GTSP Phase II products include:
- Technology Roadmaps
- Focused Topical Studies
- Common Industry-Government-Public View
The GTSP Phase II will help to define which combinations of technologies will be critical to responsibly meeting the challenges of climate change. Over a three-year timeframe, we will use our integrated modeling framework and related analysis tools to address a wide range of technology options. GTSP researchers are conducting in depth research in technology areas critical to movement toward an energy system with "net zero" carbon emissions. These research focus areas or "deep dives" include carbon capture and disposal, biotechnology, hydrogen and transportation systems, renewables, nuclear, and energy intensity. For each of these technology areas, R&D requirements will be defined and implementation and institutional issues will be addressed. Alternative development pathways will be articulated that consider infrastructure requirements as well as sequential, complementary and competitive technology development interactions. The competition among technologies and the timing of adoption across different sectors of the economy and different regions of the world is a critical decision factor for governments and industry as we choose future paths of development - and one that no other program can effectively address. We will use our integrated assessment model to evaluate the interactions between the technology and market forces under different scenarios of economic growth and development and a variety of policy and institutional settings.
Integrated Assessment Modeling
GTSP researchers have led the field in global energy/economic modeling for many years, starting with the Global Change Assessment Modeling System (GCAM) and continuing with prominent successor models such as the Mini-Climate Assessment Model (MiniCAM) and the Second Generation Model (SGM). Integrated assessment can be described as an analysis methodology that combines information pertaining to economic, energy and climate variables across various scientific disciplines, time, and spatial scales. As a platform for integrating knowledge, the design of an Integrated Assessment model requires a set of tradeoffs between speed, complexity, sectoral coverage, flexibility, and ease of use. Models range from those oriented toward academic research to those developed explicitly for a policy context. Simple models are often used to explore system behavior while more complex models are aimed at representing a large number of relevant processes and interactions. The PNNL integrated assessment model is a unique tool for evaluating the interactions between the technology and market forces under different scenarios of economic growth and development and a variety of policy and institutional settings.
Research Efforts
An important contribution of the GTSP is context. Specialists who work on a single technology can easily fall prey to the "partial derivative problem." They know their own technology, but not how the rest of the world is evolving and the context with which their own technology fits into a system. A potentially successful technology development effort may fail if complementary technologies are not available or if full recognition of the utility of alternative approaches is lacking. Potential future technologies must be compared on equal footing. For example, H2 fuel cell vehicles using regenerative braking need to compete economically with internal combustion hybrid vehicles with regenerative braking rather than conventional vehicles. Moreover, since near term environmental and safety regulations can impact long-term technology development pathways, this research will include consideration of the interaction between environmental and safety regulations and the establishment of technology development goals with some attention to regional regulatory differences.
The GTSP Phase II research program will provide a balance between activities in each of its focus areas. This program will focus on specific background analyses and the challenges in model development for each of the detailed technology areas as relevant. Technology analyses in turn will incorporate the best available information about progress in competitive R&D domains, including input from relevant government and industry research programs. GTSP Phase II research efforts are focused in the following areas or "deep dives."