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Is energy intensity a driver of structural change? Empirical evidence from the global economy
ate: 09/03/2023. Publication type: Research article. Author(s): Jaime Nieto, Pedro B. Moyano, Diego Moyano, Luis Javier Miguel. Keywords: Energy & materials, Energy transition, Sustainable development Short description: Input–output tables (IOTs) provide...
Material and energy requirements of transport electrification
Daniel Pulido-Sánchez, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carlos de Castro, Fernando Frechoso.
The replacement of internal combustion engines by electric vehicles (EVs) is being promoted towards the decarbonisation of the transportation sector. EVs require important amounts of materials, some of which are being assessed as potentially critical in the future. In this work, we develop a submodule of material requirements for transport for an integrated assessment model with great detail in the representation of electric transportation modes. This submodule includes…
Welfare regimes as enablers of just energy transitions: Revisiting and testing the hypothesis of synergy for Europe
Author(s): Pablo García-García, Luis Buendía, Oscar Carpintero.
Welfare States are considered key tools to provide just transitions. The hypothesis of synergy states that Social-democratic regimes are in a better position to accomplish them. While synergy has been widely theorised, its empirical verification has remained less studied and provided contradictory results. The weaknesses detected…
Double accounting in energy footprint and related assessments: How common is it and what are the consequences?
Author(s): Arkaitz Usubiaga-Liaño, Iñaki Arto, José Acosta-Fernández.
The number of input-output assessments focused on energy has grown considerably in the last years. Many of these assessments combine data from multi-regional input-output (MRIO) databases with energy extensions that completely or partially depict the different stages through which energy products are supplied or used in the economy. The improper use of some energy extensions…
Carbon footprint, municipality size and rurality in Spain: Inequality and carbon taxation
Author(s): Manuel Tomás, Luis Antonio López, Fabio Monsalve.
By using an environmentally extended multi-regional input-output model, this paper analyses the Spanish households’ carbon footprint for the 2008–2017 period considering the municipality size as well as the urban or rural residential zone where families live. Results show that…
Sub-national water–food–labour nexus in Colombia
Author(s): Tiziano Distefano, Carlos Adrián Saldarriaga Isaza, Estefanía Muñoz, T. Builes.
Poorer countries often face a severe trade-off: the need to improve socio-economic conditions is hard to balance with the maintenance of key ecological processes. As a case study, we select Colombia, a Latin American country with almost 10% of its inhabitants living in extreme poverty. We elaborate a water–food–labour (WFL) nexus grounded on a sub-national Environmentally Extended Input–Output (EEIO) analysis to assess…
National Energy and Climate Planning in Serbia: From Lagging Behind to an Ambitious EU Candidate?
Author(s): Ilija Batas Bijelić, Nikola Rajaković.
Just in the immediate neighbourhood of the European Union (EU), the Republic of Serbia, one of the Western Balkan (WB) EU candidate countries, is lagging behind in the process of energy transition regardless of technological advances and policy instruments available. The EU created a momentum for energy transition acceleration with the European Green Deal, which has been forwarded to the WB through the Energy Community secretariat in the form of the Green Agenda; generally speaking, response in the form of National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) is expected in the short term. The Republic of Serbia’s…
Coupling environmental transition and social prosperity: a scenario-analysis of the Italian case
Author(s): Simone André Cieplinski, Simone D’Alessandro, Tiziano Distefano, Pietro Guarnieri.
his paper investigates to what extent green growth is able to promote social equity and which social policies can complement environmental policies to achieve social prosperity and sustainability. We develop a dynamic macrosimulation model to explore the social and structural effects of the Italian national energy and climate plan. We show that…
Disentangling economic crisis effects from environmental regulation effects: Implications for sustainable development
Author(s): Simone Lazzini, Zeila Occhipinti, Angela Parenti, Roberto Verona.
