• Energy Research

India's economic growth in the last decade has raised several concerns in terms of its present and future resource demands for materials and energy. While per capita resource consumption is still extremely modest but on the rise, its sheer population qualifies India as a fast growing giant with material and energy throughput that is growing rapidly . If such national and local trends continue, the challenges for regional, national as well as global sustainability are immense in terms of future resource availability, social conflicts, pressure on land and ecosystems and atmospheric emissions. Using the concepts of social metabolism and material flow analysis, this paper presents an original study quantifying resource use trajectories for India from 1961 up to 2008. We argue for India's need to grow in order to be able to provide a reasonable material standard of living for its vast population. To this end, the challenge is in avoiding the precarious path so far followed by industrialised countries in Europe and Asia, but to opt for a regime shift towards sustainability in terms of resource use by building on a host of promising examples and taking opportunities of existing niches to make India a trendsetter.

Abstract Sustainable resource use calls for substantial changes to existing infrastructures, which lock societies into current resource use patterns. Urban mobility is a case in point: existing material stocks of infrastructure and vehicles require large amounts of materials and energy for maintenance and operation in order to provide mobility services, thereby causing considerable emissions. Understanding the stock-flow-service nexus of urban mobility is crucial for achieving progress towards absolute reductions of resource use and emissions. In this article, we investigate personal mobility in an urban context - Vienna. We use stock-driven material and energy flow analysis to quantify mobility stocks and flows for four different modes of mobility: pedestrian, bicycle, public transport and motorized individual traffic (MIT). We quantify material flows for maintenance, expansion, as well as primary energy use and emissions linked to personal mobility within city territory and compare a number of stock-flow-service indicators. Public transport was found to deliver most mobility services (38%), when services were measured as trips. Pedestrian mobility showed the lowest stock intensity of services while using less energy and generating lower emissions per service than any other mobility mode. Trips crossing the city border showed high shares of motorized individual traffic (62–63%). Traffic surfaces dominated material requirements of mobility and are mainly (78%) used by MIT. We conclude that considering stock-flow-service relations can support prioritizing future urban mobility planning, highlight the importance of infrastructure-related measures in doing so and the need for better monitoring especially of mobility service indicators.

Abstract The concept of energy services is used in different contexts and scientific fields mainly to emphasize that it is the services provided by energy rather than energy carriers that people demand and that generate well-being. While the value of the concept is widely acknowledged, there are remarkable differences in how energy services are conceptualized. This article proposes the ‘Energy Service Cascade’ (ESC) as a conceptual framework aimed at clarifying and bridging different approaches. The ESC is inspired by Haines-Young’s and Potschin’s (2011) ‘Ecosystem Service Cascade’, which distinguishes: a) structures, b) functions, c) services, d) benefits and e) values. When used to systematize the debates around energy services, we argue that these differentiations reflect a) energy conversion chains comprising natural structures, human-made capital and labor; b) physical functions performed by energy chains; c) services humans demand to foster well-being; d) the actual contributions to human well-being (health, life satisfaction, …); e) individual preferences and attitudes that create willingness to pay, encourage business models, etc. ‘Values’ influence how services and benefits are perceived and affect ‘structures’ through various mechanisms (investment decisions, environmental and economic policy, …). To showcase the usefulness of the ESC as conceptual framework, we provide a review of literature to reveal the differing scopes of four main contexts in which energy services are being studied. We call them ‘energy chain context’, ‘energy demand context’, ‘well-being context’ and ‘entrepreneurial context’. Given the diversity of how energy services are interpreted and the various scopes and research aims, a full harmonization of concepts seems out of reach. Nevertheless, a more unified understanding of what is considered as ‘service’ and differentiation from ‘functions’ and ‘benefits’, as provided by the ESC, could be a first step towards more systematic terminology and may support interaction between the different discourses.

