AGA, IPAA and NGSA have agreed with INGAA to share in the costs of the economic modeling of climate change proposals using the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS). NEMS is the model that is used by the Energy Information Administration for its Annual Energy Outlooks and for responses to inquiries from the Congress.
The first run of this modeling effort is focused on the McCain Lieberman bill, which was identified as something of a middle ground among the wide variety of climate change proposals that have surfaced to date. The computer model solves only for the supply/demand equation and does not take in to account the degree to which solutions may be untenable in practical terms. As a result of this, the initial solutions using the model included extremely large build of nuclear power plants and a significant drop in natural gas and coal market share for electric generation.
As part of this effort, we have asked that the model be run with a more realistic electric generation portfolio that limits new nuclear, integrated coal gasification and biomass electric generation to what would appear to be more achievable levels. It is anticipated that the results of this run will be available the second week in May.
