Samples

Japan Material Flow 2003

Another wild like-to-be Sankey diagram. Found this on a resources and links list related to ‘material flow’ hosted at Hiroshima University.

The diagram is from a white paper on a ‘Recycling Society’ published 2006 by the Japanese Environment Ministry (HTML version). Data is for the year Heisei 15 (=2003), the book was published in 2006.

japan_hiroshima_sankey

The title 平成15年度における我が国の循環資源フロー can be translated as ‘The resource flow cycle in Japan in 2003’ (any other suggestion from a native Japanese speaker out there?).

Flows are in million tons (百万t) per year as indicated in the top right. Values in square brackets relate to the previous year (2002). Flows are not to scale and their width seems to be chosen almost deliberately.

The diagram itself is a very interesting depiction of national material flows. Starting out from the 582 million tons of material (green box lower left), a large portion (220 million tons) is recycled, either directly as rejects from production (96 million tons) or after product use (124 million tons). 3 million tons are reused.

Still trying to figure out some more translations… three more thoughts:
(1) Could this general diagram setup serve as a role model to visualize reuse and recycling in a country. What are the common standards in national MFA accounts for this?
(2) Can I do this more nicely with a modern Sankey diagram software? Would be a nice challenge (mostly for the Kanji characters!)
(3) What would be the picture for Japan in 2015 in comparison to 2003?

Samples

Wiesner Hager: Material and Energy Balance

Austrian office furniture manufacturer Wiesner Hager is looking to increase efficiency in their production system, and to make more sustainable products. To this end they have being doing Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and have published Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

On their website they feature two Sankey diagrams.

The first is the corporate material balance. Flows are in tons (probably for one year, although not indicated). Raw materials and water constitute the largest inputs, while on the output side vapour and sewage dominate, next to the actual products.

wiesner_hager_sustainability_2.jpg

The other is the energy balance. Flows are in MWh. The energy carriers (fuels) depcited also show up (as mass) in the above material inventory. Looking at the steam input, it is not clear what fuel is used to run the boiler.

wiesner_hager_sustainability_1.jpg
Fakes

Simple gone wrong

Something is wrong here ….

wrong_sankey

Not only does the arrow ‘light energy’ branch out behind the other arrow without causing a reduction in magnitude for the remainder ‘heat energy’. But also 1000 J is split into two arrows of 90 J and 10 J.

And while still in ‘mild rant’ mode, here is another one from an educational website…

ETD_wrong_sankey.png
Samples

Québec Energy Flows and CO2 Emissions

The CESAR (Canada Energy Systems Analysis Research) blog at www.cesarnet.ca had been idle for a while, but reopened 2015 with a post on Québec’s energy flows and related carbon dioxide emissions.

The post ‘The State of Energy in Quebec – 2015’ features two Sankey diagrams originally from a report in French language ‘État de l’énergie au Québec’ by HEC Montral (PDF here). Benjamin Israel is the author (should I say artist?) of these Sankey diagrams.

The first Sankey diagram is on Québec’s energy flows in 2012. Flows are in petajoule (PJ). 1 petajoule is described for everybody to understand as “(278 GWh) corresponding to the energy consumption of approximately 10.000 households in Québéc.”

cesar_ca_01.PNG

Four columns give a structure to the diagram: energy sources, transformation, use, efficiency of the system. The upper part depicts energy produced in Quebec (“Énergie Produite en Québec”). Energy sources are purely renewable: hydro, wind and biomass. The bottom part shows fuel imports into the province: petroleum, natural gas, uranium, coal. Grey arrows collect the losses. Interesting to see how losses from energy generation and refineries in column 2 dive beneath crossing bands to rejoin the other losses in column 4.

The second Sankey diagram (from p. 27 in the HEC document) is a summary of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (in French: ‘émissions de gaz à effet de serre’ short: GES) in Québec in 2012.

