International Energy Workshop - 25-29 June, 2007

Integrating Externalities in Optimisation of Future Energy Systems

Kenneth Karlsson^a, Lars Henrik Nielsen^a, Lise M. Frohn^b, Jørgen Brandt^b,  Eigil Kaas^c, Alexander Baklanov^d, Allan Gross^d, Torben Sigsgaard^e, Jan Sørensen^f,  Henrik Brønnum-Hansen^g

Fossil fuel related air pollution influences both the natural environment and human health. The particle pollution from cars and trucks alone is considered to cause more deaths than traffic accidents. This has lead to the establishment of a Danish Centre of Energy, Environment and Health (CEEH) which is supported by the Program Commission for Energy and Environment under the Danish Council for Strategic Research. The objective of CEEH is to establish an interdisciplinary based system to support optimal future planning of energy production and usage with respect to costs related to the natural environment and human health. To ensure the needed interdisciplinary approach the centre includes researchers from meteorology, air pollution, environment, energy, physiology/health and economy. The main outcome of the centre is an integrated regional economic model system including components for air pollution chemistry and dispersion down to urban and sub-urban scales, and model components of the impacts on public health and the external environment. While the system will be designed to minimize the grand costs of Danish energy systems, it is obvious that the system will require boundary conditions as input. These will be obtained from a global energy system model and of global air pollution models.

Keywords: Future energy systems, pricing externalities, health impacts, environmental impacts, air pollution modelling

^a Risø National laboratory, System Analysis Department, Roskilde, Denmark
^bNational Environmental Research Institute, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

^c Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

^dDanish Metrological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

^e Institute of Public Health, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark

^f University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark

^g National Institute of Public Health, Copenhagen, Denmark