Climate Data Analytics
My work with the NOVIM Group
The Challenge
Existing climate models mostly use policy based arguments to justify possible future climate scenarios, but NOVIM puts forward more technical solutions, such as small modular reactor technology. My job at my summer internship was to derive an analytical climate model that NOVIM could use to show the impact of possible changes in future technology affecting the US Energy Grid as opposed to future policies.
The Solution
To achieve this goal, I first began collecting data on the current US energy sectors, and set that as the baseline energy scenario. I then interviewed several UCSB professors at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management on the impact that some technologies that NOVIM was proposing could have on the US energy grid. Based on this feedback, I made several scenarios for the change in the future US energy grid from now until 2050.
The Results
The MATLAB code that I made was published to the NOVIM site and allows for a teaching method to show how different US energy makeups will affect global CO2 emissions in the future. There are several scenarios programmed into the simulation to show the impact of if a certain energy sector would shrink or grow based on new technological advancements. For example, the secnario NOVIM was most interested in is the increase in nuclear energy due to small modular reactor technology. In this scenario, nulcear power would grow to account for more of a base load of electricity in the US and as a result, you could see global CO2 emissions decrease as the amount of natural gas and coal fuel decreases.