Modeling the Energy Policy Making Process as a Response to Social Concerns

Report Date: August 2001
Appendices: No

Abstract

This study has worked to represent government energy policy, in regards to the nuclear and fossil electricity producing industries, as a function of social concerns.  These concerns are nuclear reactor safety, the consumer cost of electricity. and electricity availability.  The goal of this work has been to aid in the development of a system dynamics model which attempts to represent the energy policy making process.  This work has attempted to develop a quantitative relationship between policy and social concern to be used in the model.

The impetus for this study is to validate the assumptions upon which the systems dynamics model is based.  The governing assumption of the model is that government policy over energy issues is driven by concerns and that some concerns are more important than others.  Both this study and the model focus on the concerns of four important sectors of society: the general public, industry, non-governmental organizations, and the elite.

The relationships between concern and policy developed in this work rely on both quantitative and qualitative information.  There are no definitive ways to measure either societal concern or government policy, and often quantitative data shields subtle relationships.  As a result, a combination of indicators have been chosen to represent these quantities.  The measures of social concern include both opinion polls and the time varying degree of representation of issues in the media.  Government response to the nuclear safety issue has been studied by observing the time varying degree of government passed legislation, Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations, and government allocation of research and development funds.  Federal response to the availability and cost concerns has also been investigated by studying government-passed legislation and the allocation of research and development funds.  The strength of the relationships between concern and policy have been estimated by using the quantitative correlation between several useful indicators and reinforced by qualitative sources.

Program:     NSP Nuclear Systems Enhanced Performance

Type:     TR 

RPT. No.: 10