IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/inecol/v16y2012i6p862-874.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reconstructing the Energy History of a City

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy M. Baynes
  • Xuemei Bai

Abstract

For informed decision making about the current state and near future of any city, it is important to consider the long‐term resource use trajectory and legacy of its past. Such information is not always readily available. Urban metabolism analysis for any given time period can be challenging due to the lack of metropolitan‐ or city‐level data, and reconstructing a time series of urban energy or material flows is seldom attempted. For the case of Melbourne, Australia, we demonstrate how time series operational energy demand and supply data can be reconstructed from original sources. Primary energy consumption is calculated based on direct and upstream energy use in common with “scope 2” standards for emissions reporting. This extends the usual treatment of energy in urban metabolism studies by (1) providing time series data and (2) attributing upstream primary energy consumption to sectors based on their direct secondary energy usage. Results indicate that the transport, commercial, manufacturing, and residential sectors have contributed most to the doubling of Melbourne's energy consumption over four decades. We discuss recent urban development history and its relation to energy consumption and briefly examine potential scenarios of and responses to future change.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy M. Baynes & Xuemei Bai, 2012. "Reconstructing the Energy History of a City," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 16(6), pages 862-874, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:16:y:2012:i:6:p:862-874
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00567.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00567.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00567.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David Bristow & Christopher Kennedy, 2015. "Why Do Cities Grow? Insights from Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics at the Urban and Global Scales," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 19(2), pages 211-221, April.
    2. Yanxian Li & Jiawen Wang & Dan Xian & Yan Zhang & Xiangyi Yu, 2021. "Regional consumption, material flows, and their driving forces: A case study of China's Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (Jing–Jin–Ji) urban agglomeration," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(3), pages 751-764, June.
    3. Hong, Jingke & Gu, Jianping & Liang, Xin & Liu, Guiwen & Shen, Geoffrey Qiping & Tang, Miaohan, 2019. "Spatiotemporal investigation of energy network patterns of agglomeration economies in China: Province-level evidence," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    4. Hao, Yan & Zhang, Menghui & Zhang, Yan & Fu, Chenling & Lu, Zhongming, 2018. "Multi-scale analysis of the energy metabolic processes in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji) urban agglomeration," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 369(C), pages 66-76.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:16:y:2012:i:6:p:862-874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1088-1980 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.