•We dynamically model energy demand for the UK’s fifth carbon budget.•We model fastest feasible growth of nuclear and offshore wind capacity for the UK.•Deploying offshore wind early gives lower ...cumulative CO2 emissions.•Our model supports national policy discussion of energy infrastructure investments.•We model effects of infrastructure investment on employment.
The UK has an ambitious target of an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, to be reached using a series of ‘carbon budgets’ to aid policy development. Current energy systems modelling methods do not explore, or are unable to account for, physical (thermodynamic) limits to the rate of change of infrastructure. The power generation sector has a variety of technological options for this low-carbon transition. We compare physically constrained scenarios that accentuate either carbon capture and storage, fastest plausible nuclear new build, or fastest plausible build rate of offshore wind. We set these in the context of the UK’s legislated fifth carbon budget, which has a comprehensive range of carbon reduction measures with respect to business-as-usual. The framework for our scenario comparison uses our novel system dynamics model to substantiate the policy’s ability to meet 2035 emissions targets while maintaining financial productivity and socially expected employment levels. For an ambitious nuclear new build programme we find that even if it stays on track it is more expensive than offshore wind generation and delays emissions reductions. This affects the cumulative emissions and impacts on the UK’s ability to contribute to international climate change targets. If delays or cancellation occur to the deployment programmes of carbon capture and storage technologies or nuclear new build, we suggest the electricity and decarbonisation targets can by met by a fast growth of offshore wind generation with no change to financial and employment levels.
The UK Government is legally committed to achieving an 80% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with 1990 by 2050. The use of scenarios is wide ranging to inform policy development and ...forming a business-as-usual scenario helps to understand possible effects of different policy interventions. However, the term business-as-usual is frequently misused. We show how econo-physical business-as-usual scenarios can be developed by examining the historical behaviour of coefficients which manifest the relationship between components of an economy. We endogenise economic growth by mimicking national level policies that focus on a target level of unemployment. Our case-study demonstrates the ‘trendability’ of coefficients which for one example coefficient is replicated for Australia, Colombia, Taiwan and the USA. We manifest a gross domestic product growth of 2% falling to 1% which contrasts with an exogenous growth of 2.3% of a comparator business-as-usual scenario. We suggest that it may be possible to achieve a greater reduction in the business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions in the UK fifth carbon budget than currently projected.
•We dynamically model energy demand through to final economic consumption.•We develop econo-physical business-as-usual scenarios from historical data flows.•We model effects of fixed capital investment on GHG emissions.•The UK's fifth carbon budget BAU under-estimates the CO2 emissions reduction.•Australia, Colombia, Taiwan, UK and USA have similar service jobs coefficients.
This paper tests several related hypothesis for explaining US economic growth since 1900. It begins from the belief that consumption of natural resources—especially energy (or, more precisely, ...exergy) has been, and still is, an important factor of production and driver of economic growth. However the major result of the paper is that it is not ‘raw’ energy (exergy) as an input, but exergy converted to useful (physical) work that—along with capital and (human) labor—really explains output and drives long-term economic growth. We develop a formal model (Resource-EXergy Service or REXS) based on these ideas. Using this model we demonstrate first that, if raw energy inputs are included with capital and labor in a Cobb–Douglas or any other production function satisfying the Euler (constant returns) condition, the 100-year growth history of the US cannot be explained without introducing an exogenous ‘technical progress’ multiplier (the Solow residual) to explain most of the growth. However, if we replace raw energy as an input by ‘useful work’ (the sum total of all types of physical work by animals, prime movers and heat transfer systems) as a factor of production, the historical growth path of the US is reproduced with high accuracy from 1900 until the mid 1 970s, without any residual except during brief periods of economic dislocation, and with fairly high accuracy since then. (There are indications that an additional factor, possibly information technology, needs to be taken into account as a fourth input factor since the 1970s.) Various hypotheses for explaining the latest period are discussed briefly, along with future implications.
Our aim is to explain historical economic growth in the UK economy by introducing an empirical measure for useful work derived from natural resource energy inputs into an augmented production ...function. To do this, we estimate the long-term (1900–2000) trends in resource exergy supply and conversion to useful work in the United Kingdom. The exergy resources considered included domestic consumption of coal, crude oil and petroleum products, natural gas, nuclear and renewable resources (including biomass). All flows of exergy were allocated to an end-use such as providing heat, light, transport, human and animal work and electrical power. For each end-use we estimated a time dependent efficiency of conversion from exergy to useful work. The 3-factor production function (of capital, labour and useful work) is able to reproduce the historic trajectory of economic growth without recourse to any exogenous assumptions of technological progress or total factor productivity. The results indicate that useful work derived from natural resource exergy is an important factor of production.
From LTER to LTSER Haberl, Helmut; Winiwarter, Verena; Andersson, Krister ...
