Implications for Future Risk Management Strategies - Climate Change and Energy Supply and Use - page 47

C. Tools That Will Be Useful

The energy supply and use workshop, which stressed brainstorming about risk man-
agement approaches, identiied two kinds of tools that would appear to be highly useful
for risk management, both rooted in energy sector innovations that are under way for
other reasons as well.
• Targeted technological change, e.g., for electricity generation peak-shaving or
reduced water consumption. Where climate change introduces risks to energy
supply and use, agendas for technology research and development can include
risk reduction as a priority. For example, Figure 20 , drawn from World Bank
2011, indicates how emerging technologies can reduce the water intensity of
electricity supply.
• Smart systems. One of the frontiers of energy supply and use research is the
increased use of information technology applications such as “smart grid” and
sensors to enable monitoring and control feedback, increasing eiciency and
lexibility and substituting intelligence for resource and materials consumption.

Once again, tools such as these represent opportunities to combine climate change
risk reduction with technology innovation and modernization in the US energy sector in
ways that ofer multiple co-beneits.

Evaportation
recapture

Hybrid
Cooling

Figure 20 Effects of emerging technologies
on carbon and water intensity of electricity
sources (World Bank, 2011)

Dry condenser

Coal
Closed loop

Open loop
Blowdown recycling

IGCC

Blowdown recycling

Hybrid
Cooling

Dry condenser

Natural Gas
Closed loop
Inet cooling
High temperature

Open loop

Evaportation recapture

Solar
Thermal
Closed
loop

Geothermal
Hydro-
electric

Nuclear
Closed loop

Dry
condenser
Dry
condenser

Wind

Photovoltaic

Open loop
Gen IV

Pond

Water footprint (m 3 /kWh)