Introduction to Energy and

Transportation Modeling for Policy

Analysis

Lecture 1

Alan Jenn
TTP 211
January 9, 2023*
Course Logistics

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 Office Hours Course Logistics

Regular office hours (starting January 16)

• Tuesdays 1pm-2pm @ 1590 Tilia St (EV Center), Room 1101
• If you are unable to meet during this time, please reach me
at ajenn@ucdavis.edu
Elisabeth Van Roijen (TA) office hours
• Tuesdays 2pm-3pm @ Academic Surge 2201
• E-mail: evanroijen@ucdavis.edu

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 Grading Course Logistics

• Class participation (20%) Counts both attendance

and participation! Can boost your grade on the edge
(and also drop your grade…)
• Homework (45%) Bulk of the class grade is with your
homework, there will be a 10% penalty per day no
exceptions!
• Final project (35%) The grade will be divided between
the project proposal, final presentation, and project
report.

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 Final Project Course Logistics

Groups of 2-3 are allowed for the final project

Project Components:
• Project proposal (due February 15) – 1-2 page proposal
• Class presentation (due March 13) – in class 10-15 minute
presentation on your analysis with Q&A from the audience
• Project report (due March 24) – 8-10 page paper with short
lit review, methods, and results
Rubrics will be provided for all aspects of the final
project

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Introductory Concepts

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 What is an energy system?

“All components related to the

production, conversion, delivery and use
of energy”
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment
Report

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 What is energy modeling?
The overall goal of energy modeling is to understand the energy
consumption and associated impacts of the system in question
What are some key impacts of interest?
• Technology adoption
• Fuel consumption
• Cost and price
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Criteria pollutant emissions
Spans energy, engineering, environment, and economics

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 General architecture of energy systems
Secondary Final Energy
Primary Energy Services
Energy Consumption

• Coal Sectors & Technology • Transportation

• Oil • Electricity
• Lighting
• Natural Gas • Gasoline Residential Commercial • Heating
• Sunlight • Methanol • Appliances • AC/Heating • Cooling
• Wind • Methane • Television • Office • Communication
• Uranium • Coal • Computer equipment
• Light Bulbs • Entertainment
• Biomass
Transportation
Extraction/Treatment Industrial • Cars
• Furnace
• Ships
Mining Separation • Boiler
• Aircraft
Drilling Liquefaction
Cleaning Gasification

Conversion Distribution
Electricity Grid Railway
Hydro Station Nuclear Station Gas Grid District Heat
Thermal Power PV Cell Trucking Grid
Plant Wind Turbine
Refinery Bioconversion
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Application of system models

Public
Impacts Policy

• Technology adoption
• Fuel Consumption
• Cost/price
• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Criteria pollutant emissions

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Informing policy in energy and transportation
What is the impact of a specific policy change to a
system?
• Can we quantify the differences in outcomes?
• What are the cost implications?
• Changes in emissions?
Relevance to policy is also a two-way street, how can
we use our knowledge and models to create good
policy?

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 Course approach
1. Background – build knowledge on basic engineering and
technology
2. Tools – develop understanding on analytical approaches in
larger scale modeling
3. Models – investigate how models are constructed, what
models seek to measure, and examples of systems models in
use today
4. Policy – where are models applied? How have they informed
our policy decisions?

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 General architecture of energy systems
Secondary Final Energy
Primary Energy Services
Energy Consumption

• Coal Sectors & Technology • Transportation

• Oil • Electricity
• Lighting
• Natural Gas • Gasoline Residential Commercial • Heating
• Sunlight • Methanol • Appliances • AC/Heating • Cooling
• Wind • Methane • Television • Office • Communication
• Uranium • Coal • Computer equipment
• Light Bulbs • Entertainment
• Biomass
Transportation
Extraction/Treatment Industrial • Cars
• Furnace
• Ships
Mining Separation • Boiler
• Aircraft
Drilling Liquefaction
Cleaning Gasification

Conversion Distribution
Electricity Grid Railway
Hydro Station Nuclear Station Gas Grid District Heat
Thermal Power PV Cell Trucking Grid
Plant Wind Turbine
Refinery Bioconversion
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A quick physics recap

