Long term policy assessment of energy/environment futures: A systems approach

Abstract

A research program on "Management of Regional Energy/Environment Systems" has been conducted at IIASA for the past 18 months. The study, designed to integrate energy and environment considerations from a system perspective, has four primary objectives:

• 1) To describe and analyze existing patterns of regional energy use and supply, and to gain an insight into their relationships to socio-economic patterns;

• 2) To analyze and compare alternative methodologies for regional energy and environmental forecasting, planning and policy design;

• 3) To develop new concepts and methodologies for energy/environment system management and policy design;

• 4) To use these methodologies to examine alternative energy policies and strategies for test regions, to explore their environmental implications from various perspectives using sets of indicators related to environmental impacts, energy-use efficienceis, etc., and to investigate whether these strategies represent a viable choice for the society in which they are being considered.

This paper provides an overview description of the methodology and selected results for three case studies within this research program, namely, the state of Wisconsin (U.S.A), the German Democratic Republic, and Rhone-Alpes (France).

Prepared for the International Symposium on New Trends in Systems Analysis, Institute de Recherche D'Informatique et D'Automatique, Le Chesnay, France; 13–17 December, 1976