In response to the oil crises of the 1970s, energy accounting experienced a revolution and became the much broader field of energy analysis, in part by expanding along the energy conversion chain from primary and final energy to useful energy and energy services, which satisfy human needs. After evolution and specialization, the field of energy analysis today addresses topics along the entire energy conversion chain, including energy conversion systems, energy resources, carbon emissions, and the role of energy services in promoting human well-being and development. And the expanded field would benefit from a common analysis framework that provides data structure uniformity and methodological consistency. Building upon recent advances in related fields, we propose a physical supply-use table energy analysis framework consisting of four matrices from which the input-output structure of an energy conversion chain can be determined and the effects of changes in final demand can be estimated. Real-world examples demonstrate the physical supply-use table framework via investigation of energy analysis questions for a United Kingdom energy conversion chain. The physical supply use table framework has two key methodological advances over the building blocks that precede it, namely extending a common energy analysis framework through to energy services and application of physical supply-use tables to both energy and exergy analysis. The methodological advances enable the following first-time contributions to the literature: (1) performing energy and exergy analyses on an energy conversion chain using physical supply-use table matrices comprised of disaggregated products in physical units when the last stage is any of final energy, useful energy, or energy services; (2) performing structural path analysis on an energy conversion chain; and (3) developing and utilizing a matrix approach to inhomogeneous units. The framework spans the entire energy conversion chain and is suitable for many sub-fields of energy analysis, including net energy analysis, societal energy analysis, human needs and well-being, and structural path analysis, all of which are explored in this paper.

Introduction

A recent history of energy analysis: expansion through revolution and evolution

The modern field of energy analysis is rooted in energy accounting, which emerged in the 1950s from Leontief’s input-output (IO) methods [1] and Barnett’s energy balance tables [2]. With studies of the U.S. economy by Schurr and Netschert [3] and Morrison and Readling [4], the field remained closely aligned to energy accounting methods through the 1960s (see Berndt [5] for an overview of the early history of energy analysis). The 1970s oil crises caused a revolution in the field: its focus expanded from merely accounting for production and sale of primary and final energy carriers to many other aspects of energy in society and the economy. Reistad [6, p. 429] said, “In this period of concern for our energy resources and the environment, it is imperative to consider the manner in which our energy resources are consumed.” The study of technical energy efficiency became prominent, illustrated by a 1973 conference presentation by Hatsopoulos [7] and the 1975 American Institute of Physics reports on second-law efficiency [8], automobiles [9], and industrial processes [10]. At an economy-wide level, studies of net energy [11], useful energy [6], and energy services [12] were conducted. Furthermore, new studies of interactions between energy and the economy appeared, covering topics such as the energy impact of consumption decisions [13], the entropic nature of economic processes [14], energy and “potential” GDP [15], and questioning the value of the concept of energy intensity [16]. In 1978, Roberts [17, p. 200] noted that the term “energy analysis” was now preferred to “energy accounting,” the name change signifying that the revolution was underway. Following the 1970s, evolution and specialization led to the creation of several energy analysis sub-fields. Net energy analysis evolved from the study of single fossil fuel sources (e.g., oil, coal, gas) [18] to renewables [19,20] and to the consideration of economy-wide issues such as the minimum energy return on (energy) invested (EROI) required for a functioning society [21], the implications of declining EROI [22], energy expenditure and economic growth [23], and input-output methods to determine national-level EROI [24]. World-wide issues also received attention, including detailed studies of oil and gas production [25], correlations between EROI and oil prices [26], and social implications [27].