The post Report for Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

The main features of Ventana’s energy, environment, economy model E3 are described. We present some results that offer insights to the potential benefits of the model. For example, results include the ability to endogenously explain economic growth,  and insights into how to manage it, by explaining actions and outcomes at the level of the individual firm.

The model was fully peer-reviewed by a DOE assembled expert panel and recommended for further development. The model has been used for energy futures scenario analyses.

Findings have also been used for other Ventana Systems economic and sustainability modeling projects. The original paper can be downloaded: Ven E3 technical overview Nov ’10

The post E3: Economy, Energy, Environment appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

USE EN-ROADS

En-ROADS focuses on how changes in global GDP, energy efficiency, R&D results, carbon price, fuel mix, and other factors change carbon emissions, energy access, and temperature. This simulation program runs in less than 0.1 second on a laptop, is transparent in its logic, and allows for testing of hundreds of factors, making it ideal for decision-makers in government, business, NGOs, and civil society.

En-ROADS stands for “Energy – Rapid Overview and Decision-Support” simulator, and was created by Climate Interactive, Ventana Systems, the ClimateWorks Foundation Research Team, UML Climate Change Initiative, and John Sterman of MIT Sloan.

En-ROADS is customized to address questions such as:

• How much might technological breakthroughs contribute to addressing climate change? Breakthroughs could include:
  • R&D and scale-up of a new zero-carbon energy supply
  • Renewable energy
  • Energy efficiency
  • Inexpensive natural gas
• What would we have to assume—about the technology, the economy, and the world—for a breakthrough to grow with enough speed and scale to deliver climate goals?

En-ROADS has been featured in the journal Environmental Modelling and Software. The authors found that En-ROADS helps policymakers make optimal decisions, and that most En-ROADS users find win-wins in sustainable policy. Read the paper here.

The simulation is built using the System Dynamics method, drawing upon the PhD theses of Dr. John Sterman and Dr. Tom Fiddaman, and thus emphasizes the dynamics of the transition to clean energy. That is, how long will it take for actions, investments, and policies to take effect and reduce emissions? When will action be necessary and in what order? The model emphasizes the system-wide interactions of policies. That is, how does energy efficiency affect renewable energy? What feedback loops, such as the learning curve, are important?

The ClimateWorks Foundation originally commissioned (and co-designed) the simulation to help chart a path to climate success. Behind the simulation is an extensive study of the literature of important factors such as delay times, progress ratios, price sensitivities, historic growth of energy sources, and energy efficiency potential. One of the most innovative parts of En-ROADS is its capacity to test assumptions about the potential success of R&D towards zero-carbon energy. The simulation asks: What are the likely dynamics of the emergence of a new energy supply? How fast could it grow and displace high-carbon sources and, thus, reduce carbon emissions? A diagram of some of the structure is shown to the right.

En-ROADS is a global model that focuses on how changes in the energy, economic, and public policy systems could affect GHG emissions and climate outcomes. The simulation is presently entering an external review. It is also being customized to address other questions and other regional scales.

The post EN-ROADS – Energy transition pathways to achieve climate goals appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

The dynamic simulation model represented the strategic interactions among numerous schedule, cost, and technology factors. The energy company regarded the model as interesting, but speculative, because it integrated both scientific and management issues into the same model. The model was calibrated using both hard data (material strength measurements) and soft data (the effect of progress in one technical area on another area) from two earlier development programs as well as data taken from the first few months of the new technology initiative. Once calibrated, the model was used to make an initial program forecast. This forecast consisted of predictions for the dates on which the development team would complete integrated performance tests as well as the measured performance achieved by the test device.

The initial model results shocked and disappointed program managers. The results showed the program making good technical progress for about six months with the predicted performance coming out close to the middle of the uncertainty band shown in the official program plan. The predictions also showed, however, that the number of integrated tests actually performed would fall significantly below the official program forecast. Beyond six months, both the device’s performance and number of integrated tests fell progressively further below plan. Fifteen months into the program, the forecast showed the proven device performance falling below the lower bound of the official uncertainty range.

These model projections were judged unacceptable, although the reasons for the performance shortfall appeared credible. Development managers were bullish and insisted that they could fix existing problem and meet the ultimate performance target. Because of internal political problems, program managers elected to discontinue development of the simulation model. They decided to depend strictly on official forecasts based on management consensus and detailed technology theory for such things as materials, gas dynamics, etc. The results of the simulation model were only revealed to a handful of people, and they did not influence program management.

A year later, the development program was canceled. The device performance was falling significantly below official projections and integrated tests were being completed much later than planned. When the predictions of the dynamic simulation model were reviewed, it was discovered that they were hauntingly accurate. Not only were the performance projections accurate to within a few percent of the measured test results, but the dates on which tests were completed varied by no more that a month from the predicted dates.

The post Forecasting the Rate of Technical Breakthroughs appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

1. AB32 Policy and the Low Carbon Fuels Standard
2. Crude Oil Flows
3. Combined Heat and Power
4. Diesel Fuels
5. Offsets
6. Western Climate Initiative
7. Canadian Oil Sands

Though based in California, this process has tackled most of the major issues faced by US national energy policy, with some breakthrough insights. In one example, the Crude Flows Collaborative produced deep discussion among all parties around data on the carbon foot print of different sources of crude oil. Once set in the context of sources of emissions, and flows into and within California, this discussion resulted in a turnaround consensus in favor of a single value for all crude, significantly simplifying regulatory complexity. The decision also greatly minimized the potential for leakage, where heavier crude is transported out of California, increasing overall global emissions.

