Month: November 2018

Samples

LatAm BEN – Paraguay

So, after Argentina and Uruguay, here is the Balance Energético Nacional (BEN) for Paraguay.

I couldn’t find any Sankey diagram for the national energy flows on any government website. However, a document on the Balance Energético Nacional (BEN) is published annually by the Viceministério de Minas y Energía. It contains this schematic drawing:

BEN2017_Paraguay

I turned this into a Sankey diagram using the ktep values and the percentage shares indicated.

Matriz_Paraguay_2017

The structure of this BEN is a little different from the ones previously seen, since it doesn’t indicate the sectors of final consumption. Obviously, most imported crude derivates are used for transport. Regarding biomass, the report indicates that wood is used in households for cooking and sugar cane to produce ethanol to be mixed into fuels for the transport sector. Electricity is produced entirely from hydropower and Paraguay exports over half of the electricity generated to its neighbours Argentina and Brasil.

Samples

Misc Sankey Diagrams Uncommented 20

Uuh-uh, already Friday afternoon… Here is another quick, almost uncommented Sankey diagram, just to not leave you without one for the weekend.

Argentinian environmental consultancy and engineering firm Neoambiental uses this Sankey diagram on its website (go to section 4) to market their professional experience in energy efficiency studies.

neoambiental Sankey

Flows are in TJ. Feedstock is crude (brown arrows) and associated gas (yellow). Grey flows are losses or unused energy, while red represents the actual used energy.

Publications

Sankey Diagrams from Cement Production

I would love to share with you two Sankey diagrams from cement production, but better do respect “Crown Copyright”. These two are featured in Gao, Tianming: Analysis of material flow and consumption in cement production process. Journal of Cleaner Production. DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.054 as figures 7 and 9 on pages 560 and 561. One is for the raw roller mill system, the other from the clinker process. Both Sankey diagrams are for mass flows in the process.

To see the diagrams please go to article on Researchgate.

In lieu of the copyrighted material, please enjoy this schematic of a rotary cement kiln.

CemKilnKiln

Samples

LatAm BEN – Uruguay

Working my way up the southern cone, next in the mini-series on national energy balances for countries in Latin America is the one for Argentina‘s neighbor: Uruguay.

The Ministerio de Industria, Energía y Minería (MIEM) is publishing the Balance Energetico Nacional (BEN) for Uruguay and there is a dedicated website with all the underlying data.

BEN_Uruguay_2015

The flow diagram (diagrama de flujo) for the 2015 energy balance was produced by engineering and energy consultancy SEG Ingenieria from Montevideo and appeared in their technical file on energy indicators (Nov 2016, in Spanish only).

Flows are in ktoe (Spanish: ktep, kilo tonelada equivalente de petróleo). The country-wide final consumption in 2015 was 4399 ktoe.

The round icons visualize sources, energy conversion and consuming sectors. They look nice and playful, however, they might also dissimulate the flow quantities: For example, if you look at ‘Transporte’ and ‘Industria’ in the right-hand side, they do have the same diameter, but transport has a 28% share of the final consumption while industry has 42%.

Samples

Chemicals from Lignocellulosic Biomass

One of the research topics in the research group of Prof. Christos T. Maravelias at University of Wisconsin – Madison is ‘Renewable Chemicals from Lignocellulosic Biomass’. One line of research is into producing chemicals such as 1,4-butanediol (1,4-BDO), 1,5-pentanediol (1,5-PDO) and 1,6-hexanediol (1,6-HDO) from wood chips.

This process Sankey diagram is from the research description page of the Maravelias group.

UWisc_Lignocellulosic_Biomass

The red numbers relate to the carbon content in the process (starting with 100% carbon molecules in the feedstock, white birch wood). The coloring of the Sankey arrows is used to signal carbon concentration. And the height of the process nodes shows the cost share of a unit in the process (no absolute cost, just relatively to each other). Interesting! Read more here.

Also see: TriVersa process