THE SEI/UNEP FUEL CHAIN PROJECT: USING THE LEAP/EDB MODELLING SYSTEM FOR FUEL CHAIN ANALYSIS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

摘要

The Stockholm Environment Institute-Boston Center (SEI-B), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Collaborating Centre on Energy and Environment (UCCEE), and counterparts in Venezuela and Sri Lanka have collaborated on a two-year project to develop and apply methods for incorporating environmental considerations in major fuel choice decisions. One of the principal activities of the project was the creation of a new software tool for the analysis of fuel chains, designed to work with the existing long range energy alternatives planning/environmental database (LEAP/EDB) energy-environment modelling system developed by SEI-B. Two case studies examined fuel and technology choices in a range of sectors in Venezuela (transport and electricity) and Sri Lanka (households and electricity). The comparison of full fuel chains can highlight trade-offs between local and global environmental impacts. For example, in Venezuela, diesel and compressed natural gas (CNG) were compared as fuels for buses in Caracas. It was found that, while CNG is clearly favoured in terms of local air pollutants, the full CNG fuel chain may result in higher greenhouse gas emissions than those from diesel. Overall, the project showed that a software tool such as the LEAP fuel chain program can make fuel chain analysis more accessible in a wide range of applications, by providing user friendly guidance to this complex analytical methodology and by helping to overcome local data constraints with international sources of data.