Workshop design and process

To facilitate this process, Ventana developeded high-level, real-time models of the transportation and electric power sectors and alternative fuels policy. The models helped during the collaborative workshops to develop a deeper understanding of the impact of regulation approaches on climate outcomes and energy supply. Together these models provide a complete policy impact analysis capability for any state, or region, or at the national level.

Workshops are typically a two-day event involving participants from industry, government, and interested non-governmental organizations. The discussions are structured around group examination of salient historical data, and discussion of the cause-and-effect dynamics behind relevant model simulations run real-time during the workshop.

Insights and questions

Ventana experience in the California and Copenhagen 2009 (COP 15) processes is central to assisting in intelligent guidance of US policy on climate, particularly as it relates to the task of economic stabilization. The current economic and political landscape reinforces industry’s interest in good decision making. Momentum in California is toward a mix of policies that largely ignore major sectors (residential and commercial emissions, for example), have high transaction costs (minor command and control options), have high absolute costs and coordination problems (the LCFS), fail to match marginal costs across sectors (transport fuel LCFS vs. electric power cap & trade), and fail so far to adequately address key driving forces (vehicle miles traveled, population growth). The broader concept of Green Silicon Valley and attendant jobs creation is only notional; it has not been clearly articulated in analyses or models.

The LCFS is intended to create incentives for innovation, but there is no formal understanding of how that might actually occur, or how to make it happen in California vs. importing it from China. The process of addressing these issues is through inclusive collaboration, backed up by data-driven analysis with simple models. It is compelling and produces key policy insights. For example, in the current WCI process every major issue is examined around disparity in energy intensity among partner States and Provinces, attendant issues of allocation, and transport fuels under the cap.

Presentation of the transparent, interactive tools and the results of learning in California and Copenhagen comprise a powerful approach to resolve issues of complex system regulation and enable decision makers. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell’s (D-Mich.) and Energy and Air Quality subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher’s (D-Va.) 461-page bill seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 80 percent over the next four decades. Environmental groups are criticizing the bill, which Dingell and Boucher refer to as a discussion draft, for delaying dramatic emissions reductions until after 2020 supporting concerns for an underachieving outcome for COP 15.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has acknowledged (as of November 10, 2008) they will be taking more time to analyze methods of implementing Cap & Trade having so far failed to reach consensus. In addition many policy questions in the implementation of the Low Carbon Fuels Standard and AB32 remain. The resolution of these questions, with Ventana contribution as a central, analytically-based moderator, will complete effective preparation for the US debate. These developments are indicative of a general problem with policy processes: they run backwards, with broad ideas (emissions targets and choice of policy instruments) set in stone early, without benefit of significant strategic analysis, then jumping to implementation guided by models that support detailed planning without recognizing uncertainty and the need to adapt. Thus much time and money can be wasted, as fundamentally unworkable ideas are pursued to completion, as was the case with California’s foray into electric power restructuring.

Ventana is building a portfolio of dynamic behavioral models that place strategy first. The portfolio surrounds the energy-environment-economy space to help guide policy at the US Congressional level and help in the on-going California and WCI GHG emission reduction policy design process.

The post California GHG Reduction Policy Collaboratives appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

The post Electricity Production in Rapidly Growing Economies appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..

• Morgan Stanley’s Office of Sustainability created a video for its employee education program on climate change issues.
• Bill Moomaw of Tufts University used a slide deck created from the C-ROADS simulator in a presentation to an IPCC committee.
• MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence is creating an “argumentation and deliberation” program that will call upon C-ROADS, to help users debate climate solutions.
• The model was reviewed by an external scientific review committee, chaired by Sir Robert Watson, former Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The reviewers recommended C-ROADS for widespread use. Read a summary of their review here
• In 2013 C-ROADS was awarded the System Dynamics Society Award for the best “Real World” Application of System Dynamics
• C-ROADS is being used at top government, corporate, and NGO levels, and by individuals participating in or monitoring the UNFCCC negotiations. Read comments by some users at the US State Department and European Environment Agency.
  

  “The C-ROADS model from Climate Interactive was used by me and other members of President Obama’s climate-change team for gaining rapid insights into the consequences of alternative greenhouse-gas-emissions trajectories for the United States and the rest of the world.”   -Dr. John Holdren, White House Science Advisor, 2008-2016

Potential uses range from private strategic planning sessions to “mock-U.N.” negotiations (at MIT, for European business leaders in Greenland, and for national security strategists in Washington DC with the Center for a New American Security) to posting the simulator globally in multiple languages to help global citizens understand and influence mitigation approaches. For full information about C-ROADS please see the official C-ROADS website (from which this information is excerpted), or download the two-page informational flyer below. Work on C-ROADS is part of Ventana’s broader efforts on energy, economy and climate policy interactions. More information on Ventana’s climate and energy policy work is also available for download below.

Downloads:

• Two-page, non-technical flyer on C-ROADS | c-roads-flier-v5.pdf

The post C-ROADS – Climate Simulation for Decision Makers appeared first on Ventana Systems, Inc..