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Exploring How Technology Growth Limits Impact Optimal Carbon dioxide Mitigation Pathways
Citation:
LOUGHLIN, D. H. Exploring How Technology Growth Limits Impact Optimal Carbon dioxide Mitigation Pathways. Chapter 11, I.S. Jawahir, S,K, Sikdar, Y. Huang (ed.), Treatise on Sustainability Science and Engineering, Part III, ISBN:9789400762282 . Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, Netherlands, , pp.175-190, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
book chapter
Description:
Energy system optimization models prescribe the optimal mix of technologies and fuels for meeting energy demands over a time horizon, subject to energy supplies, demands, and other constraints. When optimizing, these models will, to the extent allowed, favor the least cost combination of technologies and fuels. There may be realistic reasons why solely relying on the least cost technologies is not practical. For example, massive expansion of wind power would also require expansion of turbine manufacturing capacity, the development of installation and operational expertise, and mechanisms for addressing intermittency. Because of these factors, modelers may choose to apply growth bounds to specific technologies. How these growth bounds impact the model outputs is not always transparent, however. In this work, growth bounds on wind and solar power, nuclear power, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are examined for a hypothetical GHG policy scenario. A nested parametric sensitivity analysis is used to examine individual and combined changes to these bounds. The results illustrate that growth bounds have a large impact on shaping least cost optimization results. They also suggest the critical role that natural gas technologies may have in meeting GHG mitigation targets if optimistic goals for the expansion of renewables and CCS are not met.
