The need to pivot away from fossil-fuel use rapidly is a common concern. But every technological transition is enabled and inhibited by its social and physical environments. I’m interested in small changes that add up, especially the choices that power homes and rely on the behavior of millions of people. How quickly can those transitions happen? I present a simulation-based, data-informed view of home electrification in the United States, focusing on the state of Colorado. We use a highly granular dataset to create a synthetic population that serves as input to an agent-based model. We then represent household decisions in three stages: activation, screening, and selection. Many transition scenarios emphasize the selection stage, exploring how to promote the choice of technology. In contrast, I explore the first two decision stages that are prerequisites for change, and that limit the rate of transition. In the activation stage, the household occupant begins to focus on the specific transition of interest, rather than other potential improvements. The screening step is governed by interactions with the social environment, including middle actors like home installers. I explore rates of change in the household-energy sector to 2050.
Biography: Dr. Bond is the Walter Scott, Jr. Presidential Chair in Energy, Environment and Health at Colorado State University. She considers herself a systems engineer although her departmental home is in Mechanical Engineering. Her research has followed a thread from atmospheric emissions, to air quality and climate, to technology change and future scenarios. For the past decade she has been occupied with the relationship between human motivation, technology choice, and the consequent atmospheric transitions. Dr. Bond earned two degrees in mechanical engineering before combining combustion and atmosphere in a doctoral degree at the University of Washington. Dr. Bond is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a 2014 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow.
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The David Bradford Energy and Environmental Policy Seminar Series is coordinated by the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE), and co-sponsored by the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI). This seminar is also co-sponsored by the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy.
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