By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Tue, 2007-09-25 23:56
Why is Leonardo ENERGY concerned with electrical safety?
Well, as a team with a vision for sustainable energy, we're not only concerned with efficiency and environmental performance. Safety and comfort of users are also important. They represent part of the social dimension of sustainability.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Thu, 2007-05-31 17:10
How much electricity is used in European homes, offices, industry and transport? How fast is electricity use growing, and for what applications? How could we use electricity more efficiently?
A new report from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre attempts to answer these questions in 'Electricity Consumption and Efficiency Trends in the Enlarged European Union'.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2006-10-05 05:25
US primary energy consumption by Source and Sector, 2005
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Government has published a clear graph on the energy use in the US in 2005. It links primary energy sources (Petroleum, Natural Gas, Coal, Renewable Energy, and Nuclear Electric Power) with the sectors in which they are consumed (Residential and Commercial, Transportation, Industrial, and Electric Power). Numbers are given in quadrillion Btu (British thermal unit).
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Mon, 2006-07-31 05:33
Figures for Q4 2005
The International Energy Agency publishes a monthly survey of worldwide electricity production, trade, and consumption. The figures for the 4th Quarter of 2005 were released in the April 2006 edition. The following graph shows the amount of electricity production, imports, and exports for several countries.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Wed, 2006-04-12 05:59
Or just another (among many) is the Observ-er that however gives were comprehensive and easy-to-read material with good overviews, see figure below, of trends and country-situation. On top of these annual reports they also have more in-depth studies of single fuels. You will have to register to obtain downloads but that is all. It is also an advantage that it is published with both french and english text.
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By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2006-03-01 11:13
IEA has published a fact sheet 'Renewables in Global Energy Supply' which clarifies the challenges ahead. Renewables contributed 13.3% of 2003 world energy supply, largely through biomass use in developing countries and hydro electricity.
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By Hans Nilsson / Published on Mon, 2006-01-16 10:25
Many evaluations and policy declarations are focusing on improvements in energy efficiency and in particular in improving energy intensity in economic terms (kWh/moneyvalue in GDP). This measure is good but could lead astray if the reader and the analyst is not careful. Especially comparisons between countries and sectors is dangerous. A country does not have to be inefficient because they have a high intensity in such terms. It is merely a reflection of a country’s comparative advantages for industrial activities. A country where mining is big business can not easily be compared with a country with a huge agricultural sector. They could both be efficient or inefficient. Intensities are better measures when they are expressed in physical terms such as km, m2, tonnes etc. that are connected to the activity itself. The IEA uses such and the so called ASIF-model, to decompose the energy use into the components; Activity (A), Structure (S), Intensity (I) and Fuel (F). All taken together would explain either the resulting energy use or the resulting carbon emission as follows: Result=A*S*I (*F)
The IEA (as well as many others) uses this method and describes it in detail in a publications where the energy use over the 30 years of IEA existence has been studied. Especially interesting is that they have specifically studied the effect of intensity improvements and showed that these have been very high. If they had not occurred we should need 50% more energy to uphold our present standard of living than we actually do. In other words, our welfare today is rather depending on energy efficiency improvements than growing energy use!
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