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Topic: IAMs

[Episode #182] – 7th Anniversary Show

Full Episode

For our Seventh Anniversary show, energy researcher Jonathan Koomey rejoins us to review major stories over the past year, and to take stock of how the energy transition has progressed.

We talk about how the global energy crunch we covered in 2021, in Episode #158, has evolved into a full-fledged global energy crisis in 2022. We reflect on the theme of Episode #181, “Command Capitalism,” and consider the increasing interventions governments are making in energy markets to manage the crisis. We muse on the episodes we did over the past year on the trajectory and speed of the energy transition. We consider the outlook for storage systems, in light of the episodes we did on that subject. We discuss how incumbents have resisted the energy transition, as we covered in our episode on utility corruption, and ask whether incumbents are gaining or losing ground. We review the highlights of our shows on the latest IPCC report and on climate modeling. And Jon shares some of his latest work in energy modeling.

It's a smörgåsbord of energy transition goodness, so strap on a napkin and join us!

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #176] – Climate Scenarios vs. Reality

Why do so many decarbonization scenarios rely on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to play a major role in the world's energy transition portfolio when it really doesn’t even exist as a commercial technology? Why does the IPCC's climate mitigation strategy model countries as if they would implement the same policy for carbon pricing across all sectors, when we know that’s just not how the world operates? Why do models dodge attempts to reflect the fragmented, irrational, and irregular way that the world actually works, when we know for a fact that the transition is going to be a bumpy ride into a hazy future?

If globally coordinated carbon pricing never materializes, and CCS never has a real market opportunity as our integrated assessment models assume, where will that leave us in developing meaningful policies and taking action on climate change? And why aren’t other people asking this vital question?

In this episode, Dr. Ida Sognnaes, a Senior Researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, explains how the integrated assessment models (IAMs) used in IPCC reports are constructed, what assumptions modelers make, and how the very design of IAMs can bias them toward certain outcomes—including the role of CCS as a climate mitigation strategy. She also offers further evidence that the world is currently on a trajectory for between 2 and 3 degrees of warming by the end of the century, and shares her perspective on why the climate modeling community has been so reluctant to just say that plainly.

Geek rating: 8

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[Episode #117] – Climate Science Part 12b – Improving Climate Modeling

Are the climate change scenarios produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately representing our likely futures, or are they rooted in outdated data that doesn’t represent the progress we’re already making on energy transition? Is the world on a “business as usual” path to climate doom in a world that’s 5°C warmer, or are we actually within reach of limiting warming to 2°C by the end of this century?

In this episode, we ask two experts to debate these questions in the very first extended three-way conversation on this podcast. Representing the energy analyst’s critique of the IPCC models is Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich. And representing the IPCC modeling work is Dr. Nico Bauer, an integrated assessment modeler with the Potsdam Institute who has helped develop the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used in the IPCC framework.

This episode is part two of that three-hour conversation. Part one was featured in Episode #116. Together, those two episodes make Part 12 of our mini-series on climate science.

Geek rating: 10

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[Episode #116] – Climate Science Part 12a – Improving Climate Modeling

Are the climate change scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accurately representing our likely futures, or are they rooted in outdated perspectives that don't represent the progress we’re already making on energy transition? Is the world on a “business as usual” path to climate doom in a planet that’s 5°C warmer, or are we actually within reach of limiting warming to 2°C by the end of this century?

In this episode, we ask two experts to debate these questions in the very first extended three-way conversation on this podcast. Representing the energy analyst’s critique of the IPCC models is Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich. And representing the modeling work that informs the IPCC process is Dr. Nico Bauer, an integrated assessment modeler with the Potsdam Institute who has helped develop the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used in the IPCC framework.

This episode is part one of that three-hour conversation. Part two will be featured in Episode #117. Together, those two episodes make Part 12 of our mini-series on climate science.

Geek rating: 10

(more…)