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 What is energy?
Energy is the ability to perform work on (moving something) or
heat an object
What are the main forms of energy?
• Kinetic, chemical, heat, electrical, electromagnetic, elastic, nuclear,
gravitational

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 Conservation of energy vs. Energy conservation
Conservation of energy – a physics concept: energy cannot be
created or destroyed, just converted from one form to another
• Heat -> Kinetic -> Electrical -> Heat
Energy conservation – a sustainability concept: reduction in
energy usage to prevent “wasting” energy
• Service/activity reduction (using less)
• Improving efficiency

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 How is energy measured?
Units of energy (Where is it commonly used? What does it
measure?):
• Joule (J)
• Watt-hour (Wh)
• British thermal unit (BTU)
• Therms
• Quad
• Calorie
• eV

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 Energy units: Joule (J)
The gold standard (SI unit for energy), used across a wide
variety of applications and fields
1 Joule can:
• Heat 1 gram of water by 0.24°C
• Move 1 kg a distance of 1 m at 1 ms2

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 Energy units: Watt-hour (Wh)

Most commonly used in electricity

The amount of energy used at a
constant power rate over a period
of time
1 Wh = 3.6 kJ
Consumption of electricity at the
residential level is often measured in
kilowatt-hours (kWh)

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 Energy units: British thermal units (BTU)
Commonly used to measure energy content of fuels
The amount of energy used to raise the temperature of one
pound of water by 1° Farenheit
1 BTU = 1055 J
Natural gas commonly uses
• MMBtu (1,000,000 Btu); 1000 ft3 = 1 MMBtu (about 1 GJ)
• Therms (thm) is 100,000 Btu; 100 ft3 = 1 thm
Quad (1015 BTU), or a quadrillion BTU, is used in the US to
represent annual energy consumption of large-scale economies

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 Energy units: calories (cal)
Commonly used to measure the energy content of foods
Similar to BTU but metric: energy required to raise the
temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius at
1 atm
1 cal = 4.2 J
Calories on food labels are actual kcals

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 Can you guess the energy content?

Average meal Lump of coal Gallon of gas EV battery

Human body Sunshine on
1 m2 for 1 hr

Nuclear explosion US annual consumption World annual consumption

Household in 1 day

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 Can you guess the energy content?

Average meal 1 kg of coal Gallon of gas EV battery

Human body Sunshine on 10-100 kWh
100-1000 kcal 10-100 MJ 100,000 BTU
100-1000 MJ
100 MJ
1 m2 for 1 hr 100-1000 MJ
(100-1000 kJ)
1-10 MJ

Nuclear explosion US annual consumption World annual consumption

Household in 1 day 10-100 PJ 100 quads
100,000 TWh
10-100 kWh (10*109-100*109 MJ) 100 EJ
100-1000 EJ
100-1000 MJ

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US energy consumption by source and sector, 2021

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 What is power?
Power is the rate of doing work, or energy/time
Units of power:
• Watt (W)
• Horsepower (hp)

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 Power units: Watts (W)
The SI unit for power, 1 W = 1 J/s
Commonly used in electricity to describe the capacity of a
power plant (e.g. if a plant has an installed capacity of 10 MW,
it is physically able to produce up to 10 MW of instantaneous
power)

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 Power units: Horsepower (hp)
Commonly used to describe power for engines (and
mechanical power)
1 hp can lift 75 kg one meter in 1 second
1 hp (imperial) = 745.7 W
1 hp (metric) = 735.5 W
The peak power production of a horse is…about 15 horsepower

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 Can you guess the power?

Exercising human Microwave Solar panel Car engine

Lightbulb Average household

Wind turbine Natural gas plant Coal plant Nuclear plant

Peak California Total worldwide
power installed capacity

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 Can you guess the power?

