Category: Samples

Samples

GEA Report: Global Energy Flow Sankey

2 Comments on GEA Report: Global Energy Flow Sankey

Blog reader Johannes sent an e-mail, advising me that the 2012 GEA Report (GEA, 2012: 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) has many Sankey diagrams worth checking out. Thanks! I downloaded this 1865 page (!) report (link, caution large 188 MB file!) from the IIASA website.

Here is one of the Sankey diagrams featured in the report.

gea_sankey_01

This is a diagram for global energy flows in exajoule (1 EJ = 10E18 joules) “from primary to useful energy by primary resource input, energy carrier (fuels), and end-use sector applications in 2005”.

Similar national energy flow diagrams I have featured here typically are left-to-right oriented, but the structure is similar. Flow quantities are mostly shown as entry flows on the nodes (boxes). Losses displayed in yellow next to the grey exits at the bottom.

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Show it with Sankey Diagrams

3 Comments on Show it with Sankey Diagrams

Phosporus in the natural environment and the food chain has been a topic of several posts on my blog. So it didn’t come as a surprise to find yet another diagram on phoshphorus flows over at Nels’s MFA Diagram blog (one of the blogs I follow closely, see blogroll).

MFA diagrams have their focus on the nodes and the build-up of stocks. Sometimes they get a touch of Sankey diagram with the arrows having different magnitudes. The MFA diagram below is for phosphorous flows in China 2008 (original source: Min Qiao, Yuan-Ming Zheng, Yong-Guan Zhu, 2011. Material flow analysis of phosphorus through food consumption in two megacities in northern China). Values are in tonnes.

mfa_phosphorus_beijing

(click image to enlarge)

We can detect arrows with three different brush widths (my guess is 1px, 2px and 4 px), each standing for a value range into which the actual flow quantity falls. This may, however, bes somewhat misleading when having a quick glance at the diagram.

I quickly “translated” the above diagram to a Sankey diagram with flow values being actually to scale.

phosphorus-in-beijing-to-scale

(click image to enlarge)

Here it is quite clear where the major phosphorus flows are located (from food production via urban consumption to sewage treatment plant and solid waste disposal: 2923 out of 5374 tons end up here). The other flows are comparatively small, with the phoshporous flow going directly to the aquatic system worth a mention. Two small flows in the center of the diagram are negligible, they are in fact so tiny in comparison to the major flows that they even don’t show up (or just as a hairline) here.

I have therefore added a minimum width of 1 px for small flows so that the annual 17 tons from urban consumption and the 1.9 tons from rural consumption to the solid waste disposal are at least visible (albeit not to scale with the other flows any more).

phosphorus-in-beijing-minimum-flow-width

(click image to enlarge)

Final phosphorous sinks are solid waste disposal (landfill?) and the aquatic system.

Samples

Trigeneration Sankey

Via CarbonSignal blog comes the following post and Sankey diagram:

“Tri-generation, also known as combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP), is a combination of co-generation, known as combined heat and power (CHP) with an adsorption or absorption chiller to provide water chilling. More information of co-generation can be found here. The chilled water can then be used in refrigeration or air conditioning systems. The engine is connected to a generator which can supply electricity to the site or export electricity to the grid. Typically about 38% of the energy supplied as fuel to the engine is converted to electrical energy.

trigensankey

The rest of the energy leaves the engine as heat via the hot exhaust gases, the coolant system and the oil system. A large amount of the waste heat can be recovered through heat exchangers and can be used to supply all hot water to heat domestic hot water, supply heat to a HVAC system, or supply a chiller to provide all chilled water.

Alternatively the system can be designed to supply a mix of both hot and chilled water to match the site loads. The use of a heat recovery system and chiller can increase the efficiency to between 67- 85% depending on the mix of chilled and hot water required.”

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Study on Computer Waste in Chile

This post on the MFA diagram blog directed me towards a study on computer waste in Chile. The Sankey diagrams featured are for CRT/LCD displays and laptop/desktop computers,

These are the flows of CRT (red) and LCD (blue) in 2010 and expected units in 2020

crt_lcd_mfa_1

and the desktop (green) and laptop computers (dark blue) flows in 2010 and expected for 2020 (no. of units).

laptop_desktop_mfa_1

The full scientific paper can be found here.
(via MFA Diagram blog)

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Sankey Diagram in Energy Management

From a presentation on energy management held by Thomas Keller of Ecowin (available at the KNUT Hessen website) comes the following Sankey diagram.

sankey_knut_hessen_ecowin_presentation

The diagram is in German, but I get the main point: Energy and heat consumption in a company in MJ per hour. Fuels are natural gas (black streams) and electricity (red streams). The white boxes are the processes consuming the energy. Grey flows are transformed energy or losses.
Data seems to come from a energy management software with measuring devices installed along the production line. The company is about to obtain ISO 50001 certification.

I have recently noticed an increased use of Sankey diagrams in ISO 50001 case studies. Hope to see more of them coming.

Samples

Coffee Sankey Diagram

After all these Sankey diagrams for energy flows, flows of carbon, phosphorus, and the like here is a special one for all those of you, who are coffee addicts – like me. Saman Zomorodi on his blog ‘Saman’s System, Sites and Buildings’ features a coffee flow Sankey diagram in this post.

Coffee Sanky Diagram

This is an infographic for global coffee production. Producers are on the left side, coffee consumers are on the right. The dark brown flows are for developing nations, while the milk coffee color ones are for developed nations. No quantities given in the diagram, so we don’t learn the actual absolute figures.

However, “this allows the reader to actually see where coffee is being made and how far it actually travels to another world region. As evident in the diagram, almost all coffee is produced in the developing nations, while the majority of it is consumed in the developed nations. This relationship underscores the unproportional amount the developed world consumes, while the developing nations have to pay many hidden costs.”

The original image is 2MB and I had to resize it with a loss in quality. Visit Saman’s blog to download a highres version of the diagram.…

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Sankey for Energy Mass Balance

From a collection of case studies on Energy Efficiency found on the website of the Australian Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (RET) comes the following Sankey diagram.

iluka-sankey

This is from a synthetic rutile plant of Iluka Resources Ltd. in Western Australia.

Iluka used the output from the energy and mass flows model to generate a Sankey diagram to represent the results in a visually effective and concise manner. The Sankey diagram illustrates where energy is supplied to the process, how it is transformed and where it leaves the process. … The width of the arrows is in proportion to the amount of energy associated with each part of the process. The Sankey diagram is an effective and intuitive way to communicate the energy flows at the plant. The diagram was used extensively during Iluka’s opportunity workshops. The diagram assisted the staff at the workshop to focus their attention on where the largest energy flows exist and identify where the main areas for improvement lie.

Flows are in percent of the energy input. Possible improvement measures are given in the grey boxes.

Full case study here (PDF).