Institute for Emerging Issues Energy Calculator: Demonstration and Discussion

The Institute for Emerging Issues, based at NC State, is developing an "energy calculator" to illustrate the trade-offs between energy expenditures, energy choices, and environmental impacts to assist public and private policymakers in developing energy and environmental policies. The calculator compares scenarios against baseline energy use and environmental costs in North Carolina and separately considers energy supply for industrial, commercial, residential and transportation sectors. The calculator attempts to model system shocks from rapid population growth, energy supply choices from reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy portfolio standards, regulatory choices, environmental damage, and other scenarios.