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1. Michel Godet (see the Module documentation) indicated that qualitative parameters were important in accurate forecasting.
a) What qualitative parameters might be considered in future energy price scenarios - take the year 2025 as the future limit the start of 2016 for your baseline, and list, with a brief explanation, the parameters you consider should be included.
b) Which of these can you reasonably quantify? (Attempt to identify at least five parameters).
c) Do you agree with this specific aspect of Godet's proposition?
d) Read the paper by Osamu Kimura on commercialisation of energy-efficient technologies in Japan and then discuss (1) whether any of Godet's ideas could have improved the potential of three of the technologies deemed to have failed in Table 4; and (2) whether you agree with the conclusions of the study.
Answer in no more than 2000 words - you may use appropriate sketches/graphs to illustrate points.
2. The OPEC oil price rise in 1973 had an important effect on energy use and energy efficiency - although much of the impact was short-lived. In 2003-4 the oil price effectively doubled, reaching $50/barrel for a period and in 2008 it trebled for a brief period to almost $150/barrel. Until recently it was around $150/barrel, and has since dropped to $30/barrel. The current problems seem to be oversupply with a demand that has not matched the expected growth. In addition Iran is now coming back into the international scene.
a) Describe your measured response to this - to protect your company and/or your customers, as either an energy supplier (utility) or major energy user (large manufacturer).
b) There are two fundamental ways in which one might approach a situation such as in (a) above - these may be described as ‘incremental' or ‘out of the box'. Discuss in general terms - i.e. without reference to your answer to (a), the relative merits and limitations of an ‘out of the box' or ‘incremental' approach, explicitly identifying what you believe the two approaches mean.
c) Discuss whether you believe that your response in (a) above was based upon ‘out of the box' solutions, or a more conservative, incremental approach? (You may recommend a mixture of both approaches, of course).
Your answers to 2 a-c above are based upon assumed positions within organizations which may employ many people. The next part of this question relates to the impact dramatically fluctuating energy prices and, perhaps more importantly, the effect of climate change, may have on your own style of living.
d) At a personal/domestic level, can you foresee a situation in which we may consider that for the benefit of all, we may need to make do with less, in terms of capital goods, travel, and perceived acceptable levels of comfort?
Answer in 1500-2000 words
3. Refer to Section 3.4 of the Module Documentation:
a) Discuss which of the changes listed in Section 3.4 have had an influence (positive or negative) upon technology. (For example, developments in industrial gas turbines have been spurred by the ‘dash of gas', one would assume). There is no need to select all of them for comment.
b) What policy steps are omitted from the list which you feel should be there - ones which perhaps have influenced thinking within your own organization or country, or ones in the UK, EU or OECD that have appeared since the list was compiled? List, rather than discuss.
c) Which of the policy steps identified in (a) or (b) have, in your opinion, been most beneficial for environmental protection, and why?
d) Again, as in 2(d), you may be tempted to answer subjectively, but in this case reasoned arguments are needed: Are all green policies environmentally positive or should we revisit technologies such as clean coal combustion? Discuss with examples.
e) Many urban houses have wood-burning stoves as a 'green' measure. Is this good or bad? List, in the form of bullet points the arguments for and against this growing practice.
Answer in 1500-2000 words
4. (a) Based upon the ‘call for proposals' in Appendix 1 in the Module Text and below, compile a document - a Project Proposal - in support of a feasibility study/small research project (maximum budget two to three person-years of effort in your own region). Select a subject of relevance to your organization, your future career or your current energy-related interests.
Include in your proposal a SWOT analysis, bar chart of tasks/timescales and a short financial analysis, as well as energy-saving and/or CO2 reduction predictions.
(b) Taking the subject of your proposal, prepare the basis of a Delphi study:
- Select an administrator - yourself
- Discuss to whom you will send the questionnaire, how you will chase up responses, what type of response you expect and the outcomes you hope to get out of the responses.
- Prepare the questionnaire
- Discuss why a Delphi study is important to 'future technologies'.