Allison M. Thomson

Climate Change Mitigation: An Analysis of Advanced Technology Scenarios

This report documents a scenario analysis that explores three advanced technology pathways toward climate stabilization using the MiniCAM model.

Bringing Water into an Integrated Assessment Framework

We developed a modeling capability to understand how water is allocated within a river basin and examined present and future water allocations among agriculture, energy production, other human requirements, and ecological needs. Water is an essential natural resource needed for food and fiber production, household and industrial uses, energy production, transportation, tourism and recreation, and the functioning of natural ecosystems. Anthropogenic climate change and population growth are anticipated to impose unprecedented pressure on water resources during this century. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers have pioneered the development of integrated assessment (IA) models for the analysis of energy and economic systems under conditions of climate change. This Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) effort led to the development of a modeling capability to evaluate current and future water allocations between human requirements and ecosystem services. The Water Prototype Model (WPM) was built in STELLA®, a computer modeling package with a powerful interface that enables users to construct dynamic models to simulate and integrate many processes (biological, hydrological, economics, sociological). A 150,404-km2 basin in the United States (U.S.) Pacific Northwest region served as the platform for the development of the WPM. About 60% of the study basin is in the state of Washington with the rest in Oregon. The Columbia River runs through the basin for 874 km, starting at the international border with Canada and ending (for the purpose of the simulation) at The Dalles dam. Water enters the basin through precipitation and from streamflows originating from the Columbia River at the international border with Canada, the Spokane River, and the Snake River. Water leaves the basin through evapotranspiration, consumptive uses (irrigation, livestock, domestic, commercial, mining, industrial, and off-stream power generation), and streamflow through The Dalles dam. Water also enters the Columbia River via runoff from land. The model runs on a monthly timescale to account for the impact of seasonal variations of climate, streamflows, and water uses. Data for the model prototype were obtained from national databases and ecosystem model results. The WPM can be run from three sources: 1) directly from STELLA, 2) with the isee Player®, or 3) the web version of WPM constructed with NetSim® software. When running any of these three versions, the user is presented a screen with a series of buttons, graphs, and a table. Two of the buttons provide the user with background and instructions on how to run the model. Currently, there are five types of scenarios that can be manipulated alone or in combination using the Sliding Input Devices: 1) interannual variability (e.g., El Nino), 2) climate change, 3) salmon policy, 4) future population, and 5) biodiesel production. Overall, the WPM captured the effects of streamflow conditions on hydropower production. Under La Nina conditions, more hydropower is available during all months of the year, with a substantially higher availability during spring and summer. Under El Nino conditions, hydropower would be reduced, with a total decline of 15% from normal weather conditions over the year. A policy of flow augmentation to facilitate the spring migration of smolts to the ocean would also reduce hydropower supply. Modeled hydropower generation was 23% greater than the 81 TWh reported in the 1995 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) database. The modeling capability presented here contains the essential features to conduct basin-scale analyses of water allocation under current and future climates. Due to its underlying data structure iv and conceptual foundation, the WPM should be appropriate to conduct IA modeling at national and global scales.

Land-Use Leakage

Leakage occurs whenever actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in one part of the world unleash countervailing forces elsewhere in the world so that reductions in global emissions are less than emissions mitigation in the mitigating region. While many researchers have examined the concept of industrial leakage, land-use policies can also result in leakage. We show that land-use leakage is potentially as large as or larger than industrial leakage. We identify two potential land-use leakage drivers, land-use policies and bioenergy. We distinguish between these two pathways and run numerical experiments for each. We also show that the land-use policy environment exerts a powerful influence on leakage and that under some policy designs leakage can be negative. International “offsets” are a potential mechanism to communicate emissions mitigation beyond the borders of emissions mitigating regions, but in a stabilization regime designed to limit radiative forcing to 3.7 2/m2, this also implies greater emissions mitigation commitments on the part of mitigating regions.

Impact of Heavy Duty Vehicle Emissions Reductions on Global Climate

The impact of a specified set of emissions reductions from heavy duty vehicles on climate change is calculated using the MAGICC 5.3 climate model. The integrated impact of the following emissions changes are considered: CO2, CH4, N2O, VOC, NOx, and SO2. This brief summarizes the assumptions and methods used for this calculation.