Assessing the energy system's greenhouse emissions via the health of Smart Territories and Cities

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand how the main drivers of air pollution and greenhouse emissions impact public health in a Smart Territory — meaning a technologically integrated city or neighborhood — as well as how to design an optimized energy system model beyond only data by including the holistic experience of its people through phenomenology and ethics. We understand that a Territory and a City is a complex system where mathematical tool modeling known as Design of Experiment (DOE) and its optimization solutions are required to establish causality and identify the variables that have a broader impact on public health so that mortality rates due to air pollution are reduced. DOE's statistical branch is a novel methodology when applied to energy systems and the design of Smart Territories and Cities. Because of it, we have been able to demonstrate how energy emissions, capacity and Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) affect the mortality rate and create the foundations for building fully decarbonised energy systems enhanced by mathematical solutions. However, the Cartesian approach of extrapolating from models which align themselves with economic growth alone will not solve the energy dilemma. In fact, the current energy transition project is based on outdated archetypes that lead to scary futures. To course-correct the problematic energy model of a Smart Territory, phenomenologists and creative imagination need to be cultivated and put into action together with mathematical modeling, leading to vectors of positive change and adaptation. Only then might the energy models designed to be reproducible could became ethically virtuous and therefore accepted by the Territory's co-dwellers within the chain of causalities.

Keywords

• Smart city
• Health city
• Low carbon energy
• Phenomenology
• Public health
• Air pollution