The report attached summarizes Ventana’s work, partially funded by the Department of Energy, Office of Science, to develop realistic simulation models to compute the impact of R&D budgets and broader policies on economic growth and the environment. The report briefly describes the goals of the work, some summary results, and the proposed completion of the work as a platform enabling robust anticipation of the impact of financial, R&D, investment and other policies on the health of the energy, environment, and economic systems.

The main features of Ventana’s energy, environment, economy model E3 are described. We present some results that offer insights to the potential benefits of the model. For example, results include the ability to endogenously explain economic growth,  and insights into how to manage it, by explaining actions and outcomes at the level of the individual firm.

The model was fully peer-reviewed by a DOE assembled expert panel and recommended for further development. The model has been used for energy futures scenario analyses.

Findings have also been used for other Ventana Systems economic and sustainability modeling projects. The original paper can be downloaded: Ven E3 technical overview Nov ’10