The Influence of Technological Changes on the Cost of Gas Supply

This paper analyzes the cost of supplying natural gas to a virtual consumer in Central Europe from all presently conceivable sources. The sensitivity of the price of supplying the gas to changes in the cost of single components is also investigated

Interactive Decision Analysis in Energy Planning and Policy Assessment

In recent years, there has been considerable fruitful collaboration between the System and Decision Sciences (SDS) Program and the Energy Project at IIASA. This paper gives an overview of this joint work, which involves the use of methodological tools developed in SDS to analyze decision situations based on models constructed in the Energy Project. The paper starts with a study of the use of the earliest version of DIDASS in conjunction with the energy supply model MESSAGE. It then describes how construction of more advanced energy models such as MESSAGE II, SEMA (an Austrian energy model), and GATE (a model of gas trade in Europe) took place in parallel with the development of an interactive multiple-criteria LP-solver (IMM), which represents a first step towards the integration of modeling and optimization processes in the analysis of complex decision situations. We hope that such collaboration will continue to provide a driving force for advances in different areas of IIASA research

Implications of Limited Foresight and Sequential Decision Making for Long-term Energy System Planning: An Application of the Myopic MESSAGE Model

This paper presents the development and demonstration of a limited foresight energy system model. The presented model is implemented as an extension to a large, linear optimization model, MESSAGE. The motivation behind changing the model is to provide an alternative decision framework, where information for the full time frame is not available immediately and sequential decision making under incomplete information is implied. While the traditional optimization framework provides the globally optimal decisions for the modeled problem, the framework presented here may offer a better description of the decision environment, under which decision makers must operate. We further modify the model to accommodate flexible dynamic constraints, which give an option to implement investments faster, albeit with a higher cost. Finally, the operation of the model is demonstrated using a moving window of foresight, with which decisions are taken for the next 30 years, but can be reconsidered later, when more information becomes available. We find that the results do demonstrate some of the pitfalls of short term planning, e.g. lagging investments during earlier periods lead to higher requirements later during the century. Furthermore, the energy system remains more reliant on fossil based energy carriers, leading to higher greenhouse gas emissions. reliant on fossil based energy carriers, leading to higher greenhouse gas emi

Model of European Natural Gas Production, Trade, and Consumption

This working paper represents the first in the series to be published as a description of ongoing activities in the IIASA International Gas Study. Thus, the paper represents a report of one particular task that is nearing completion. The working papers will be presented as individual research activities, although they form only one part of the overail study. This particular paper describes one approach of addressing natural gas production, trade, and use in Europe. For this purpose Europe was divided into five regions in order to distinguish between different endowments with natural gas resources, energy requirements, levels of economic development, and economic infrastructures. The basic objective of the approach was to develop a simple model that can describe future natural gas production, trade, and use on an interactive basis with the analyst. Thus, the model represents a flexible tool that helps identify important issues and questions that could be addressed by other activities within the International Gas Study

Potential Effects of Emission Taxes on CO2 Emissions in OECD and LDC Countries

A set of existing optimization models representing the energy systems of the OECD and LDC countries with a time horizon up to 2020 was applied to derive first-order estimates of the techno-economic potential for emission reduction. The driving force for the introduction of reduction measures was a scheme of taxes levied on the emissions of 6 relevant pollutants -- including the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane. The tax levels introduced are based on the taxes discussed by the Swedish government administration; they are the break-even point to test which measures are cost-effective and which emission levels can be reached at these costs. The regional models offer the choice between the following alternatives as response to increases in expenditures caused by emission taxes: (1) Reduction of final energy demand by supplying the requested services by other means (i .e., conservation). (2) Substitution of "dirty" fuels by fuels entailing less pollution. (3) Introduction of "clean" technologies for the same purposes (e.g., a combined cycle based on coal gasification is a much cleaner process for electricity generation from coal than conventional coal power plants). (4) For SO2 and NOx emissions pollution reduction technologies (i.e., scrubbers and catalysts) can be added to existing technologies in order to reduce emissions. Alternative scenarios with emission taxes are compared to a Base Scenario without taxes related to pollutant emissions. The results indicate that an increase in CO2 emissions in the OECD and LDC regions of 47% over the next 30 years in the Base Scenario would be changed into stabilization up to 2010 by measures induced by the tax levels introduced. Thereafter, however, energy consumption growth in the LDC area, in conjunction with the exhaustion of economically viable emission reduction measures, reverse this trend: CO2 emissions start to increase again after 2010

Part A: User's Guide to CO2DB: The IIASA CO2 Technology Data Bank - Version 1.0

Environmental impacts of products and production processes are receiving increasing social attention. In searching for solutions with less impacts, there is a need for comparing competing products with regard to their life-cycle demands for raw-materials and energy as well as their emissions to the environment. It is however necessary to consider the entire systems, because decreased emissions in one part can easily increase the emissions in another part of the system. IIASA has developed a methodology and database for life-cycle analysis of products and production processes. Data for more than 1000 so-called unit processes of the industrial sectors pulp and paper, steel, aluminum, petrochemicals, plastics, inorganic chemicals, glass, energy conversion, transportation and waste management is currently stored in the database. The model and database is intended to support analysis of the impacts of products and production processes. Examples of possible applications are: comparison of the environmental impacts of different stages of the production cycle, e.g. basic materials, processing, fabrication, packaging and shipping; comparison of two competing products with respect to their direct and indirect environmental impacts; and comparison of alternative production processes for the same product. The assessment can be performed at any level of aggregation, from a single factory to regional or national averages. The results can be used for targeting improvements of the production processes, for assessing the impact of new regulation or to support international negotiations on environmental protection. Results from calculations indicate the importance of considering the whole life-cycle of a product. At the same time it is necessary to build "transparency" both into the models and the data used. Possible disagreements in results have to be traceable back to the specific assumptions made. A deliberate effort was made to make the model and the database "user friendly", to make it possible for a person with a background in production to understand the assumptions without excessive effort. The model and database have been built in the dBASE IV database program to make it easily transportable and expandable

User's Guide for the Post-Processor of Message II

This report presents the post-processor to the MESSAGE-II energy model (WP-84-71a and WP-84-71b). The processor is a convenient tool for the manipulation of input data and output results, for the generation of tables and graphs and the organization of data flows between a number of models