Applying bottom-up analysis to identify the system boundaries of non-energy use data in international energy statistics

M. Weiss, M.L. Neelis, M.C. Zuidberg and M.K. Patel

Energy, 2008, vol. 33, issue 11, 1609-1622

Abstract: Data on the non-energy use of fossil fuels in energy statistics are subject to major uncertainties. We apply a simple bottom-up methodology to recalculate non-energy use for the entire world and for the 50 countries with the highest consumption of fossil fuels for non-energy purposes. We quantify worldwide non-energy use in the year 2000 to be 24±2exajoules (EJ), thereby accounting for 6% of the global total primary energy supply (TPES). Our bottom-up estimates are in line with data from international energy statistics for the entire world and for 14 individual countries. Our estimates exceed official non-energy use data for 22 countries, whereas they are lower than official data in the case of 14 countries. Inconsistent system boundaries of non-energy use data in international energy statistics can explain parts of the observed deviations. We regard our bottom-up methodology as reliable albeit being attached with uncertainties. We recommend its use for energy statisticians and greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory makers to generate a shortlist of countries, for which efforts should be made to clarify and improve the quality of non-energy use data in national and international energy statistics.

Keywords: Non-energy use; International energy statistics; Greenhouse gas inventories; CO2 emissions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544208001412
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:33:y:2008:i:11:p:1609-1622

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2008.05.014

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().