Given the information from the above energy diagram, where Québec domestic energy production is 100% from renewable sources, it is not surprsing to see that the carbon emissions are mainly from imported energy. Combustion of fossil fuels makes up for 57 of the total 78 Mt CO2-equivalent emissions. The remaining 21 Mt of CO2-equivalent emissions are from industrial processes, agriculture and waste.

cesar_ca_02.PNG

Québec’s per capita GHG emissions ranges lowest with 9,7 tonnes of CO2-eqs compared to other Canadian provinces (see scale in lower left).

Beautifully crafted Sankey diagram. I hope to see more on the CESAR blog in the future.

Samples

Malaysia Energy Flows

The article ‘The Use of Energy in Malaysia: Tracing Energy Flows from Primary Source to End Use’ by Chinhao Chong, Weidou Ni, Linwei Ma, Pei Liu and Zheng Li features the two Sankey diagrams below. The article is available open access in Energies 2015, 8(4), pp. 2828-2866.

malaysia_energy_allocation_2011.PNG

The first diagram is an ‘Energy Allocation Diagram’ that is structured (from left to right) in columns, fuel, primary energy supply (energy generation), primary energy supply (energy conversion), consumption/use in different sectors. The consuming sectors (transport, commercial, residential, etc.) are further broken down into groups, offering one more level of detail. Flows are in million tonnes of oil equivalents (Mtoe), data is for 2011.

malaysia_crude_oil_2011.PNG

The other Sankey diagrma offers a detailed view of oil and oil products. Flows are also shown in Mtoe, data again for 2011. The upper half is domestic production, the bottom part shows imports. ‘ATF’ could be automobile transmission fuel (machine oil), not sure about ‘AV’. Losses and stock changes branch out vertically to the top.

A nice, really well-structured diagram. Clear and comprehensible.

Samples

World Oil Trade Map: GEA Report

The 2012 GEA Global Energy Assessment report (GEA Global Energy Assessment – Toward a Sustainable Future, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK and New York, NY, USA and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria) features five maps showing energy trade in the world on pages 128/129.

These can almost be considered Sankey diagrams, so I am featuring them here on the blog.

This one is for embodied energy in trade goods.

gea_report_embodied_trade_sankey.PNG

And this one is a classic oil and oil product trade flows map:

gea_report_oil_trade_sankey.PNG

Flows lead from a specific color-coded region to another. The quantities are clustered in arrows with three different widths as shown in the legend (1, 5, 10 Exajoule)

Samples

Comparison of Swiss Waste Incinerators

Rytec, a Swiss-based consulting firm, is the author of a 2011 report that compares 29 waste incinerators in Switzerland in regard to their energy flows.

The report ‘Einheitliche Heizwert- und Energiekennzahlenberechnung der Schweizer KVA nach europäischem Standardverfahren’ (translation: Uniform heating value and energy indicators calculation for Swiss waste incinerators according to European standard method) was comissioned by Swiss Environment Agency (BFU) and Swiss Energy Agency (BFE).

The annex contains 29 Sankey diagrams like the following:

rytect_kva_basel_sankey.PNG
rytect_kva_oftringen_sankey.PNG

All waste incinerator Sankey diagrams are structured similarly, allowing direct comparison of efficiency and energy output mix. Data is for 2009.

The first diagram is for KVA Basel (waste incinerator Basel), the second for KVA Oftringen (waste incinerator Oftringen, Aargau). Basel is much larger (incinerated waste with energy content of 710 GWh in 2009) and serves an urban area. Oftringen is smaller and seems to be more of a regional waste incinerator (incinerated waste with energy content of 237 GWh in 2009).

Basel apparently sells off the heat to the district heating system or neighbouring industry (yellow arrow ‘Wäremexport’) and converts only a small fraction to electricity. Oftringen on the other hand sells off electric energy (43 GWh) with apparent losses (grey arrow 122,5 GWh).

A lot more to discover when comparing these two (and the other 27) Sankey diagrams.