Mapping Canadian energy flow from primary fuel to end use

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Davis, Matthew
  • Ahiduzzaman, Md.
  • Kumar, Amit

• This paper interprets the energy flow from available primary fuel to end use in all of the provinces and territories in Canada for the year 2012 using Sankey diagrams. These flow charts illustrate energy production, imports, exports, and local consumption by economic sector, and quantify the amount of useful and rejected energy. The inflow and outflow values could help determine existing energy efficiencies and energy intensity improvement potential. The total energy available in the energy flow path for all of the provinces and territories is 27,452 PJ including imports. The diagrams clearly indicate that fossil fuels dominate Canada’s energy mix. Approximately 99% of the fuel in Alberta came from fossil sources in 2012 and approximately 76% of Canada’s energy came from fossil sources. Alberta produced the highest amount of available energy in Canada (11,986 PJ); the lowest came from the territories (72.7 PJ). Among the non-fossil generation, hydro-electricity dominated, followed by nuclear, wind, and biomass, respectively. The overall share of thermal-based generation (fossil-fuel, nuclear, and biomass) was found to be 37.1% of Canada’s produced electricity (2,222 PJ) in 2012. An analysis of rejected and useful energy indicated that the transport sector showed the poorest energy efficiency. This pictorial view of energy flow could help policy makers set targets for improving energy efficiency, select strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions, and help satisfy the vast global climate change challenges.

• Date created

  2018-01-01

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Sankey Diagrams
  • Energy Flow
  • Canada
  • Demand Sectors
  • Primary Energy
  • End Use Energy

• Type of Item

  Article (Draft / Submitted)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-rnkg-nw78

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International