160.

D.L. Greene and C.Z. Liu, “U.S. Oil Dependence 2014: Is Energy Independence in Sight?,” Energy Policy, vol. 85, pp. 126-137, June 10, 2015.

C. Liu and D.L. Greene, 2015. “Consumer Choice of E85: Price Sensitivity and Cost of Limited Fuel Availability,” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2454, pp. 20-27.

D.L. Greene, C.Z. Liu and S. Park, 2014. “Public Policy and the Transition to Electric Drive Vehicles in the U.S.: The Role of the Zero Emission Vehicles Mandates,” Energy Strategy Reviews, vol. 5, pp. 66-77.

C. Liu, D.L. Greene and D.S. Bunch, 2014. “Vehicle Manufacturer Technology Adoption and Pricing Strategies under Fuel Economy/Emissions Standards, and Feebates,” The Energy Journal, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 71-90.

D.L. Greene, S. Park and C. Liu, 2013. “Analyzing the Transition to Electric Drive Vehicles in the U.S.,” Futures, vol. 58, April 2014, pp. 34-52.

D.L. Greene, D.H. Evans and J. Hiestand, “Survey evidence on the willingness of U.S. consumers to pay for automotive fuel economy,” Energy Policy, vol. 61, pp. 1539-1550, 2013. 

G. Upreti, D.L. Greene, K.G. Duleep and R. Sawhney, “Fuel cells for non-automotive uses: Status and prospects,” International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, volume 37, issue 8, pp. 6339-6348, 2012. 

D.L. Greene, “Rebound 2007: Analysis of National Light-Duty Vehicle Travel Statistics,” Energy Policy, vol. 41, pp. 14-28, 2012.