Creating a pathway to decarbonization: UTC civil engineering professor working on efficient, economical ways to reduce greenhouse gases

Dr. Ignatius Fomunung has been working with a group of industry experts to inform and advise on ways to improve the Tennessee Valley. Photo by Angela Foster.

When Dr. Ignatius Fomunung describes his work, it’s an intersection of three separate but interconnected areas.

“I tend to focus on the nexus between transportation, energy and air quality,” said Fomunung, professor of civil engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Engineering and Computer Science.

He said that improving air quality is not just a case of turning off everything that uses fossil fuels and switching to solar, wind and other types of green energy.

“Think about all the economic activities across the state because people are involved in different things that consume energy and cause harm to the environment,” Fomunung said. “So what are alternative approaches that you can use in doing your business that are going to have a smaller environmental footprint?”

As part of his innovative work at UTC, he is director of the Center for Energy, Transportation and the Environment (CETE), a University-sponsored research facility in Chattanooga that focuses on developing clean, renewable energy systems for transportation to improve air quality while promoting energy conservation.

The CETE operates the Advanced Vehicle Test Facility (AVTF)—also known as the test track—located about six miles from campus. The AVTF consists of a 10,000-square-foot research building and a one-mile oval asphalt concrete track.

Through a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) grant, the AVTF was converted into an energy-plus building, meaning it produces more energy than it consumes and sells surplus energy back to the grid through participation in the Green Power Providers Initiative. The project, which was recognized with the first-ever TDEC Sustainable Transportation Award in 2015, replaced an antiquated HVAC system with a contemporary geothermal HVAC system, installed a 24-KWh capacity solar panels, enhanced the AVTF’s thermal characteristics through improved insulation, and replaced high-energy indoor and outdoor lighting systems with energy-efficient lightbulbs.

Non-motorized transportation is another way to advance a clean economy, according to Fomunung. AVTF is acting as a testing ground for personal transportation technologies thanks to a recent grant and partnership with a start-up called SNAAP—which stands for sustainable, nonstop, autonomous, affordable, personal transportation.

One primary way Fomunung uses his expertise is membership in the Tennessee Valley Pathway Study Group, an organization spearheaded by TVA and the University of Tennessee Baker Center for Public Policy. Its goal is to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the Southeast. Group members include UTC, the city of Chattanooga, Ford Motor Co., the Nature Conservancy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The study focuses on TVA’s service area, which covers Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Kentucky. He said the research is looking beyond energy production into transportation-related industries, manufacturing, construction, agriculture and other areas, all of which must be involved if a substantial reduction in greenhouse gases is to take place.

In other words, think of tech innovation, smart cities, autonomous mobility and their lower emissions, energy delivery and environmental stewardship.

“The private sector is the one that’s going to drive this, and what we’re telling them is, ‘If you buy into this idea, it’s actually going to impact your bottom line in a positive way,’ Fomunung said. “We are showing that it’s beneficial to them from the economic perspective that, by adopting these strategies, they can help the environment and still improve their bottom line.”

The study group is developing ideas on how the Tennessee Valley can get to net zero in greenhouse gases by 2050 and is conducting modeling and analysis to determine how much greenhouse gases could be reduced in each sector, explained Laura Duncan, senior project manager for the study.

The idea, she said, is to provide a roadmap for change—not a hard-and-fast set of rules. The hope is to publish a preliminary report in early 2024.

“Our preliminary report will identify critical actions we—all sectors across the Valley—can and should take now to reduce greenhouse gases and support a competitive, clean economy,” Duncan said.

One method is to increase the availability and use of public transportation such as buses, and the promotion of non-motorized transportation Fomunung said.

“How do we get people out of their cars? That’s a tall order,” he said. “People don’t want to leave their car because of the flexibility it affords. So if you just think about it, if people leave their cars at home and take transit, that’s less pollution.”

Fomunung also is one of the founding members of the Southeast Electric Transportation Regional Initiative, or SETRI. Convened by researchers at Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, its mission is to increase the development and use of electric vehicles in the region. More than 70 organizations, companies and universities have signed on as part of the initiative.

Between September 2022 and September 2023, the Southeast increased the number of electric charging stations by 69% and now has 15,036 stations across the region, according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

“Though all Southeast states lag behind average national charging station deployment numbers, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina are all trending in line with the national growth curve,” the group said in an online report.

SETRI is designed to address the “very clunky way” that the move toward more electric vehicles is occurring in the Southeast, Fomunung said.

“Even though electric vehicles currently make up a small percentage of the number of vehicles on the road, their adoption is occurring at a faster clip than projected just 10 years ago,” Fomunung said. “This rapid deployment of EVs has not been matched by the support infrastructure which is inadequate, disjointed and dispersed.

“This group is designed to come up with best practices to streamline and manage the deployment of EVs across the Southeast to bring everybody thinking together, to leverage the region’s resources and move in the same direction.”