A team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers led by Turner Cotterman, an engineering and public policy (EPP) Ph.D. student, has shown that sustainably decarbonizing our energy system by 2050 will require us to change the way we model energy transitions and account for the role of public opinion. Advised by Mitchell Small, professor of engineering and public policy and civil and environmental engineering, Cotterman and co-authors use nuclear energy as a case study of how conventional energy models—which minimize system costs—fail at accounting for social acceptance, a factor that can inhibit the deployment of certain technologies, like nuclear energy.
They combined an energy system and risk perception model to evaluate cost, electricity demand, environmental performance and perceived versus acceptable risk at nuclear power plants. Their results indicated that the share of total U.S. energy supplied by nuclear sources would fall from a majority of system generation in a least-cost model, to just three percent in a scenario that incorporates deep decarbonization goals, accident risk perception and public acceptance. The changes in our energy system under this no- or low-nuclear scenario are dramatic, with 97% of the United States’ total energy generated by renewable sources.
The authors used nuclear power as a case study because there is a large amount of literature on the subject. However, other technologies may also face public opposition in a low-carbon transition, and the method can be extended to consider these, too. Cotterman and Small were joined in this study by former EPP faculty member and alumnus Ahmed Abdulla, now faculty at Canada’s Carleton University, former EPP faculty member Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, now faculty at Stanford University, and Stephen Wilson of the University of Queensland, Australia.
The authors note that nuclear energy, despite being believed to be safe by many technical experts, has faced stiff public opposition. This has driven up costs and has led investors to avoid new nuclear plant construction in the U.S. Yet energy system models that employ least-cost optimization keep deploying nuclear energy, assuming that the least-cost pathways would also be the most socially acceptable.
The authors modeled several energy transition scenarios. In each case, they compared the share of energy derived from each technology with and without social acceptance as a constraint. In a decarbonization scenario that does not consider public acceptance, nuclear energy would make up 73% of total energy generation, with renewables contributing most of the rest, and costs would increase by 9%. However, factor in social acceptance and nuclear energy’s share drops to just 3%, requiring about 97% of our energy to come from renewables in order to reach full decarbonization, and costs increase by 11%.
Having shown the crucial role public acceptance plays in actually implementing energy technologies, Cotterman and his co-authors argued that public policy and the energy sector in general must begin to orient toward the public’s concerns, rather than omitting them from a situation in which they have a considerable impact.
There are many strategies to address public concerns. One involves confronting misconceptions, especially at their early stages. More important is to build trust by talking to and involving local communities in the planning process. Proper strategizing also means being flexible as analysts understand that some low-carbon technologies simply can’t be deployed in certain locations or regions.
Source: UK-newsupdate