With climate change becoming more severe, policy makers must impose environmental regulations that will lead firms to adopt sustainable corporate models. According to the Porter hypothesis, environmental regulation can favour the implementation of business strategies that improve economic and environmental performances. In this study…
Flexibility Options to Tackle Intermittency in the Energy Systems with High Share of Renewable Energy
Author(s): Antun Pfeifer, Luka Herc, Ilija Batas Bijelic, Neven Duić.
Recent ”Green deal” of European union includes the decision to become carbon neutral and even carbon-negative region in order to tackle the climate crisis. Such decision includes energy transition from energy production based on fossil fuels to the system based on variable renewable energy sources. Main technical challenge and a key factor in the techno-economic analysis of the energy system of the future, based on variable renewable energy sources, is their variable production. In order to deal with…
Energy-socio-economic-environmental modelling for the EU energy and post-COVID-19 transitions
Author(s): Ignacio Cazcarro, Diego García-Gusano, Diego Iribarren, Pedro Linares, José Carlos Romero, Pablo Arocena, Iñaki Arto, Santacruz Banacloche, Yolanda Lechón, Luis J. de Miguel, Jorge Zafrilla; Luis Antonio López, Raquel Langarita;, María-Ángeles Cadarso.
Relevant energy questions have arisen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic shock leads to emissions’ reductions consistent with the rates of decrease required to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. Those unforeseen drastic reductions in emissions are temporary as long as they do not involve structural changes. However…
MEDEAS: a new modeling framework integrating global biophysical and socioeconomic constraints
Author(s): Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Ignacio de Blas, Jaime Nieto, Carlos de Castro, Luis J. de Miguel, Óscar Carpintero, Margarita Mediavilla, Luis Fernando Lobejón, Noelia Ferreras-Alonso, Paula Rodrigo, Fernando Frechoso, David Álvarez-Antelo.
A diversity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) coexists due to the different approaches developed to deal with the complex interactions, high uncertainties and knowledge gaps within the environment and human societies. This paper describes the open-source MEDEAS modelling framework, which…
Assessment of the global wind energy potential considering technical and sustainability boundaries
Date: 27/05/2022.Publication type: Research article.Author(s): Alexandros Adam, Stavroula Papagianni, Alexandros Rigopoulos, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carlos de Castro.Keywords: Energy & materials, Sustainable development, Uncertainty. Short description: Estimating...
Modelling global nickel mining, supply, recycling, stocks-in-use and price under different resources and demand assumption for 1850-2200
uthor(s): Anna Hulda Olafsdottir, Harald Ulrik Sverdrup.
The long-term supply of nickel to society was assessed with the WORLD7 model for the global nickel cycle, using new estimates of nickel reserves and resources, indicating that the best estimate of the ultimately recoverable resources for nickel is in the range of 650–720 million ton. This is significantly larger than earlier estimates. The extractable amounts were stratified by extraction cost and ore grade in the model…
Analysis of the variable renewable energy in the Spanish power system based on kernel probabilistic distributions
Author(s): Gonzalo Parrado Hernando, Fernando A. Frechoso Escudero, Luis Javier Miguel Gonzalez.
The development of renewable energies has been highlighted as a driver of the energy transition towards a more sustainable society. Despite the well-known benefits in health and regional energy resilience when those sources are leveraged, wind- and solar-based technologies bring about flexibility challenges in the power system. The variability in the generation of energy from renewable sources is probably its greatest weakness. This problem can be alleviated in different ways, but a detailed statistical analysis…
A new accounting framework for assessing forest footprint of nations
Author(s): Iñaki Arto, Ignacio Cazcarro, Eneko Garmendia, Itxasi Ruiz, María J. Sanz.
