Toy energy and CO2 model

This is a toy energy and CO2 model for the UK designed for teaching some basics about future scenarios for the emission of the greenhouse gas, CO2.

The toy model is in Excel and may be downloaded here and used and distributed, with acknowledgement to SENCO. The spreadsheet is best saved to disk and run, rather used than straight from the web browser.

A video of the model working can be downloaded here (1.7 Mb, AVI) or here (0.7 Mb, gif).

More complex models, such as SENCO's SEESCen scenario model, and EleServe electricity services model represent energy systems with greater realism. The toy model does not accurately account for sectoral interactions such as the impact of CHP on other electricity supply requirements. The toy model is a simple 'what if' model to illustrate how future scenarios for the emission of one greenhouse gas, CO2, might be affected by different assumptions.

Its purpose is to:

• Enable people to get a feel for which are the important sectors
• Underline how growth rates, e.g. in aviation, can overwhelm technical reductions in the longer term
• See the effect of assumptions about measures to control CO2 in terms of amount and speed of reduction
• Understand how behavioural/lifestyle changes may be necessary to reach target reductions
• Illustrate the importance of international emissions from aircraft and ships
• Show the shift from historical trends required to reach different reductions
• Show that 30 years of 'low energy' policy proposals have not reduced energy consumption and CO2