Ecology and society,
12/2006, Letnik:
11, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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Concerns about global environmental change challenge long term ecological research (LTER) to go beyond traditional disciplinary scientific research to produce knowledge that can guide society toward ...more sustainable development. Reporting the outcomes of a 2 d interdisciplinary workshop, this article proposes novel concepts to substantially expand LTER by including the human dimension. We feel that such an integration warrants the insertion of a new letter in the acronym, changing it from LTER to LTSER, “Long-Term Socioecological Research,” with a focus on coupled socioecological systems. We discuss scientific challenges such as the necessity to link biophysical processes to governance and communication, the need to consider patterns and processes across several spatial and temporal scales, and the difficulties of combining data from in-situ measurements with statistical data, cadastral surveys, and soft knowledge from the humanities. We stress the importance of including prefossil fuel system baseline data as well as maintaining the often delicate balance between monitoring and predictive or explanatory modeling. Moreover, it is challenging to organize a continuous process of cross-fertilization between rich descriptive and causal-analytic local case studies and theory/modeling-oriented generalizations. Conceptual insights are used to derive conclusions for the design of infrastructures needed for long-term socioecological research.
This analysis characterizes century-scale trends in exergy efficiency in Japan. Exergy efficiency captures the degree to which energy inputs (such as coal) are converted into useful work (such as ...electricity or power to move a vehicle). This approach enables the estimation of net efficiencies which aggregate different technologies. Sectors specifically analyzed are electricity generation, transport, steel production, and residential space heating. One result is that the aggregate exergy efficiency of the Japanese economy declined slightly over the last half of the 20th century, reaching a high of around 38% in the late 1970s and falling to around 33% by 1998. The explanation for this is that while individual technologies improved dramatically over the century, less exergy-efficient ones were progressively adopted, yielding a net stabilization or decline. In the electricity sector, for instance, adoption of hydropower was followed by fossil-fired plants and then by nuclear power, each technology being successively less efficient from an exergy perspective. The underlying dynamic of this trend is analogous to declining ore grades in the mining sector. Increasing demand for exergy services requires expended utilization of resources from which it is more difficult to extract utility (e.g., falling water versus coal). We term this phenomenon efficiency dilution.
This paper describes the development of a forecasting model in the tradition of system dynamics. It is called Resource EXergy Services (REXS). The model simulates economic growth of the US through ...the 20th century and extrapolates the simulation for several decades into the next century. The REXS model differs from previous energy–economy models such as DICE and NICE Nordhaus, W.D., 1991. The cost of slowing climate change: a survey. The Energy Journal 12 (1), 37–66 by eliminating the assumption of exogenously driven exponential growth along a so-called ‘optimal trajectory’. Instead, we suggest a simple model representing the dynamics of technological change in terms of decreasing energy (exergy) intensity and endogenously increasing efficiency of conversion of raw material and fuel inputs (exergy) to primary exergy services (‘useful work’).
In our model, the traditional assumption of exogenous technological progress (total factor productivity) increasing at a constant rate is replaced by two learning processes based, respectively, on (i) cumulative economic output and (ii) cumulative energy (exergy) service (useful work) production experience. The initial results of simulation for the period 2000–2050 have significant implications for future trends in economic output. These implications are important for purposes of scenario analysis. The REXS modules are the focus of ongoing research. We discuss briefly the many possibilities for elaboration of each module to enrich the feedback dynamics, policy levers and post-scenario analyses.
The aim of this paper is to re-examine the energy–GDP relationship for the US for the period 1946–2000 by redefining energy in terms of exergy (the amount of energy available for useful work) and the ...amount of useful work provided from energy inputs. This enables us to examine whether output growth depends on either the quantity of energy supplied and/or the efficiency of energy use. Two multivariate models were estimated involving GDP, capital, labour and the two measures of energy. We find that unidirectional causality runs from either energy measure to GDP. We attribute the causation to both short- and long-run effects in the case of exergy, but only long-run effects in the case of useful work. We find no evidence of causality running from GDP to either energy measure. We infer that output growth does not drive increased energy consumption and to sustain long-term growth it is necessary to either increase energy supplies or increase the efficiency of energy usage. Faced with energy security concerns and the negative externalities of fossil fuel use the latter option is preferred.
In a resource-constrained world with growing population and demand for energy, goods, and services with commensurate environmental impacts, we need to understand how these trends relate to aspects of ...economic activity. We present a computational model that links energy demand through to final economic consumption, illustrated by application to UK data. Our model fits within a whole-economy framework which harmonises multiple national accounting procedures. Our model minimises both the number of exogenous aspects and tuning factors by using historical data to calibrate relationships. We divide economic activity into a number of distinct but interdependent outputs that are non-substitutable in the short-term. The dynamic aspects assume that supply follows demand, but are constrained in the short-term by physical infrastructure. At the same time, capital formation grows the physical infrastructure. Our model regenerates historical data dynamically as a basis for projecting forward scenarios to discuss pathways to a lower carbon future.
•Our dynamic model links energy demand through to final economic consumption.•Our model can investigate effects on GDP and GHG emissions of policy choices.•Our model supports national policy discussion of infrastructure investments.•The 7see-type approach can be applied to any developed economy.•We demonstrate five system feedback configurations to model the macroeconomy.
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