Tag: Scotland

Dairy Supply Chain GHG Emissions

Rediscovered this Sankey diagram in a 2011 project report ‘Scottish Dairy Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emissions’ (Sheane, R., Lewis, K., Hall, P., Holmes-Ling, P., Kerr, A., Stewart, K., Webb, D.: Identifying opportunities to reduce the carbon footprint associated with the Scottish dairy supply chain – Main report. Edinburgh: Scottish Government, 2011).

Flows are in megatonnes of CO2-equivalents (Mt CO2e) greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in 2007 related to the production of milk and dairy products in Scotland.

A total of 1.657 MtCO2e GHG emissions were caused along the dairy supply chain emissions, which was equivalent to 3% of Scotland’s direct GHG emissions. With a yield of 1.3 billion litres of milk on dairy farms in Scotland in 2007 this corresponds to 1.1 kgCO2e/kg of milk or 1.2 kgCO2e/litre of milk.
If you look at the origins of the emissions in the diagram you will see ‘enteric fermentation’ (aka ‘cow fart’) and liquid manure (‘cow poop’) as the main causes.

Read the full report here.

Mapping Scottish IndyRef Votes

Good use for a distribution diagram shown in the January 2017 Guardian op-ed ‘Why hasn’t Scotland changed its mind on independence?’. It shows Scottish voter behaviour in the first pre-Brexit vote independence referendum (‘IndyRef1’) and intended vote in the second independence referendum (‘IndyRef2’), based on a poll among some 3,200 Scots in Nov/Dec 2016.


(via Coffee Spoons blog, originally from The Guardian, using YouGov data)

The left columns has two categories (Brexit Leave/Remain and first independence vote ‘Aye’/’Nae’), the second only one category. Both columns have the undecided voters fraction in light grey.

The changeovers from one camp to the other are shown emphasized in strong colors. One can see that the ones who voted “No” in the first referendum and that would now vote “Yes” for Scottish independence are compensated by voters who said “Yes” in the first vote, and who would now probably go for a “No”.

There seem to be less undecided voters (down from 21% to 14%), but the overall outcome would at present be the same: 46% No, 39% Yes (Indyref1: 44% No, 35% Yes). Of course a lot has happened since the poll in Nov/Dec 2016 and there is still a long way to go up to IndyRef2.

Low Carbon Scotland GHG Sankey

This one is from the report ‘Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting our Emissions Reduction Targets 2013-2027 – The Draft Second Report on Proposals and Policies’ available on the Scottish Government website.

The Sankey diagram visualizes “By Source and End User GHG emissions transfers for Scotland in 2010 (Mt CO2e)”. Data for the diagram from “Greenhouse Gas Inventories for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland 1990-2010 (Aether and AEA, AEAT/ENV/R/3314)”.
For those wondering (like I did!), ‘LULUCF’ is for ‘Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry’.

According to the report

“Scotland accounts for only around 9% of the UK’s total energy consumption, but is rich in energy resources and produces a diversity of energy supply. The energy supply sector covers the production of energy, and in particular the generation of electricity, either in power stations or in large industrial process (like refining). Energy supply in Scotland produced 20.7 MtCO2e of greenhouse gas emissions in 2010, which equated to 37% of Scotland’s total in 2010.”

Balmenach Whisky Distillery Energy Sankey

Here is a tasty one … The Scottish whisky distillery of Balmenach has worked with the Energy Systems Research Unit at Strathclyde University in Glasgow to investigate the potential energy production from Whisky distillation co-products (such as draff, pot ale and spent lees). More information on this case study can be found here. Here is the Sankey diagram from this case study.

The study concludes that it would be advisable to feed the liquid co-products to an anaerobic digester to produce methane. A power generator can use this fuel to meet the electricity demand of the distillery, the surplus could be fed to the grid. Exhaust gases from the generator can be utilised by a waste heat boiler to offset the steam requirements of the stills. This would result in an annual economic benefit of £178,450 and a payback period of 5 years.

The Sankey diagram shows electric energy in MWh, co-products in tons per year, and biomass in cubic metres. Hence, these flows must not be compared to each other. I am unsure about the red arrow from the steam boiler to the distillery, which is labelled ‘18,841 MWh’ as it doesn’t seem to be to scale with the other energy flows.

Anyways. I like this one. Here’s tae us, wha’s like us? Damn few, and they’re a’ deid.