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“The Dynamics of Energy Systems and the Logistic Substitution Model” (1979)

2017; Yale University Press; Linguagem: Inglês

10.12987/9780300188479-026

C. Marchetti, Nebojša Nakićenović,

Global Energy Security and Policy

One of the objectives of IIASAYs Energy Systems Program is t o improve the methodology of medium-and long-range forecasting in the areas of the energy market and energy use, demands, supply opportunities and constraints.This is commonly accomplished with models that capture and put into equations the numerous relationships and feedbacks characterizing the operation of an economic system or parts of it.Such an approach encounters many difficulties, which are linked to the extreme complexity of the system and the fairly short-term variation of the parameters and even of the equations used.Consequently, these models lend themselves to short-and perhaps medium-range predictions, but normally fail to be useful for predictions over a period of about 50 years, the time horizon that the Energy Systems Program has chosen for study.Following the current scheme of attacking similar problems in the physical sciences, we have left aside all details and interactions, and have attempted a macroscopic description of the system via the discovery of long-term invariants.Heuristically, this approach is certainly not new.In a broad sense, the sciences can be seen as a systematic search for invariants.This work is dedicated to the empirical testing and theoretical formulation of an invariant, the logistic learning curve, as it applies to the structural evolution of energy systems and systems related to energy, such as coal mining.The great success of the model in organizing past data, and the insensitivity to major political and economic perturbations of the structures obtained seem t o lend great predictive power to this invariant.This Research Report represents only part of the work done at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, under a grant from the Volkswagenwerk Foundation, FRG, on the potential of logistic analysis in describing energy systems.It is completely documented in the Administrative Report to the foundation entitled "The Dynamics of Energy Systems and the Logistic Substitution Model" (Marchetti et al. 1978).The present paper reproduces the descriptive part in Section B of the Administrative Report.The software is described by Nakicenovic (1 979).As for the theoretical treatment in Section C by Peterka, a new issue of "Macrodynamics of Technological Change: Market Penetration by New Technologies" is available (Peterka 1 977).Fleck's contribution to Section C on the regularity of market penetration is part of his forthcoming doctoral dissertation at the University of Karlsruhe.Section A of the Administrative Report is the executive summary.