Tag: UK

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4see model: economy data visualized

Back in May 2013 I had reported about the ‘4see model’ developed by ARUP. The model is used to visualize certain data characterizing an economy, such as value streams, jobs or energy.

Browsing for new Sankey diagrams I came across 4see again, this time in an INSEAD Faculty & Research Working Paper titled ‘The 4see Framework: Characterizing an Economy by its Socio-economic and Energy Activities’ by Roberts et.al. (2013).

The model is explained in detail and the report features a number of beautiful diagrams. Here is one of them:

insead_uk_monetary_flows

I chose to present this one on financial flows over the others (on transport, energy, employment), since it has some very distinct features.

In the core of the diagram is the balance of payments. The lower part of the diagram (within the frame) has trade flows (i.e. imports to the UK on the left side, exports from the UK on the right side). Interestingly, since this is meant to depict monetary flows, the direction of the arrows is inverted: goods-receiving countries have liabilities, so the flow is from right to-left (upstream). Same holds true for the UK that has to pay for its imports.

The elements in the dotted line rectangles and the linking flows are non-trade items (i.e. the financial system), some of the within the UK, others foreign. Make sure to read the description below figure 8 on page 16 of the report if you want to learn more.

Data is for the year 2010. The key below the diagram shows the default width of a stream representing ‘£100b[2010]/y’, which I read as ‘100 billion British Pounds normalized to base year 2010 per year’. No actual numbers given for each flow, but the different types of monetary flows in relation to each other and their rough dimensions permit to interpret the diagram.

My favourite Sankey diagram in 2015, so far.

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Energy Sankey for UCL Campus

The company with the catchy name ‘Useful Simple Projects‘ is “a design led consultancy [that works] with organisations and on major urban development projects to develop sustainability strategies, and identify opportunities for innovation”.

Here is a Sankey diagram they did for an energy strategy study for University College London’s Bloomsbury Campus.

useful-simple-ucl-energy-strategy-sankey-diagram-jpg

Values are probably for a year. The Sankey diagram shows energy consumption in GW (red and blue arrows). The UCL campus has a cogeneration plant, so heat (green arrow) can be produced and distributed by district heating grid.

The numbers in grey show the carbon emissions in tons of CO2 linked to the energy consumption (most likely using characterization factors for electric energy production in the UK and for provision of natural gas). UCL has a low carbon strategy for the next years and this study helps them to review their goals.

This Sankey diagram is … simple and useful.

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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.

scotland_ghg_2010

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.”

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UK WRAP’s vision of circular economy

While some of you might think of their favourite lunch time snack, in the UK the term WRAP refers tp the ‘Waste & Resources Action Programme’, an independent not-for-profit company.

WRAP now presented their vision for a circular economy in the United Kingdom by 2020, using Sankey diagrams:

The material flows for the baseline year 2000 are shown in a first diagram here:

2000-sankey-merged-waste-data-high-res

In that year, apparently, 212 Mt of material were disposed of as waste (orange arrow), while only 47 Mt were recycled.

The situation in 2010…

2010-sankey-merged-waste-data-high-res

… and the vision for 2020 (from this page):

2020-sankey-merged-waste-data-high-res

The goal is to use less input materials, to reduce waste output and to recycle 3/4 of the materials.

See diagrams in high resoultion directly on their website.

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FOE Diagram: Up in Smoke

Friends of Earth have published this Sankey diagram produced by ‘Information is Beautiful’ on their webpage on July 6. It shows how energy is wasted in the United Kingdom. It shows that “huge amounts of energy are wasted every day in our gas, coal and nuclear power stations” and, in fact, “over half of the energy in gas and around two thirds of the energy in nuclear and coal used to produce electricity is lost as waste heat.”

infographic_up_in_smoke

The diagram is based on data from Department of Energy and Climate Change, DUKES 2011 and Energy Saving Trust 2012. Absolute figures are given for the different sources at the top in the diagram, and for the amount of energy “left after production” (328.3 TWh). So mainly it is the (non-)efficiency of the production expressed as relative percentage figures that is shown.

One interesting thing about this energy flow Sankey is that it distinguishes between “Thermal” (yellow) and “Renewable” (green) sources of electricity. This is in contrast to the classic renewable/non-renewable split, since in this diagram biomass falls under thermal sources. Interesting.

High-res PDF with the diagram can be found here. There is also another Sankey diagram in the original PDF that shows the consumption of energy in private homes. Will show that one in a separate post some other time.

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Energy Flow Charts UK 2009

Featured on Jo Abbess’ blog on ‘Energy Change for Climate Control’ recently was this Sankey diagram. It appears in his recent post on ‘The Waste of Power’. It was originally published in Annex H of the 2009 Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES) published by Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Electricity Flow Chart 2009 for the UK. From Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and DECC Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES). Via http://www.joabbess.com/2011/06/21/the-waste-of-power-1/

The report has numerous other Sankey diagrams like this one, similarly structured. They show energy use of coal, petroleum, natural gas, and renewables.

Below is the one on petroleum flows in 2009 in millio tons. A lower threshold has been introduced, so that small quantities don’t fall below a minimum width (see, for example, the flow of 0.7 mio tons to “Rail”, compared to the one of 4.9 mio tons to “Industry”, which would in principal be 7 times wider if it was to scale.

Petroleum Flow Chart 2009 for the UK. From Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and DECC Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (DUKES).

Nice and colorful!

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40 years from now: UK 2050 energy flows

2 Comments on 40 years from now: UK 2050 energy flows

A reader of the blog alerted me about a new report that contains Sankey diagrams for the United Kingdom’s 2007 and 2050 energy flows. Thanks, Neil!

The report is about heat demand and CHP (Building a roadmap for heat. 2050 scenarios and heat delivery in the UK) and was prepared by University of Surrey and Imperial College for the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA). [Account is dead in 2018, access the report here instead]. On p. 18 it has the following Sankey diagram. I have shown a similar diagram for the UK in this post.

uk_2007_energyflows2

Data is from the Digest of UK Energy Statistics. All flows are in millions of tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE). Primary energy demand in 2007 was 237 MTOE.

The second Sankey diagram presented (on page 23) is a scenario for 2050. It was calculated using the MARKAL model.

uk_2050_energyflows

One must read all the assumptions made for the model to be able to interpret it, but you can see immediately that the “energy system in 2050 is signifcantly altered under the common assumptions presented in all-electricity scenarios. In particular, final energy consumption in 2050 will be reduced by 46% against 2007 figures under the assumptions used in the CCC 80% CO2 reduction scenario”.

I invite you to read chapters 3.3. and 3.4 of the report to better understand the 2050 Sankey diagram. Note that the overall primary energy demand is significantly lower, but power generation almost doubles compared to the current situation. Losses from oil refineries are omitted in this scenario due to lack of data.

A great Sankey diagram by the research group made up from researchers from ICEPT (Imperial Centre for Energy Policy and Technology) and Centre for Environmental Strategy at the University of Surrey.