Deep uncertainty in energy policy: introduction to basic concepts

1
Deep uncertainty in energy policy introduction
to basic concepts

• Resilience and Risk management
• Energy System Structure
• Adaptive scenario backcasting

2
Addressing risk

• 2 basic ways to respond to risk
• Gamble bet nothing negative happens
• Ameliorate become resilient to risk
• 2 basic kinds of resilience
• Suppressive - prevent/ remove risk effects -
  cost, brittleness, disabling
• Adaptive adapt to preserve functionality -
  cost, suppleness, enabling
• Both include, and require, appropriate
  organisation

3
4 key propositions

• In a dynamic world primary sustainability
  preservation of adaptive resilience
• So sustainable energy infrastructure supports
  synergistic ecological societal adaptive
  resilience
• Resilience requires integrated adaptability
  across plant, sector, network and ecological
  levels
• Technological development has shown an important
  trend toward universal adaptability

4
Scenario backcasting
Today
Tomorrow
5
Forecasting/backcasting schematic method
6
Greater power of backcasting options

• Backcasting is a more powerful tool than
  forecasting for capturing policy options because
  its off-trend, longer term, time-reversed
  perspective
• allows consideration of intermediary actions that
  break trends,
• opens to decision many variables that are
  effectively fixed in the short term, and
• allows for self-reinforcement along pathways
  (e.g. technological learning) and for
  inter-pathway synergies (e.g. solar boosting of
  coal-fired generation).

7
Human Energy System Flow
8
Energy Media Diamond
9
Options in transport design
10
Options for transport fuels
Photolysis
Photovoltaic
Bio-engineered
Mechanical
Non-Carbon Thermal
Photosynthesis
(Wind, Tide, Hydro)
(Geothermal, Nuclear,
Solar Thermal)
Biomass
Biofuel
Fossil Hydrocarbons

Synthesis
Carbon
Sequestration
Fuel Cell
Hydrogen
Electricity
Electrolysis
Micro-
Turbine
Hydrocarbons / Non- carbon
Compressed Air
Hydrogen Compound
Thermal
Battery
Storage
Electro-mechanical
Gas expansion Motor
Drive
Legend
Kinetic Energy
Primary
Secondary
Transport
Tertiary
Transformation
Figure 4 Transport Services Energy
Mobility/
Pathways
Access
Emerging
11
Options for stationary energy
12
Scenario Exercise
Current Energy Pathway Structure
13
Scenario exercise
14
Scenario exercise
15
Energy Decision Structure
16
Portfolio type I and type II errors
Satisfactory End-states
17
Adaptive strategy construction

• Adaptive strategies are constructed by
• developing a portfolio of actual technologies (
  supporting financial, skill, regulatory etc.
  arrangements), that
• keeps open the real options of pursuing each
  scenario within the suite of scenarios, that
• represent the widest feasible class of the most
  satisfactory scenarios for achieving all of a
  selected range of physically plausible and
  societally desirable end-states.
• Given finite resources, the parameters class
  width, scenario satisfaction level and
  end-state range will need to be judiciously
  traded-off against one another.