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12 October, 2003
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The
Role of Energy Technologies in Determining the Long-Term Costs for Stabilizing
the Carbon Dioxide Concentration USGCRP Seminar, 21 April 1997  |
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INTRODUCTION: The Honorable Mark Chupka
SPEAKERS: Dr. James A. Edmonds
The Role
of Technology Improvements in Stabilizing the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
Concentration
The long-term objective
of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) is the "Éstabilization
of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would
prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system."
This objective is framed in terms of the concentrations of greenhouse
gases rather than their emissions. Emissions and concentrations
have a complex relationship.
Setting a concentration
goal has several important implications for global emissions.
For carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important greenhouse gas being directly
affected by human activities, the implications of stabilization include
the following:
The path of global emissions
can have important implications for the costs of mitigation (i.e., of
changing energy systems) for stabilizing the atmospheric concentration,
regardless of the ceiling chosen. [Note that the environmental and socio-economic
benefits (or avoided costs) of climate change are not yet being included
in these calculations of the costs of mitigation.] Recent research has
shown that there is an order of magnitude difference in mitigation costs
between pathways that employ flexibility in "where" and "when" emissions
are mitigated and pathways that do not consider such issues. According
to these calculations, well-crafted policies including "where" and "when"
flexibility could make achieving the goal of the FCCC relatively inexpensive
(e.g., less than 1% of present discounted global GDP for some choices
of the ceiling and rates of energy technology improvement). However,
poorly crafted policies could be both expensive and ineffective.
The suite of technologies
available for mitigation has a similarly profound effect on the cost
of achieving any concentration target. The value of energy technologies
can be estimated using economic models. If only 1990 technologies are
available, the cost of stabilizing the atmospheric CO2 concentration
is estimated to be an order of magnitude greater than if the suite of
technologies foreseen in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) scenario IS92a (Leggett et al., 1992) becomes available. Another
order of magnitude reduction in cost could be obtained if a suite of
advanced energy technologies, while not currently available, were to
become widely available by the year 2020, as described in IPCC (1996b).
Thus, the value of an increasing
rate of energy technology development and deployment is very high, reaching
trillions of dollars, and delaying technology development makes mitigation
more costly.
The Prospects
for Cleaner and More Efficient Energy Technologies
The overarching goal of
efforts to improve technologies and to mold government policies is to
ensure that "total benefits outweigh total costs," to use the phrase
from the recent Arrow, Jorgenson, Krugman, Nordhaus, Solow et al. statement.
Such a goal is potentially achievable because many technologies provide
multiple, so-called "no regrets" benefits, such as increased productivity
and a reduction in air pollutants. Significant progress is possible
because cleaner and more efficient technologies are underutilized in
all sectors of the economy. On the demand side, energy efficiency offers
the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at low or no cost in
the key sectors of transportation, building, and industry. Similar potential
exists on the supply side through the wider use of cleaner fossil fuel
technologies, especially those utilizing natural gas. A number of partnerships
between the government and private sector are working to remove the
barriers to wider use of both supply and demand technologies.
Beyond existing technologies,
a number of very low- or no-carbon technologies are in the pipeline,
including stationary fuel cells, advanced turbines, bioenergy, "clean"
diesel engines, and next-generation wind-power. With accelerated research
and development and increasing use of these technologies (i.e., their
diffusion into the marketplace), these technologies and advances could
have a significant impact in the medium term. In the longer term, a
number of technologies hold the promise of reducing climate-mitigation
costs, including next-generation fossil energy technologies and a variety
of renewable energy technologies, such as photovoltaics and transportation
fuel cells.
Dr. James A. Edmonds is a Chief Scientist and the Technical Leader of Economic Programs at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Washington DC office. He has been associated with PNNL since 1986, during which time he has developed and contributed to programs in the area of global change and sustainable development. Dr. Edmonds is best known for his research on the interactions between global climate and human activities. He is the co-developer of the often-cited Edmonds-Reilly-Barns model of global energy and economy. Dr. Edmonds has written numerous papers and books on the subject of global change, including Global Energy Assessing the Future, with John Reilly (Oxford University Press). His book, with Don Wuebbles, A Primer on Greenhouse Gases won the scientific book of the year award at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Edmonds also served as a lead author on five chapters of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Second Assessment Report, including three chapters for Working Group III and two for Working Group II. He also served as a lead author on the IPCC First Assessment Report and the 1992 and 1994 updates. Dr. Edmonds' current research focuses on development of a Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) system and on related policy research. He heads the development of a Second Generation Model as an international collaboration between PNNL and nine research institutions located around the world, and he has also initiated a program to assess the state of the social sciences with regard to their contribution to knowledge relevant to climate change. Dr. Edmonds' Global Climate Change Group received the Director's Award for Research Excellence at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 1995. Before joining PNNL, Dr. Edmonds headed the Washington DC office of the Institute for Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (1978-86). Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics and Business Administration at Centre College of Kentucky (1974-78). He graduated with an M.A. (1972) and Ph.D. (1974) from Duke University. His undergraduate degree is from Kalamazoo College (1969).
Dr. Joseph Romm is Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. In this capacity, Dr. Romm helps the Assistant Secretary, Christine Ervin, manage the $800 million portfolio of research, development, and deployment of clean industrial, transportation, building, and utility technologies. Prior to his service at the U.S. Department of Energy, Dr. Romm worked in the field of alternative energies and energy efficiency with Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Dr. Romm holds a Ph.D. degree in Physics from M.I.T. and has written about pollution prevention and manufacturing for Forbes, Technology Review, Foreign Affairs, Industrial Engineering, The New York Times, and USA Today. He is the author of three books, most recently Lean and Clean Management: How to Increase Profits and Productivity by Reducing Pollution (Kodansha, 1994), a "how to" book for companies that want to improve their energy and environmental performance. He is also the co-author, with outgoing Deputy Secretary of Energy Charles Curtis, of the April 1996 Atlantic Monthly cover story, "Mideast Oil Forever."
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