In a tele-coupled and globalized World, understanding the links between demand for wood products and land use is becoming challenging. World’s economies are increasingly open and interconnected, and international trade flows of wood products are continuously growing. The increasing resource consumption of humanity is increasingly dependent on international trade. In this context, the study of forest products demand from a global-multi-regional perspective emerges as a critical issue to achieve…
Linking multisectoral economic models and consumption surveys for the European Union
uthor(s): Ignacio Cazcarro, Antonio F. Amores, Iñaki Arto, Kurt Kratena.
Multisectoral models usually have a single representative household. However, more diversity of household types is needed to analyse the effects of multiple phenomena (i.e. ageing, gender inequality, distributional income impact, etc.). Household consumption surveys’ microdata is a rich data source for these types of analysis. However, feeding multisectoral models…
Just energy transitions to low carbon economies: A review of the concept and its effects on labour and income
Author(s): Pablo García-García, Óscar Carpintero, Luis Buendía.
The global environmental and social crisis has motivated the renaissance of just transitions, this time centred around the effects on labour and income distribution of the shift to a sustainable energy mix. This renewed conception has gone beyond its origins in the US unions in the 1970s to become a key element in many discourses worldwide, with different nuances. Over the last few years, it has found a place in the SDGs and gathered strong support from the ILO. As political frameworks and literature multiply, this work presents…
Future impacts of ozone driven damages on agricultural systems
Author(s): Jon Sampedro, Stephanie T. Waldhoff, Dirk-Jan Van de Ven, Guillermo Pardo, Rita Van Dingenen, Iñaki Arto, Agustín del Prado, Maria José Sanz.
Current ozone (O3) concentration levels entail significant damages in crop yields around the world. The reaction of the emitted precursors (mostly methane and nitrogen oxides) with solar radiation contribute to O3 levels that exceed established thresholds for crop damage. This paper shows current and projected…
Analysis of the material requirements of global electrical mobility
Author(s): Daniel Pulido, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Margarita Mediavilla, Carlos de Castro, Fernando Frechoso Escudero.
Today, we are witnesses to the early days of a change in the mobility technology as oil reserves decline and society’s environmental awareness increases. Electric technologies are intended to replace those based on hydrocarbons….
Coupling circularity performance and climate action: From disciplinary silos to transdisciplinary modelling science
Author(s): Alexandros Nikas, Georgios Xexakis, , Konstantinos Koasidis, José Acosta-Fernández, Iñaki Arto, Alvaro Calzadilla, Teresa Domenech, Ajay Gambhir, Stefan Giljum, Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, Andrea Herbst, Olga Ivanova, Mariësse A. E.van Sluisveld, Dirk-JanVan De Ven, Anastasios Karamaneas, Haris Doukas
Technological breakthroughs and policy measures targeting energy efficiency and clean energy alone will not suffice to deliver Paris Agreement-compliant greenhouse gas emissions trajectories in the next decades. Strong cases have recently been made…
Flexibility index and decreasing the costs in energy systems with high share of renewable energy
thor(s): Antun Pfeifer, Luka Herc, Ilija Batas Bjelic, Neven Duic.
Recent European Green Deal includes decision to become carbon neutral and even carbon negative region in order to tackle the climate crisis. Main technical challenge and a key factor in techno-economic analysis of the energy system of the future, based on variable renewable energy sources, is their variable production and its integration. In order to…
The potential land requirements and related land use change emissions of solar energy
Author(s): Dirk‑Jan van de Ven, Iñigo Capellan‑Peréz, Iñaki Arto, Ignacio Cazcarro, Carlos de Castro, Pralit Patel, Mikel Gonzalez‑Eguino.
Although the transition to renewable energies will intensify the global competition for land, the potential impacts driven by solar energy remain unexplored. In this work, the potential solar land requirements and related land use change emissions are computed for the EU, India, Japan and South Korea. A novel method…
Perspective of comprehensive and comprehensible multi-model energy and climate science in Europe
Author(s): Alexandros Nikas, Ajay Gambhir, Evelina Trutnevyte, Konstantinos Koasidis, Henrik Lund, Jakob Z. Thellufsen, Daniel Mayer, Georg Zachmann, Luis Javier Miguel González, Noelia Ferreras-Alonso, Ida Sognnaes, Glen P. Peters, Emanuela Colombo, Mark Howells, Adam Hawkes, Machteld van den Broek, Dirk-Jan Van de Ven, Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, Alexandros Flamos, Haris Doukas.
