Infrastructure & Investment

The Vulnerability of U.S. Coastal Energy Infrastructure Under Climate Change

The 2005 hurricane season was particularly damaging to the United States, contributing to significant losses to energy infrastructure –much of it a result of flooding from storm surges during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Previous research suggests that these events are not isolated, but rather foreshadow a risk that is to continue and likely increase with a changing climate (17). Since extensive energy infrastructure exists along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, these facilities are exposed to an increasing risk of flooding. We study the combined impacts of anticipated sea level rise, hurricane activity, and subsidence on energy infrastructure in these regions with a first application to Galveston Bay. Using future climate conditions as projected by four different Global Circulation Models (GCMs), we model the change in hurricane activity from present day climate conditions in response to a climate projected in 2100 under the IPCC A1B emissions scenario using hurricane analysis developed by Emanuel (5). We apply the results from hurricane runs from each model to the SLOSH model (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) (19) to investigate the change in frequency and distribution of surge heights across climates. Further, we incorporate uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of sea level rise and subsidence, resulting in more detailed projections of risk levels for energy infrastructure over the next century. With a detailed understanding of energy facilities’ changing risk exposure, we conclude with a dynamic programming cost-benefit analysis to optimize decision making over time as it pertains to adaptation.

Characterization of wind power resource in Australia

The wind resource in Australia has been reconstructed and characterized in terms of its geographical distribution, abundance, variability, availability, persistence and intermittency. The impact of raising the wind turbine hub height on these metrics is analyzed. The Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) boundary layer flux data was used to construct wind power density (WPD) and wind speed at 50 m, 80 m, 100 m, and 150 m, which represent current and potential wind turbine hub heights. The wind speeds at 80 m were quantitatively and spatially similar to a map of wind sp

Characterization of wind power resource in the United States

Wind resource in the continental and offshore United States has been reconstructed and characterized using metrics that describe, apart from abundance, its availability, persistence and intermittency. The Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) boundary layer flux data has been used to construct wind profile at 50 m, 80 m, 100 m, 120 m turbine hub heights. The wind power density (WPD) estimates at 50 m are qualitatively similar to those in the US wind atlas developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), but quantitatively a class less in some regions, but are within the limits of uncertainty. The wind speeds at 80 m were quantitatively and qualitatively close to the NREL wind map. The possible reasons for overestimation by NREL have been discussed. For long tailed distributions like those of the WPD, the mean is an overestimation and median is suggested for summary representation of the wind resource.

The impact of raising the wind turbine hub height on metrics of abundance, persistence, variability and intermittency is analyzed. There is a general increase in availability and abundance of wind resource but there is an increase in intermittency in terms of level crossing rate in low resource regions.

© 2012 the Authors

Climate Change and Economic Growth Prospects for Malawi: An Uncertainty Approach

Malawi confronts a growth and development imperative that it must meet in a context characterised by rising temperatures and deep uncertainty about trends in precipitation. This article evaluates the potential implications of climate change for overall growth and development prospects in Malawi. We combine climate, biophysical and economic models to develop a structural analysis focused on three primary impact channels: agriculture, road infrastructure and hydropower generation. We account explicitly for the uncertainty in climate forecasts by exploiting the best available information on the likely distribution of climate outcomes. We find that climate change is unlikely to substantially slow overall economic growth over the next couple of decades. However, assuming that global emissions remain effectively unconstrained, climate change implications become more pronounced over time. Reduced agricultural yields and increased damage to road infrastructure due to increased frequency and intensity of extreme events are the principal impact channels. Owing to the potential for positive impacts in the near term, the net present value of climate impacts from 2007 to 2050 (using a 5% discount rate) can be positive or negative with an average loss of about USD 610 million. The main implication of our findings is that Malawian policy makers should look to exploit the coming decade or two as these represent a window of opportunity to develop smart and forward looking adaptation policies. As many of these policies take time to develop, implement, and then execute, there is little cause for complacency.

© 2014 the authors.

This project will evaluate the economic and technical potential of renewable-based power systems in Africa under a trading regime. Linking hydropower generated in river basins across the continent has the potential to smooth annual and seasonal fluctuations in hydropower output and enable larger penetrations of intermittent renewable energy technologies.

