The concept of a joint project within the United Engineering Foundation Founder Societies (ASME, AIChE, IEEE, ASCE, AIME) led to the Founder Society Technologies for Carbon Management Project in 2008. This initiative grew out of discussions and meetings during early 2008 that considered a wide range of candidate topics. There are multiple occasions where the engineering societies speak about energy and carbon management (which includes addressing carbon-based energy sources and non-carbon-based energy sources). It became clear that these opportunities typically reflect interests of the specific societies, but also need to address the energy challenge from a larger integrated systems perspective than would be possible for the societies working alone.
Bringing together the expertise of the 5 engineering societies is the key to the success of this initiative. Therefore, it was imperative to have expertise and perspective integrated from all of the engineering disciplines involved. The project is unique from individual society initiatives since it was collaboratively developed from the initiation of the project. An important part of this project was the exchange between society participants. Each society was represented in working to provide their expertise and this led to changes in the participants as part of the work to bring together the appropriate team to carry out the task. A quality team was assembled that provides an excellent basis for implementing the proposed scope of work. This effort focuses on leveraging the expertise of the different disciplines and crossing the discipline boundaries.
As perspectives of the various societies were identified, these discussions identified the need for a pilot project to focus on a significant climate change issue from an interdisciplinary engineering perspective. The initial project identified 4 tasks:
- A proposed methodology for evaluating energy systems
- Recommended metrics
- Selection of boundaries to provide a uniform basis for decision support
- Effectively integrating engineering understanding into policy discussions
The project was working to identify practical steps the country can take toward managing greenhouse gas emissions, a key issue in the mitigation on climate change. The project selected the Scorecards approach as a tool for assessing the merit of various greenhouse gas management options. The Scorecards developed so far address electric power generation and 4-wheel passenger vehicles transportation. The objective of the Scorecard approach is to identify options that could be implemented in sufficient quantity to provide a significant impact on GHG reduction in the 2020 and 2050 timeframes. In general, options for 2020 timeframe will be different from those that become important in 2050.
The nomenclature used in the Scorecards is:
- Options: Technologies and/or other measures that could reduce GHG emissions.
- Attributes: A set of indicators (metrics) used to grade each Option; in combination, they yield a relative (compared to other options in the same scorecard) potential for success in a timely manner.
The Scorecards employ a simple A, B, C, D and E grading system (similar to that used in many schools) for the Attributes.
The Carbon Management Committee developed the initial list of Options and Attributes. The participants at the Founder Society Carbon Management Gaps & Barriers Workshop, held in October 2009, were asked to complete the Scorecards. Based on the input from the Workshop participants, the format and Scorecards were revised. The Scorecard is not a substitute for systems analysis or life cycle assessments. Rather, it provides a means to screen promising options using “down-to-earth” engineering, environmental and socio-political considerations.
