The Robustness of Natural Gas Energy Supply

Abstract

This article describes how affordability, acceptability, and reliability of energy supply are three important concerns for government. Due to the crude oil restrictions and its environmental impacts, a replacement of other energy sources has become more important in recent years. Natural gas is one of the replacements as a cleaner source with a more suitable calorific value than oil in comparison with other renewable energy sources. Therefore, utilization of natural gas as the main source of replacement strategies in the energy system has accelerated at the national level. However, the natural gas energy system is a complex system including different influencing and influenced variables that affect social and economic factors. This research has developed a system dynamics model to understand the complexity of the natural gas energy systems at the macro-level. The model shows the effective sub-systems of energy system with their related variables. It helps to predict the effective factors of an energy supply system based on statistics approaches. After that, three scenarios are defined based on expert opinions and the behaviors of the sub-systems in each scenario is analyzed. The approach also helps to understand unknown consequences of a decision or scenario in the energy system.

review of social dynamics in complex energy systems models

“…These models were very technical and considered exogenous energy demand projections together with technological availability, efficiency, energy sources, and associated costs in the supply side. GDP and population growth were represented as drivers of energy demand in [64,68,70]. Residential energy demand, in particular, was calculated through exogenous urbanisation rates and household income [58].…”

“…There are four reinforcing (R) feedback loops in Figure 3. R1 and R3 demonstrate how higher GDP levels lead to higher energy demand, investment, and production, which in turn positively affect GDP growth [70]. R2 represents the relationship between energy capacity depreciation and new installed capacity [72], while R4 indicates the cause-and-effect relationship between GDP, household income, energy demand, up to energy production.…”

Technological and Disruptive Innovations in a Nation's Industrialization and Leadership Development

“…The omitted proof can be constructed according to that of Theorem 1 in Zhao et al (2018). Note: This result only talks about market competitions without addressing what the government is concerned about, to this end, one example is (Aslani et al, 2018), where the macro-level complexity of the natural gas energy system is studied, while showing how affordability, acceptability, and reliability of energy supply are key concerns of the government.…”

A Reflection Note on Applying Quantitative Decision-Making Approaches to Engineering Management

“…Quantitative analysis of engineering decision-making can improve the timeliness and accuracy of conventional engineering decision-making. Furthermore, quantitative decision-making can free engineering management to focus on overall major project implementation and strategic decision-making (Stryker, 2008;Arumugam, 2016;Aslani, Akbari, & Tabasi, 2018;Azar, 2012;Badi & Pryke, 2016;Loyd, 2016;Medina & Medina, 2015;Milner, 2016). The advantages and disadvantages of various project implementation schemes can be compared through quantitative decision-making.…”