Managing the energy basket in the face of limits: A search for operational means to sustain energy supply and contain its environmental impact

Abstract

Forrester's World Dynamics model (Forrester, World Dynamics. Wright-Allen, Cambridge, 1971) and the subsequent Limits to Growth study (Meadows et al., Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World. Wright-Allen, Cambridge, 1974) led to make a pioneering statement recognizing the intertwined nature of resource use (that subsumed energy) and its environmental repercussions. Yet, policy actions pertaining to energy and environment have remained quite detached, even though the interaction between the two is now common knowledge. The Limits study made appeals for controlling population, resource use, and environmental pollution, albeit the operational policy options for achieving those ends that can be implemented through existing intervention structure (or policy space) continue to be a challenge, which this chapter attempts to address to meet the more specific objective of sustaining energy supply and environment concomitantly. It draws on a simple model suggested in Saeed (Technol. Forecast Soc. 28:311-323, 1985), which does not deal with the human activity modeled in the Limits project but with the eco-system impacted by the human activity. Thus, it incorporates the policy space needed for managing the ecosystem rather than the demand for resources, which helps to delineate the operational means to avoid the impending catastrophe predicted in the Limits study. It also explores the operational means for managing the environmental impact of energy use, the principles of which are outlined in Saeed (J. Econ. Issues 38(4):909-937, 2004). These principles call for integrating environmental restoration into the market activity. The policy issues pertaining to energy use and environmental restoration are dealt with in separate models following the problem-partitioning principles outlined in Saeed (Syst. Dynam. Rev. 8(2): 251-261, 1992). © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013.