The subject of climate change is highly controversial. The need to grow the earth’s energy generation capability in the most efficient, cost effective manner possible is not.
Over the next few decades, enormous amounts of capital will be invested to upgrade and expand the energy capacity of the world’s developing economies. Major developed nations have pledged financing to assist in achieving this goal in the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly ways possible.
An easy to use interactive tool is needed to help guide planners and decision makers in taking into account the priorities and trade-offs country by country and project by project. Existing models are either too rigid or too opaque to allow easy modification, or fail to adequately take into account the economic variables of competing alternatives.
Novim’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project has constructed a transparent, easily accessible database that merges and normalizes all of the major existing global surface temperature data going back to 1800. A unique mobile application for iPhone and iPad allows researchers and the public at large graphical access to this powerful data set.
Novim is working with the Environmental Capital Group of Grass Valley, California to construct yet another specialized digital tool, this time focusing on energy investment choices in the countries that are the fastest growing consumers of energy. For a given dollar outlay, or investment strategy, it would demonstrate how to maximize energy efficiency, and minimize carbon emissions using current technologies and existing or new infrastructure.
The approach selected would build upon the work of professor Robert Socolow of Princeton University, who developed a system of “wedges” to visualize each energy production sector. To this model would be added a series of economic “levers” allowing the user to dynamically see the projected effects of various combinations of investments. This second step would reflect the suggestions of Lord Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist of the World Bank and now a professor at the London School of Economics.
Both of these respected researchers have agreed to contribute to the model.
Despite efforts to stabilize CO2 concentrations, it is possible that the climate system could respond abruptly with catastrophic consequences.
Intentional intervention in the climate system to avoid or ameliorate such consequences has been proposed as one possible response should such a scenario arise.
In a one-week study, the authors of this report conducted a technical review and evaluation of proposed climate engineering concepts that might serve as a rapid palliative response to such climate emergency scenarios. Because of their potential to induce a prompt (<1 yr) global cooling, this study concentrated on Shortwave Climate Engineering (SWCE) methods for moderately reducing the amount of shortwave solar radiation absorbed by the Earth.
The study’s main objective was to outline a decade-long agenda of technical research that would maximally reduce the uncertainty surrounding the benefits and risks associated with SWCE. For rigor of technical analysis, the study focused the research agenda on one particular SWCE concept—stratospheric aerosol injection—and in doing so developed several conceptual frameworks and methods valuable for assessing any SWCE proposal.
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