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Although the BBIN (Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal) sub-region shares identical socio-economic characteristics and secures considerable benefits from energy co-operation and power grid connectivity, it is still far behind to grasp its full potential. This paper reviews existing publications and papers from a viewpoint of resource distribution, energy supply, prospects, and policies related to power sector development and cross-border power trading with a detailed consideration of the spatial variation of the largest country, India. The member countries face similar energy problems and the challenge remains in overcoming growing energy demand by attaining emission reduction targets. Limited production but increasing use of imported fuel have also raised serious environmental and energy security concerns. The wide variation in the energy resource endowments among the countries, particularly with hydropower, coal, and natural gas presents both opportunity and challenge in sub-regional energy collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Yasumasa Fujii, Ryo Fukushima, Kenji Yamaji It has become important to address the question of which energy related infrastructure, such as transcontinental natural gas pipelines, should be constructed in Asia. In addition, one needs to ask how energy demand should be satisfied securely and economically, as well as environmentally benignly, over the next decades. This study investigates the possible future configuration of energy and CO2-related infrastructure in Asia and Eurasia, using a large-scale energy system model, which minimises inter-temporally the sum of the discounted total energy system costs until the year 2050. The model explicitly involves intra-regional transportation networks of fuels and recovered CO2 among approximately 100 nodes in Asia and Eurasia. The preliminary results indicate that long distance natural gas pipelines will be developed extensively in Asia and Eurasia, and that issuing carbon taxes of a few hundred dollars per ton of carbon enhance substantially the consumption of natural gas in electricity generation sectors, as a substitute fuel for coal. Such carbon taxes will make CO2 sequestration economically viable while increasing the cumulative amount of CO2 sequestration up to 15 gigatons (Gt) of CO2.

Byline: Kenji Yamaji, Katsura Sato, Yasumasa Fujii, Keigo Akimoto The theoretical potential of tradable CO2 emission permits has attracted much interest as a means of achieving the efficiency and equity of CO2 control. This paper presents a simulation of the global market of CO2 emission permits with the New Earth 21 Model. The analysis focuses on the initial allocation of CO2 emission permits, the effects of transaction costs and the impact of those regions out of the market. Major findings are as follows: 1) A significant amount of income transfer is realised from developed regions to developing regions with the initial allocation in proportion to each regional population; 2) As transaction costs increase, the efficiency of the market decreases; and 3) North America and China play a key role in the success of the tradable permits market. The results suggest the use of joint implementation as a realistic means of realising tradable CO2 emission permits.

Byline: Keigo Akimoto, Yasumasa Fujii, Takashi Sekiguchi, Kenji Yamaji Global warming caused by the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration is regarded as a serious environmental issue. Due to uncertainty relating to the mechanisms of the terrestrial carbon cycle and climate system, solution of the problem is considered to be extremely complicated. In such a context, to conduct a decision analysis under uncertain CO2 concentration control policies, we have developed a global energy model which minimises the expected value of discounted total energy system costs up to the year 2055. In this work, we analyse an optimal future global energy system, particularly focusing on the Japanese electric power sector and present insight into an optimal strategy for energy system development under uncertain CO2 regulation policies.

SUMMARY This paper evaluates the impact of an extensive introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) on the energy supply mix in Japan. Energy consumption in Japan's transport sector has been dominated by petroleum, and CO2 emissions in this sector account for 20% of Japan's CO2 emissions. Therefore, the deployment of clean energy vehicles, such as EV and PHEV, is expected to play a significant role in tackling energy security and environmental concerns. In order to assess the energy and environmental benefits of EV and PHEV, we develop an energy system model integrating an optimal power generation mix model and a vehicle penetration model, with consideration of the optimal electricity charging profile of those advanced vehicles. The calculated results suggest that massive EV penetration serves as an energy saving measure in Japan's whole energy system due to significant petroleum reductions exceeding the growth of fuel input into the power generation sector derived from significant EV and PHEV penetration. Massive EV deployment is estimated to contribute to CO2 mitigation in the energy system as well. Evaluating CO2 emissions by mileage by automobile, however, carbon emissions by mileage for EVs is almost equivalent to that of gasoline hybrid vehicles (HEVs) in the case of decommissioning of nuclear power plants, which eventually causes a higher carbon intensity of the electricity supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY This paper investigates Japan's long-term energy outlook to 2050 taking into consideration the massive deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind power generation under a nuclear energy scenario. The extensive introduction of PV systems and wind power systems is expected to play an important role in enhancing electricity supply security after the Fukushima nuclear power accident, which has increased the uncertainty of the future additional construction of nuclear power plants in Japan. Against this background, we develop an integrated energy assessment model composed of both an econometric energy demand and supply model and an optimal power generation mix model. The latter model is able to explicitly analyze the impact of output fluctuations for various renewable energy sources at a detailed time resolution of 10 min on 365 consecutive days, incorporating the role of stationary battery technology. The simulation results reveal that intermittent fluctuations derived from a high penetration level of those renewables are controlled by quick load following operation by natural gas combined cycle power plants, pumped-storage hydro power, stationary battery technology, and output suppression of PV and wind power generation. The results show as well that massive penetration of renewables does not necessarily require a comparable scale of stationary battery capacity. Additionally, in the scenario, which assumes the decommissioning of nuclear power plants with a lifetime of over 40 years, the required PV capacity in 2050 amounts to more than double the PV installation potential in both buildings and abandoned farmland areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]