Measuring Weak Sustainability for the future: Calculating Genuine Saving with population change by an integrated assessment model

This paper presents a future figure of Genuine Saving with population growth (GSn). This was enabled by using an integrated assessment model, similar to the RICE model by Nordhaus. The model consists of sub-models that evaluate various kinds of mineral resources and environmental impacts. Results indicates that GSn is positive i) in OECD during the 21st century, ii) in World and the former Soviet Union and East Europe after 2030, and iii) in Asia and the Middle East and Africa after 2050. GSn is negative in Latin America during the 21st century.Genuine Saving, population change, sustainability, integrated assessment model, impact assessment model, growth model

Measuring Weak Sustainability for the future: Calculating Genuine Saving with population change by an integrated assessment model

This paper presents a future figure of Genuine Saving with population growth (GSn). This was enabled by using an integrated assessment model, similar to the RICE model by Nordhaus. The model consists of sub-models that evaluate various kinds of mineral resources and environmental impacts. Results indicates that GSn is positive i) in OECD during the 21st century, ii) in World and the former Soviet Union and East Europe after 2030, and iii) in Asia and the Middle East and Africa after 2050. GSn is negative in Latin America during the 21st century

Endogenizing the probability of nuclear exit in an optimal power-generation mix model

AbstractA major accident at a nuclear power reactor can lower public acceptance of this energy source and may result in a nuclear exit. This paper proposes an optimal power-generation planning model that deals explicitly with the costs involved in changing the power-generation mix due to a nuclear exit. The model introduces the probability of a major accident leading to a nuclear exit at a future time period as an endogenous variable, which is determined depending on the amount of nuclear power being generated during the preceding period. The proposed model is formulated as a stochastic programming problem that aims to minimize the expected value of overall power-generation costs computed with a weighted probability of every future state, branched according to a possible nuclear exit at each time period. An application of the model quantitatively implies that less nuclear dependency is optimal for a higher assumed frequency of a major accident per generated unit of electrical energy from nuclear—not only for the cost of direct damage from the accident, but largely because of the increased cost of overall power generation due to the subsequent nuclear exit. To put it differently, lowering the frequency of a major nuclear accident per reactor·year brings benefits exceeding the conventionally perceived effect of reducing an accident's direct damage. Lowering the major accident frequency to one per 106 reactor·years would free the optimal planning of future electricity supply from influence of an accident causing nuclear exit, if the geographical scale of the exit were limited to one-twentieth of the entire world

An economic analysis of a clean-development mechanism project: a case introducing a natural gas-fired combined heat-and-power facility in a Chinese industrial area

A case study of the installation of a combined heat-and-power (CHP) facility as a potential clean-development mechanism (CDM) project in an industrial area in China was undertaken using a newly developed mathematical programming model. The model was developed to optimize the installation capacity of the CHP under constraints on electricity-and-heat supply and demand balances, etc. Energy cost and emissions of CO2 and SOx were also calculated with the model. Parametric surveys were carried out for natural gas and CHP capital prices, which inherently include large uncertainties; the resultant calculations revealed that in some cases the CHP would be voluntarily (i.e., without financial support from an investor's country) introduced in China, and that in some cases the CHP could be certified as a CDM project with financial support by the investor country. In some combinations of parameters, the value of CO2 emission reduction credit offsets the CHP capital price, although shared allocation of economic profits yielded by the CDM project between the two countries greatly mitigated the restraints on the project, while at the same time qualifying it for the CDM.Kyoto mechanism CO2-emission reduction credit Cogeneration Optimization

A Co2-Capturing Hybrid Power Generation System With High Efficient Use Of Solar Thermal Energy

A CO 2 -capturing hybrid-type power generation system with highly ecient use of solar thermal energy was proposed and its characteristics were investigated. In the system, relatively low temperature saturated steam is produced using solar thermal energy and is used as the working uid of a methane-ring gas-turbine system. The solar thermal utilization eciency becomes considerably high compared with that of conventional solar thermal power plants in which superheated steam near 670 K is used as the working uid of steam turbines. The proposed system is a hybrid-type energy system in which the generated CO 2 is recovered based on combusting oxygen, and thus a highly ecient system without emissions of CO 2 and NO x can be expected to be constructed even in regions with poor solar insolation. The characteristics of the system with 10,000 m 2 collector area were estimated based on a computer simulation model. It has been estimated through simulation study that the net generated power ..

