Open Source Bangladesh llong future energy scenarios

[madd0ct0r]

or 6 months of my life, dependign on who's counting:

http://www.bd2050.org/

Have a play!

[Jub]

Wow, that's a lot of work right there and it looks good.

Now, not knowing too much about what you've been working on, this looks like a way to play with how the growth of the region will effect power needs and how using various solutions to meeting those needs effects emissions. Assuming I'm correct, this looks like a very slick way to play around with that. I intend to test out various scenarios, including the worst case everything grows rapidly and no measures are taken to stay green.

Are the three levels we can set things to the high, low, and mean projections for growth, or is there more to them than that?

EDIT: I didn't notice that by default it was still set to grow, so assume the above is asking about the 4 settings.

[madd0ct0r]

the setting number normally represents the effort put in. Level 1 is a continuation of the present, Level 4 represents serious effort, on a par with the Apollo program.

So for nucelar, level 1 means don't bother. level 4 represents the pretty much top potential we can see for the speed of building reactors in country like bangladesh.

Some of the choices are more scenario based, eg 'Protein Source'. None of those options are especially more difficult then the other, but they do have significant effects on land use and biomass availability. In the future, these should be labelled A, B, C, D.

[Purple]

This is quite a nice thing you made. I've made it a game for my self to see how high I can get the carbon output. Fun.

[Jub]

Thanks for the explanation, that makes it a ton easier to figure out if them meeting their power needs while staying below the emissions target is feasible. Thus far it looks like it will be easy to do so long as they don't reach the crazy high end of your projections for industrial and GDP growth while enacting no laws to limit energy consumption. It gets even easier if we get some nifty clean (or even cleaner) energy technology between now and 2050.

[madd0ct0r]

be careful. have you checked the electricity supply tab?

http://calc.bd2050.org/pathways/1111111 ... 1111111000

[Jub]

I didn't even notice it, I was just eye balling the final demand and primary supply graphs and checking for emissions, less any credits due.

[Jub]

Looking at the energy tab, they're going to be in tough to meet their energy needs unless they get started soon and really put in a massive effort and this is with minimal projected growth.

Given that you made this project I'm curious as to what you expect their end outcome to be if they stay on course as they have been, and what your plan would be if you could get the funds and backing to fix the issue, but the political will for alternative energy and nuclear power was pretty much the same as it would be anyway. Basically what's your realistic solution to the problems they'll face and do youi think it can be done while keeping them reasonably green?

[madd0ct0r]

without assistance, they'll continue along at the current level, with a huge chunk of the popualtion off grid, 1/4 of electricity demand unmet, rolling blackouts, and steady deforestation.

given funds, i'd look into solar and nucelar, but that's not hard to guess

There's more basic things to look at - at the moment, some landless labourers get part of their pay in rice straw, which they use as fuel. that same biomass could make much more efficient fuel with a little processing, and they really should be being paid in much more useful cash. There's a lot of people currently without electricity, some rural, some urban. Once the grid reaches them, you get demand exploding based on the simple things: a couple of lightbulbs, a fridge. Things we take for granted.

[Jub]

So they pretty much need a massive investment of effort and money to build up not just the generation capacity, but also the infrastructure to distribute it. The good news is that if they do undertake such a thing that employs more people and accelerates the regions growth even further. The bad thing is that the cost might be too much for them to modernize as fast as they'll need to to keep pace with their growing needs and failing to let people use the new lights and fridge they purchased won't make anybody happy. If I had to guess, I think that as demand starts to rise sharply they'll probably have to start investing resources into meeting, but I doubt they do it proactively enough to have it online in time.

[madd0ct0r]

My firend who's taken over the project is looking at costings.
Even doing nothing might be too expensive - most of the existing generation uses local gas that will run out in a decade or so. The last decade has seen massive expansion of very expensive oil burning generators. There's more then a hint these are bascially corruption vehicles for peope who get kickbacks on oil imports