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ewarner edited this page Sep 30, 2013 · 17 revisions

Welcome to the BioLuc wiki!

(WORK IN PROGRESS. Estimated Completion: Spring 2014)

I. Model Overview

II. Additional Guidance in Using BioLUC

A. Please look at model user guidance documents for basic directions for using BioLUC.

B. Please use documents and trainings available from ISEE Systems systems for guidance in using the Stella software.

C. Please use this Excel spreadsheet for detailed questions about data, data processing, and data documentation.

D. Prioritization of Land Use

The BioLUC model prioritizes land for biofuels over other commodities and generally prioritizes commodity use for food over the use for feed

Because BioLUC is not an economic model the former assumption was implemented so that multiple alternative biofuel scenarios could be run in BioLUC. In essence, the requirement of land for biofuel can be thought of a a policy induced event that can't be circumnavigated.

C. Variables Model Developers have Found Useful for Testing and Analysis

AP commodity consn

AP food consn

AP net export

AP production

Abandoned

Abandoned Land

Actual Forage Land

Animal Product Inventory

Avg AP Prodn Shortfall

Avg Commodity Prod''n Shortfall

Built Up

Built Up Land

Commodity Inventory

Crop

Crop Land

Crop Land Alloc to Cellulosic Energy Crop

Crop Land Alloc to Fallow

Crop Land Alloc to Fiber

Crop Land Alloc to Other

Crop Land Alloc to VFN

Latent

Latent Land

NPL

Near Pristine Land

Other yield

Population

Set Aside

Set Aside Land

TOTAL desired AP exports

TOTAL desired AP imports

TOTAL desired CP exports

TOTAL desired CP imports

Total AP Prodn Shortfall

VFN yield

animal product demand

commodity crop demand

commodity crop yield

commodity production

crop land forage yield

direct commodity consn

fiber yield

net commodity export

per capita animal product demand

per capita commodity crop demand

potential exports

potential imports

total crop land allocated to all other uses

total crop land allocated to commodities

III. Known Model Issues

A. Stella Mouse

It is possible using STELLA 10.0.3 to lose control over the mouse when opening the BioLUC model. This can occur under conditions such as the following a) you have multiple monitors b) program such as the windows task manager is open in one monitor b) you launch the model by double-clicking it.

This is a known problem with STELLA, and is scheduled to be fixed in a version subsequent to 10.0.3. This problem does not occur if you first launch STELLA and then open the BioLUC model from the File menu.

IV. Known Data Issues

A. There can be inconsistency between population and calcualted total commodity crop demand demands in BioLUC. Miscelanouses crop commodities for industry, seed, etc. comes from static disposition data from FAOSTAT and is only implicitly dependent on population levels. In the model, changes in population on not linked to these relatively smaller uses of crop commodities.

B. latent to set aside

The "latent to set aside" and "pristine to set aside" flows are set to zero. If this is intentional, then the documentation should note that these flows are turned off by default and meant to be overridden when users design scenarios.

C. "Built-Up Land"

So called "built-up" land data does not well match actual land that has been built up for human use. The "built-up" land category is generated from the FAOSTAT's Land Resource data's "Other" land category. We were able to remove "abandoned" land from that category, but we could not separate out barren land such as tundra and deserts. Therefore, our "built-up" land category does not include only built-up land. Inflows of land into the "built-up" land category are either based assuming that historic growth is mostly from the building up of land for human uses or that growth should be mirror to similar regions. These two methods were applied in cases of historic growth or decline in the "built-up" land category, respectively. Growth Please see data documentation for additional details about this issue.

D. Zero Yields

Some regions have zero yields for some commodities. BioLUC does not include explicit economic or climate components and dynamics so the zero yields are how BioLUC manages commodities that should not be grown.

V. FAQ

(please submit questions to ethan.warner@nrel.gov or create a ticket

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