Schon jetzt verbraucht die Menschheit in einem Jahr etwa so viele Ressourcen, wie die Biosphare in 1,2 Jahren produzieren kann. Mit anderen Worten: Die Menschheit verbraucht etwa 20 % mehr Ressourcen, als global nachhaltig ware. Fur die nachsten Jahrzehnte wird aber weltweit ein erhebliches Bevolkerungswachstum auf 9-11 Milliarden Menschen im Jahr 2050 vorausgesagt. Zudem lebt ein erheblicher Teil der Menschheit in Armut, Hunger und Elend – sozial und okonomisch unhaltbare Zustande, deren Beseitigung jedenfalls neben betrachtlichen finanziellen Mitteln auch erhebliche Mengen an naturlichen Ressourcen verschlingen wird. Der Beitrag geht einerseits auf die Konzepte "gesellschaftlicher Stoffwechsel" und "Kolonisierung" ein und zeigt andererseits Trends im Ressourcenverbrauch Osterreichs vor allem im Hinblick auf den Inlandskonsum von Materialien und Energie sowie auf die dafur notige Flacheninanspruchnahme auf.

Abstract Sustainability science analyses society–nature interaction on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. By explaining the link between sustainability and socio-economic material and energy flows as well as with colonization of ecosystems, this paper introduces a conceptual framework for empirical applications featured in other contributions to this special issue. The paper discusses how the proposed material and energy flow accounting (MEFA) framework supports such analyses. This framework is an integrated toolbox to account for socio-economic metabolism and colonization of natural processes; above all, land use. We argue that, even though it is at present impossible to define precision sustainability thresholds with respect to many material and energy flows, the MEFA framework is a valuable tool because it tracks these flows in a consistent manner for regions of any scale over time.

The growing industrial metabolism is a major driver of global environmental change. We present an assessment of the global use of materials since the beginning of the 20th century based on the conceptual and methodological principles of material flow accounting (MFA). On the grounds of published statistical data, data compilations and estimation procedures for material flows not covered by international statistical sources, we compiled a quantitative estimate of annual global extraction of biomass, fossil energy carriers, metal ores, industrial minerals and construction minerals for the period 1900 to 2005. This period covers important phases of global industrialisation and economic growth. The paper analyses the observed changes in the overall size and composition of global material flows in relation to the global economy, population growth and primary energy consumption. We show that during the last century, global materials use increased 8-fold. Humanity currently uses almost 60 billion tons (Gt) of materials per year. In particular, the period after WWII was characterized by rapid physical growth, driven by both population and economic growth. Within this period there was a shift from the dominance of renewable biomass towards mineral materials. Materials use increased at a slower pace than the global economy, but faster than world population. As a consequence, material intensity (i.e. the amount of materials required per unit of GDP) declined, while materials use per capita doubled from 4.6 to 10.3 t/cap/yr. The main material groups show different trajectories. While biomass use hardly keeps up with population growth, the mineral fractions grow at a rapid pace. We show that increases in material productivity are mostly due to the slow growth of biomass use, while they are much less pronounced for the mineral fractions. So far there is no evidence that growth of global materials use is slowing down or might eventually decline and our results indicate that an increase in material productivity is a general feature of economic development.

Abstract Electricity infrastructures are key for the provision of crucial energy services and economic prosperity. We investigate the current state and historical development of the global power sector from a “stock-flow-service nexus” (SFS-nexus) perspective. The SFS-nexus emphasizes the interrelations and dependencies between social metabolism (i.e. stocks and flows of biophysical resources), provision of services and societal well-being. Focussing on the most relevant stocks and flows, we quantify the main bulk materials (iron/steel, concrete, copper and aluminium) in power plants, grids and transformers, and fuel use of thermal power plants from 1980 to 2017. We assess the relevance of stocks, flows and related greenhouse gas emissions in the overall metabolism of countries and groupings by politico-economic and geographic criteria. Finally, we empirically explore the relations between material stocks and qualitative indicators for service quality and societal well-being. Globally, concrete stocks (9,000 million tons (Mt) in 2017) are dominated by hydropower, whereas aluminium and copper stocks (181 and 161 Mt, respectively) are mostly comprised in conductors in grids (>80%). 50% of the iron/steel stocks (total: 840 Mt) are incorporated in power plants. Annualized embodied emissions of bulk materials account for less than 1% of fuel combustion emissions from power plants. Material intensities and power generation mixes are highly diverse amongst technologies and countries, respectively. Still, electricity supply quality and well-being indicators on country level are clearly correlated with per-capita metal stocks in electricity infrastructures. We thus showcase how material stock inventories can provide insight into the material basis of societies’ well-being.