5.01 Changelog

New major release. There are new pathways, new regions, updated data, and expanded non-transportation fuel outputs.

New and Extended Pathways

  • Electrofuels which use electricity and carbon dioxide to produce fuel.
    • Electricity to methane
    • Electricity to methanol
    • Electricity to Fischer Tropsch diesel
  • Ethanol to jet fuel which can use any existing ethanol pathway as the feedstock.
  • Renewable propane based on the existing renewable diesel pathway.
  • Wood pellets as a more refined wood product.
    • Can be used as an intermediate feedstock for bio oil and refined bio oil.
  • Organic waste to RNG via anaerobic digestion.
  • Methane slip is now an input for anaerobic digestion pathways.
  • Added avoided emissions for slash burning.

New Regions

  • Added Brazil and South East Asia.
  • Regionalization includes default data on power production, crude flows, and natural gas flows.
  • Regional defaults were added for Brazil, SEA, and the existing New Zealand region.

Updated Data

  • Updated Canadian crude oil production.
  • Updated crude oil charged in Canada.
  • Added carboxymethyl cellulose, CO2, cobalt catalyst, monoethanolamine, olivine, and tar reforming catalyst as chemicals on the Alt Fuel Prod sheet.
  • Updated US coal production and emissions.
  • Updated Canadian coal methane emissions as a time series.
  • Updated US uranium data.
  • Updata Canadian offshore oil energy and emissions.
  • Updated power data and forecasts from NEB.
  • Updated NG production data and forecasts from NEB.
  • Updated fish oil production data.
  • Updated US grid electricity generation with forecast to 2050.
  • Updated US grid fuel consumption with forecast to 2050.
  • Updated US MSW/biomass efficiency with hardcoded values until 2018.
  • Updated US crude production by region for power.
  • Updated US crude oil import and petroleum regions.
  • Updated data in the regional defaults.

New Outputs and Structure

  • Greatly expanded the Output Summary sheet.
    • Power generation and residential heating now have many user selectable feedstock options and blends. Each feedstock has a default power efficiency based on typical real world values, and the option to override with a custom efficiency. Blends use the active blend in the model for each option.
  • Removed biofeedstock and biofuel transportation distances from the regional default buttons.
  • Added a default button for chemical inputs on Alt Fuel Prod.
  • Added a "Reset Model" button to the Input sheet.
    • This runs the Canada regional default, all Input sheet defaults, and the new chemical default button. Designed to get the most commonly changed inputs back to a fresh model state.
  • Added a user generated power grid.
    • This is an available option for electrofuels, power generation on Output Summary, and residential heating on Output Summary. It can also simplify selecting a specific power profile for advanced users.
  • Added blanks on material production.
    • Similar to existing blank coproducts or chemical inputs, this is to help advanced users quickly add new materials without breaking the model.
  • Added the option for electricity generated by a pathway to be counted by displacement method or energy based.
  • Removed all VLookup and HLookup in favour of Index-Match.
    • This makes data much easier to trace throughout the model. Tracing using the built in formula tools should return much smaller ranges.
  • Many small formatting changes since 5.0 to clarify inputs and dropdowns.