Using Network Analysis to Identify Key Scenario Elements Across Multiple Energy Scenario Studies

Abstract

Studies on energy futures present many and usually vastly different plausible scenarios of energy development pathways that can inform energy policy decisions, which gives rise to the risk whereby scenario users may choose a specific study supporting their personal or political agenda in order to justify their decisions. Given how controversial energy futures in the context of climate change can be, developing and utilizing more objective approaches for scenario analysis is important. To navigate this challenging situation, we present a promising approach to integrate multiple energy scenarios systematically using network analysis. This research examines four Canadian energy futures studies to produce a multi-study network. By visualizing scenario elements in the multi-study network, we found individual studies vary in scope, focusing either on the economy or the environment. Our network analysis shows the compatibility and complementarity of different studies even though these studies were developed by different author teams.

Keywords:

• Canada
• energy
• network analysis
• scenarios

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor, guest editor teams, and three anonymous reviewers who provided valuable feedback. This research was first presented at the Climate Change and Energy Futures Workshop (CCEFW) held at the Memorial University in October 2018. The results of this work were also presented at PyCon Canada 2018 (Toronto) and at the Scenario Forum 2019 (University of Denver).

Notes

1 https://github.com/judekurn/energy-futures/blob/master/SNR/SNR-network_analysis_rev3_16022020.ipynb

Additional information

Funding

Authors’ work was supported by NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada). Authors received travel assistantship from the CCEFW which was supported by a SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Connections Grant, the Memorial University Conference Fund, the Nexus Centre (Memorial University), the University of Waterloo Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC3), and the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE). The travel and attendance at these conferences were also supported by the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation, and Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs (University of Waterloo).