Twitter headlines« US Sales of Hybrids in November Up 13.8% Year-on-Year | Main | TNT Launches Newton 7.5-Tonne Electric Trucks in London »
RAND to Review and Correct Renewable Energy Study
6 December 2006
The RAND Corporation announced that it is revising a study on renewable energy expenditures issued 13 November after learning there were some inadvertent errors in the computer model and numerical assumptions on which the study findings were based.
The study withdrawn for revision is titled Impacts on US Energy Expenditures of Increasing Renewable Energy Use (earlier post). It examined total energy expenditures if a requirement was imposed that 25% of electricity and motor vehicle fuels used in the United States by 2025 would come from renewable resources.
[The errors] may have an effect on the results of the study, but exactly what that effect will be is uncertain at present. In this instance, the RAND quality assurance process that we use to carefully review our studies failed to detect inadvertent errors in the treatment of existing subsidies for biofuels and the availability of existing hydropower capacity in the computer code, as well as some other details relating to how the renewable requirement is met and at what cost.
We deeply regret these inadvertent errors, accept responsibility for them, and are announcing them to set the record straight. We will redo our analysis and issue a corrected version of the report in early 2007.
—Debra Knopman, RAND vice president and director of the RAND Infrastructure, Safety and Environment division
December 6, 2006 in Fuels, Power Generation | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: SJC | December 06, 2006 at 07:48 AM
I like self correcting entities. Maybe the present administration could learn from this as well.
Posted by: SJC | December 06, 2006 at 07:50 AM
I like self correcting entities. Maybe the present administration could learn from this as well.
Posted by: SJC | December 06, 2006 at 08:05 AM
You can say that again. Oh wait, you have...
Posted by: An Engineer | December 06, 2006 at 11:33 AM
This is 1 of the companies which pushed the country to War in Iraq.
While USA fought a tough war, Brazil has silently converted 40 % of its vehicles to run on Ethanol.
They introduced flex-fuelled vehicles this way.
2003 - 6 %
2004 - 17 %
2005 - 51 %
2006 - 80 %.
Next they are kicking Bio-Diesel revolution.
US could have followed Brazil's way, atleast now they are doing with 46 % of gas stations selling E10 here with another 1000 selling E85.
Posted by: Max Reid | December 06, 2006 at 11:48 AM
"studies failed to detect inadvertent errors in the treatment of existing subsidies for biofuels and the availability of existing hydropower capacity in the computer code..."
In the computer code? It's called editorial integrity and requires human beings - not machines.
Posted by: gr | December 06, 2006 at 01:11 PM
Max:
US already produces more ethanol than Brazil. From vastly less productive corn. Also, parking in downtown Mogadishu is free, unlike in NYC.
Do not compare apples and oranges.
QR:
I am shocked! Computer models could be wrong?!
Posted by: Andrey | December 06, 2006 at 08:09 PM
Everyone makes mistakes. Good to see they're man enough to hold themselves accountable for their own. This also stresses the vital importance of our apriori assumptions in these types of prognostications.
Posted by: John W. | December 07, 2006 at 07:03 AM
Max,
Brazil is on the equator. They get more sun and can grow all year around. But do you want the Brazilians to keep expanding biomass energy production by cutting down rain forests to create more crop land?
Biomass energy is a bad idea because the ecological footprint is far too large. Nuclear and solar are better choices. We need to get the costs down for both nuclear and solar so that they outcompete more evironmentally damaging energy sources.
Posted by: Randall Parker | December 12, 2006 at 07:42 PM
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4fbe53ef00d834d11d6253ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference RAND to Review and Correct Renewable Energy Study:
I like self correcting entities. Maybe the present administration could learn from this as well.