Playing With Fire and Collapse Part 2

Hi Andrew, Len, Ferdinand and readers,

Please note on the System Dynamics NEWSLETTER, Volume 19 – Number 4, October 2006 that “The creator of the discipline of System Dynamics, Prof. Jay Wright Forrester, has been made a member of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies' OR Hall of Fame.”

In addition, one of the experts on “Energy Dynamics” is Professor Andy Ford, the author of "Modeling the Environment". He developed a system dynamics model for the Western wholesale market of the US. For example (see document):

As noted in a panel discussion on investor behavior at a workshop convened by the California Energy Commission on November 7, 2001, “Exploring Alternative Wholesale Energy Market Structures of California,” Professor Andy Ford remarked as follows:

…when the western market is simulated over a longer time interval, it becomes clear that the Power Authority commitments will eventually lead to a reduction in private sector investment. (“Simulation Scenarios for the Western Electricity Market,” prepared by Professor Andrew Ford, Washington State University, p. 24)…IEP agrees with Professor Ford that the intervention of the CPA, particularly in an owner/operator mode, will tend to drive away much needed private investment in California.

So the development of Energy Dynamics started already. As a further proof, on the same NEWSLETTER, one of Andy Ford student, Allyson Beall, gave “A first-timer’s view” at a “PhD Colloquium,” saying, among other things:

Having had little face to face experience with system dynamics modelers other than my chair Andy Ford, I came to the colloquium having no idea what to expect…Stefan Groesser, modeling innovations in the residential building market, is grappling with the goal of the Swiss government to dramatically reduce residential energy demand. The second session opened with a study by Mathias Bosshardt of technological change in the Swiss car fleet… Kaszem Yaghootkar described his project dealing with the management of the problem of uncertainties in overlapping phases of engineering projects.

In simple term, the world is undergoing a revolution - transition - from a stable state to hopefully another stable state. In the past stable state –until the oil crisis - forecasting gave us reasonable results. However, as uncertainty increases during a transition, forecasting just does not work anymore. The article gives very rich examples of uncertainty of both gas demand and gas supply.

Andrew’s article brings a very important system dynamics element in his first summary article: how to sell the sense for urgency. For example, he identifies important systemic delays that people with mechanistic mental models just don't take into account. Those delays can be dynamically simulated in a complex system model, based on interdependent – systemic – elements to support the sense for urgency. Also, for example, Yaghootkar project seems to be useful for modeling the Alaskan Natural Gas Project.

The interdependencies identified by Andrew are the reason we need to cut across topics on EnergyPulse. The last addition to the generative dialogue was placed under the article The Future Utility Customer Service Model to support the emergent EWPC solution paradigm to power sector flaws.

Regards,

José Antonio