Impact of Energy and Water Policy on Sustainable African Economic Development

The environmental impact of pavements and the economic challenge of building and maintaining them have led to a growing need to better quantify performance and cost over pavements’ entire life cycle. To meet that need, the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) is developing tools and data for decision-makers to evaluate pavement designs and make choices that are both cost-effective and environmentally responsible. The project aims to reduce the environmental impact of concrete, both in its manufacturing and use.

Concrete Sustainability Hub

This project is applying the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model framework to assess the potential impacts of greenhouse gases and climate adaptation strategies. We will examine multiple environmental effects on human health, food supply and price changes, infrastructure, energy demand, the quantity and quality of water resources, and sea level rise and coastal damage.

Integrated Assessment of Greenhouse Gases and Climate Impacts

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that the operation of electricity generation and water supply infrastructures can be made more resilient and sustainable by integrating assessments of air quality and water availability into electricity generation dispatching decisions. The project will:

The Interface of Infrastructures, Markets, and Natural Cycles - Innovative modeling and control mechanisms for managing electricity, water and air quality in Texas
The High Dam at Aswan

Dam assessment, by its very nature, is a complex undertaking. Many of the benefits and costs associated with dam development have quite different time streams. These benefits and costs are faced by different sectors and there are inter-relationships between sectors. The effects of dams are distributed across different spatial scales, from local to basin, to regional to national, and in some cases, to trans-national. To add to the complexity, while some of the impacts of the dam projects are ‘direct’, the others are ‘indirect’ with the definition of what constitutes ‘direct’ versus ‘indirect’ impacts also varying.

The aim of the present study has been to evaluate some of the above interactions, in particular the ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ economic impacts of dams. The study ex-post evaluates the magnitude of multipliers, a measure of the total benefits (direct plus indirect) of the project in relation to its direct benefits, and assesses the distributional and poverty reduction impacts of dam projects. The four cases studied in the present book include three large projects—Bhakra Dam System (India), Aswan High Dam (Egypt) and Sobradinho Dam (and the set of cascading reservoirs) (Brazil)— and one small check dam—Bunga (India).

The present study should be seen as one of the numerous other steps that need to be taken to reach the goal of evaluating the full development impact of the dam projects. The aim here has been to highlight the relevance of one of the components of a full evaluation of dam projects that is often neglected, i.e., their indirect and induced economic impacts.

Potential climatic impacts and reliability of large-scale offshore wind farms

The vast availability of wind power has fueled substantial interest in this renewable energy source as a potential near-zero greenhouse gas emission technology for meeting future world energy needs while addressing the climate change issue. However, in order to provide even a fraction of the estimated future energy needs, a large-scale deployment of wind turbines (several million) is required. The consequent environmental impacts, and the inherent reliability of such a large-scale usage of intermittent wind power would have to be carefully assessed, in addition to the need to lower the high current unit wind power costs. Our previous study (Wang and Prinn 2010 Atmos. Chem. Phys. 10 2053) using a three-dimensional climate model suggested that a large deployment of wind turbines over land to meet about 10% of predicted world energy needs in 2100 could lead to a significant temperature increase in the lower atmosphere over the installed regions. A global-scale perturbation to the general circulation patterns as well as to the cloud and precipitation distribution was also predicted. In the later study reported here, we conducted a set of six additional model simulations using an improved climate model to further address the potential environmental and intermittency issues of large-scale deployment of offshore wind turbines for differing installation areas and spatial densities. In contrast to the previous land installation results, the offshore wind turbine installations are found to cause a surface cooling over the installed offshore regions. This cooling is due principally to the enhanced latent heat flux from the sea surface to lower atmosphere, driven by an increase in turbulent mixing caused by the wind turbines which was not entirely offset by the concurrent reduction of mean wind kinetic energy. We found that the perturbation of the large-scale deployment of offshore wind turbines to the global climate is relatively small compared to the case of land-based installations. However, the intermittency caused by the significant seasonal wind variations over several major offshore sites is substantial, and demands further options to ensure the reliability of large-scale offshore wind power. The method that we used to simulate the offshore wind turbine effect on the lower atmosphere involved simply increasing the ocean surface drag coefficient. While this method is consistent with several detailed fine-scale simulations of wind turbines, it still needs further study to ensure its validity. New field observations of actual wind turbine arrays are definitely required to provide ultimate validation of the model predictions presented here.

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