Develop common treatment for conversion factors

[trynthink]

Site-to-source conversion factors, electricity prices, and CO₂ intensity factors (million metric tons of CO₂ per quadrillion BTU) are currently stored in two different formats (JSON and plain text) depending on the branch where they are being used (gh-pages or run_scheme). The numbers in these files were originally generated from EIA data. Regardless of the format of the final file, the contents of the file should be calculated from the original EIA data.

The best long-term strategy might involve generating a single file used for both applications. Alternately, for the website, the data can be obtained from the EIA API and used directly, and for the python code on the run_scheme branch, the data can be converted into plain text or JSON format.

The data in these files all comes from the AEO. For reference when resolving this issue, the data are from the following sources and/or calculated using the following methods.

Methodology for Calculating Conversion Factors

Prices

Residential and commercial energy prices are from AEO Table 3, where "other" is an average of propane and distillate fuel oil prices (residential) or propane, residual fuel oil, and distillate fuel oil (commercial). Units are $/MMBtu.

CO₂ prices are from the Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis report from the White House, using linear interpolation between years absent from the projected social cost of carbon. Units are $/MMT CO₂.

Site-to-Source Conversions

These are calculated by obtaining the sum of delivered electricity for the residential and commercial sectors and the corresponding sum of electricity-related losses from data given in AEO Tables 4 (residential) and 5 (commercial). The inverse of the delivered energy divided by the sum of delivered energy and losses yields the required conversion factor.

CO₂ Intensities

Generally, these are calculated as total CO₂ emissions from the specified source divided by the total energy used, including losses, across all use sectors (residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation). Data for emissions can be found in AEO Table 18 and total energy use by fuel type and sector is in AEO Table 2. Units of the calculated CO₂ intensities are in source quads/MMT CO₂.

For electricity, the intensity is obtained by dividing the total power sector CO₂ emissions by total generation, including losses, for all use sectors. For natural gas, transportation and electric power emissions are subtracted from the total emissions in Table 18 before dividing by consumption from the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors obtained from Table 2. "Other" in the JSON and *.txt file comprises the petroleum, coal, and other fuel types in the AEO data. Total CO₂ emissions are obtained from the sum of emissions from petroleum, coal, and other fuels minus their transportation and electric power emissions as given in Table 18. This emissions total is divided by total petroleum and coal use in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors given in Table 2.

[trynthink]

The resulting data should be specified, if possible, by climate zone (presumably converted from census division).

[trynthink]

Also, the current text file and JSON database defining these parameters includes conversion factors for natural gas and other fuels that are not correct and shouldn't be included in updates to the file.

[trynthink]

These adjustments are not currently needed and not anticipated to be needed for either the Scout web app or the command line application.