Exercising human Microwave Solar panel Car engine

Lightbulb 1000 W
Average household 100-1000 hp
50-150 W 300 W
1 kW
10-100 W 100-1000 MW 100-1000 kW
(solar “plants”)

Wind turbine Natural gas plant Coal plant Nuclear plant

1-3 MW 10-1000 MW 100-10000 MW 1000-10000 MW Peak California Total worldwide
100-1000 MW power installed capacity
(wind farms) 15000 GW
50 GW

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Energy Efficiency

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 What is energy efficiency?
Energy efficiency tries to reduce the amount of energy required
to provide products and services

Anywhere there is
an arrow, we must
consider the
concept of
efficiency as we
convert between
materials/energy

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 Efficiency vs Efficacy
Energy efficiency is strictly defined as a dimensionless number
(and <1)
• Units of numerator are the same as units of denominator
Work or Energy Output
Efficiency =
Energy Input
Efficiency is often used to refer to the ratio of output to input
even if they don’t have the same units:
• For example: miles per gallon, lumens per watt
• Efficacy is the correct term to use here
Service Output
Efficacy =
Energy Input

https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/
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“First Law” Thermal Efficiency

Work or Energy Output

Efficiency=
Energy Input

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“First Law” Thermal Efficiency

Work or Energy Output

Efficiency=
Energy Input

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“First Law” Thermal Efficiency

Work or Energy Output

Efficiency=
Energy Input

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The golden success story of energy efficiency

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 Energy Pathways
Primary Energy – naturally occurring resources that can be collected
or extracted from the environment (e.g. crude oil, natural gas, coal,
solar energy, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy)
Secondary Energy – resources are then processed
(converted/modified) to become an energy carrier (e.g. electricity,
hydrogen) or fuel (e.g. refined liquids, processed natural gas)
Final/Delivered Energy – energy carriers or fuels that are used in the
final energy appliance to provide energy services (e.g. electricity
delivered to your house, gasoline or diesel at the gas station)
Final energy is converted to useful energy to meet energy service
demands such as heating, cooling, lighting, or passenger travel

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 Energy Pathways

Source: Cullen, J. M.; Allwood, J.M., Theoretical efficiency limits for energy conversion devices. Energy
2010, 35, 2059-2069 38
Which stages of conversions are best to improve?
Improvements in Final -> Service efficacy
• Reduces the amount of energy needed at each upstream stage
(Lovins, 2004)
• Less mining/oil extraction, fewer power plants, fewer pipelines, etc.
and energy losses all along the chain
Improvements of Primary -> Secondary efficiency
• Can be centrally implemented
• Energy companies are more “rational actors” than individual
consumers

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Efficiency of a system or lifecycle energy efficiency
Energy efficiencies within a pathway are multiplicative
energypathway =  i
p,s, f
i
• ηenergypathway – the total efficiency of an energy pathway
• ηi – the thermodynamic efficiency of a given step in the pathway
• i – a single energy conversion in the set of energy conversions
• p, s, f – primary to secondary, secondary to final, and final to useful
energy conversion stages

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Example of life-cycle energy efficiencies

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 Calculating process efficiencies

𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦
= 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦
𝐼𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦
1.00 𝐸𝐽 0.89 𝐸𝐽 0.25 𝐸𝐽
=1 = .899 = .893
1.00 𝐸𝐽 0.99 𝐸𝐽 0.28 𝐸𝐽
0.99 𝐸𝐽 0.28 𝐸𝐽 0.18 𝐸𝐽
= .99 = .315 = .72
1.00 𝐸𝐽 0.89 𝐸𝐽 0.25 𝐸𝐽

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 = 1 × .99 × .899 × .315 × .893 × .72

≈ 0.18 42
 Gasoline vehicle vs electric vehicle
How does the life cycle efficiency of these vehicles compare?
What do we know about the relative efficiencies of these
vehicles?
What about the fuels?

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Sankey diagrams for energy efficiency

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Value of energy efficiency
Efficiency improvement:
• Power plant efficiency:
• 35% -> 50%
• Primary energy use:
• 320 -> 224 (30% reduction in
primary energy)

Efficiency improvement:
• Light bulb efficiency:
• 2% -> 10%
• Primary energy use:
• 320 -> 64 (80% reduction in
primary energy)

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