Resource efficiency scenarios for the UK: A technical report

Abstract:

Energy is required to transform raw materials into products. The majority of this energy is provided by fossil fuels and therefore contributes to climate change. Energy demand continues to rise globally, which means that additional renewable energy is used to meet this increase in demand. At this global level renewable energy supply increased by 81 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 2017 (IEA, 2019). However, in the same period, energy demand grew by 328 Mtoe (2.3% more than the previous year) (IEA, 2019). The demand for materials and products forms an important part of this increase and, according to the International Energy Agency, global industrial energy demand is forecast to continue increasing (IEA, 2020). At the domestic level it initially appears that the UK is moving in the opposite direction to the global trend with significant declines in industrial energy in the recent past; industrial energy demand has halved over the past 40 years (BEIS, 2020). However, as the UK has shifted to become an increasingly service based economy, the materials required to satisfy UK consumption have not declined; they are increasingly imported from elsewhere (University of Leeds and Defra, 2020). This partially explains why the energy demand of UK industry has halved in the past 40 years while industrial energy demand has not. The reality is that the industrial energy demand needed to satisfy UK consumption has remained relatively unchanged for the past 40 years (Barrett et al, 2018).

Publication Year:

2021

Publisher:

CREDS

DOI:

No DOI minted

Author(s):

Norman, J., Barrett, J., Betts-Davies, S., Carr-Whitworth, R., Garvey, A., Giesekam, J., James, K. and Styles, R.