Development of a multi regional, multi sector economy-energy model for the assessments of climate change policy

The purpose of this study is to assess climate change policies with a newly developed model which is capable of dealing with the changes in the energy systems and the industrial structure up to the middle of this century. Most of the assessments based on multi-sector economic models have mainly focused on the near future around 2020 while existing energy system models mainly address the long term up to 2100 and beyond. In addition, most of the economic models have mainly discussed country level while global climate policy models have the world disaggregated into 10-15 regions. In the past studies, intensive discussion was not made on globalization, industrial structure changes etc., which are important in the global environmental context. It is necessary to incorporate the industry structure changes for multi-regions to assess the longer term and global issue of carbon emission reduction potentials. The GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project) model, which has a comprehensive and consistent world economic database, is a quantitative system that has been widely used for the economic analysis on the international trade and impacts across various sectors. In this study, we integrated the static GTAP model and an energy technology assessment model, extending it to a dynamic model to assess the dynamics of the technologies and economy under climate policy. We formulated the model as an optimization model to evaluate the technology and policy options while the original GTAP model is a general equilibrium model without an objective function. The model described in this study has 18 economic sectors and 8 energy sectors, dividing the world into 18 regions. Carbon emission reduction strategies are evaluated for the multi-regions and multi-sectors up to the mid-century with the new model

Development of multi-regional and multi-sectoral energy-economic model and the analysis of CO2 emission reduction

The KP (Kyoto Protocol) came into force in February 2005, which is an international treaty designed to limit GHG emission for Annex I for the period from 2008 to 2012. The international arguments on the framework of emission reduction after 2013 will also begin soon. Under these circumstances, the role and importance of the mitigation strategies of climate change is increasing. In order to assess the impacts on energy and economy by mitigation of climate change, we have developed a new dynamic optimization-type model, DEARS (Dynamic Energy-economic Analysis model with multi-Regions and multi-Sectors), to deal with the changes in both energy systems and industrial structure not only for the world but also detailed region up to the middle of this century. This model is an intertemporal non-linear optimization type where the objective function of cumulative consumption utility is maximized. The model represents energy technology choice, sectoral energy consumption and economic growth by region for the middle term. This model consists of an energy systems module having about 15 energy technologies, e.g. coal power with and without CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), nuclear power and biomass power and of an economic module having 18 economic sectors; the world is divided into 18 regions. Both energy and monetary flow systems module are consistent with each other. In the energy module, the supply side is formulated by bottom-up fashion, while the demand side is formulated by top-down fashion. The energy systems module covers various energy conversion processes (electricity generations and CCS, etc.). The assumptions for the bottom-up energy systems include the fossil fuel resource estimates by WEC (2000) and USGS (2000), and their cost-supply functions by Rogner (1997). The economic module is based on GTAP (Global Trade Analysis Project) model and its comprehensive world economic database, which has been widely used for economic analysis on the international trade and impacts across various sectors. Thanks to the above model structure, the model enables to evaluate the costs and technologies to reduce CO2 emission for 18 regions under CO2 emission regulations. Dealing with the detailed regional division leads to observe the regional differences of both economic and energy systems. Therefore the model provides useful information about the quantitative and comprehensive assessments for the climate change mitigation policies. A case study was carried out on the assumption under the reference case (No-CO2-regulation) and the CO2 emission constraint cases for IPCC-WGI 550 ppmv stabilization scenarios under SRES-B2 population scenario up to the middle of this century. Global warming mitigation strategies were evaluated for the multi-regions and multi-sectors up to the mid-century using the computational results of this model. Two cases for the CO2 emission constraint are assumed:(1) IPCC stabilization profile for the world, and (2) IPCC stabilization profile under the KP constraint to 2012 and the U.K. proposal constraint after 2013 for Annex I countries. In both of the constraint cases, the CO2 emission of the world is constrained to meet that of IPCC stabilization scenario. The U.K. proposal constraint means that the CO2 emission for Annex I countries will keep the U.K. proposed target after 2013, where the CO2 emission is reduced to about 40% in 2050 relative to that in 1990. In the stabilization case, a large CO2 emission reduction for Annex I countries causes the shift in the production of several energy-intensive industrial sectors from Annex I regions to Non-Annex I regions, so-called “carbon leakage.” The changes in energy systems are also described. In both of the constraint cases, the share of the non-fossil energy increases, and it means that the renewable energy and nuclear power plays an important role in CO2 reduction for the middle term. The model analysis results show the optimized strategies differ by region and sector under CO2 emission reduction policy