Europe’s capacity to explore the envisaged pathways that achieve its near- and long-term energy and climate objectives needs to be significantly enhanced. In this perspective, we discuss how this capacity is supported…
The development of an environmental module in the global integrated assessment Model WILIAM
Author(s): Amandine Valerie Pastor, Tiago Capela Lourenço, Noelia Ferreras-Alonso, Ivan Ramos-Diez, Stavroula Papagianni, Alexandros Adam, Roger Samsó, Santi Sabaté, Jordi Solé Ollé, Robert Oakes, Tiziano Distefano, Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, Margarita Mediavilla, Gonzalo Parrado, Nathalie Wergles, Luis Javier Miguel.
his poster presents the preliminary version of the WILIAM environmental module considering the different modelling approaches and assumptions that will be developed. The environmental module…
Energy system flexibility for renewable energy variability in IAMs
Author(s): Ilija Batas Bjelic, Nikola Rajakovic, Neven Duic, Antun Pfeifer, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Fernando Frechoso, Alexandros Adam.
his poster focuses on the representation of the Variable Renewable Energy Supply (VRES) in the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) which includes the hourly variability of renewable energy modelled in the EnergyPLAN software. Hourly effects of the integration have been accessed. Finally, flexibility options…
Global transportation decarbonization pathways considering lifestyle change and mineral availabilities
hor(s): Daniel Pulido Sánchez, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Ignacio de Blas Sanz.
The global increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the depletion of good quality oil reserves are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. The research developed in this poster uses the MEDEAS-World system dynamics model in order to know the viability of the electrified transport technologies and the use of minerals…
The limits of transport decarbonization under the current growth paradigm
ublication type: Research article.
Author(s): Ignacio de Blas, Margarita Mediavilla, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez, Carmen Duce.
Achieving ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG) is particularly challenging for transportation due to the technical limitations of replacing oil-based fuels. We apply the integrated assessment model MEDEAS-World to study four global transportation decarbonization strategies for 2050. The results show that a massive replacement of oil-fueled individual vehicles to electric ones alone cannot deliver GHG reductions consistent with climate stabilization and could result in the scarcity of some key minerals…
Standard, Point of Use, and Extended Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI) from Comprehensive Material Requirements of Present Global Wind, Solar, and Hydro Power Technologies
Author(s): Carlos de Castro, Iñigo Capellán-Pérez.
Whether renewable energy sources (RES) will provide sufficient energy surplus to entirely power complex modern societies is under discussion. We contribute to this debate by estimating the current global average energy return on energy invested (EROI) for the five RES technologies with the highest potential of electricity generation from the comprehensive and internally consistent estimations of their material requirements at three distinct energy system boundaries: standard farm-gate (EROIst), final at consumer point-of-use (EROIfinal), and extended (including indirect investments, EROIext). EROIst levels found fall within the respective literature ranges. Expanding the boundaries…
Feasible alternatives to green growth
Author(s): Simone D’Alessandro, André Cieplinski, Tiziano Distefano.
Climate change and increasing income inequality have emerged as twin threats to contemporary standards of living, peace and democracy. These two problems are usually tackled separately in the policy agenda…
How uncertainties are tackled in multi-disciplinary science? A review of integrated assessments under global change
Author(s): Amandine V. Pastor, Diana C.S. Viera, Floor H. Soudijn, Oreane Y. Edelenbosch.
Integrated assessment (IA) modelling can be an effective tool to gain insight into the dynamics of coupled earth system (land use, climate etc.) and socio-economic components…