The Yukon's Energy Budget

Today's post has been inspired by a couple of things: 1) a casual conversation with a friend about the merits of (or as was argued, lack there of) using of hydroelectricity for space heating, 2) starting work with some folks on a sustainable building design and associated discussions about long-term operating and maintenance costs; and 3) I just finished reading James Kunstler recent fiction book "World Made by Hand" which is a "what-if" novel about life in the post-oil age.

Below is an energy budget for the Yukon - or a summary of energy usage in the Yukon - I prepared over a year ago as part of our business plan for Earth Energy Yukon, Inc. It's a useful snapshot of how we use energy, but more importantly, some insight into what we are going to need in the future:

Figure 1. Yukon's Energy Use - 2005

Energy Category	Energy Use (Terajoules/year)	%	Category %	Source Notes
Electricity - Hydro	1237	19%	20%	1
Electricity - Diesel	81	1%		1
Heating - Oil	995	15%	22%	2
Heating - Propane	184	2.9%		4
Heating - Wood	208	3.2%		3
Transport - Land	3343	52%	58%	1
Transport - Aviation	396	6%		1
Total Energy Use	6444

Source Notes:

1. Yukon Statistical Review, 2005 Annual Report. Yukon Bureau of Statistics. http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/stats/annual/review05.pdf
2. ibid, sum of "heating oil" and "light fuel oil"
3. ibid, based on firewood timber permits issued. Due to typical lower efficiency of woodstoves, total energy reduced to 65% for comparative purposes.
4. Report on energy supply-demand in Canada, 2005. Statistic Canada. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/57-003-XIE/2005000/part1.htm

How the Yukon Energy Budget was Created

This energy use summary is very similar to that prepared by Vector Research for the Yukon Energy Strategy - it is based on Yukon Bureau of Stats and StatsCanada data. However, there are two difference from what Paul did and my Energy Budget:

1. Vector research included energy use and production associated with the gas development in southeast Yukon. Although technically, this is Yukon energy in the political sense, however it does not flow to any Yukon communities, and as such I excluded it when trying to understand energy usage from the perspective of Yukon community sustainability; and
2. I included fuel wood. StatsCanada doesn't identify firewood usage. So, I took the total amount of firewood permits (cords) reported by Yukon Bureau of Stats. There is likely more firewood harvesting than there is permits, so this is likely an under-reported amount. Either way, it is not an insubstantial amount of our energy use/production. I did "down-report" the energy production by firewood by 35% to account for the lower efficiency of firewood burning. Although this energy was still used, it wasn't usable to the building, and to allow easier comparison with other space heating energy use which is typically 80% to 100% efficient. In other words, if we were to replace wood with electricity, the chart show how much energy would be required.

Key Observations about Our Energy Usage

1. Transportation fuel is a huge part of our energy demand - over 50%. This is much higher than the provinces (transportation tends to be about 30% of their energy use. Interestingly, aviation fuel isn't that much (relatively speaking) and transportation energy usage is much higher than space heating usage (which was a surprise to me, I would have thought our space heating energy needs would be proportionally bigger).
2. Space heating provided through fuels (e.g. fossil fuels or biomass (a.k.a. "firewood")) accounts for only 22% of our energy use, with firewood providing 3-4%. Although the percentage provided by firewood is small, that is still a staggering17,000 cords of firewood a year!
3. General electrical use includes some space heating. I don't know what percentage of the electrical use is for space heating, so I can't figure exactly how much of the Yukon's total energy is used for space heating. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that fuel usage for space heating exceeds total electrical energy production!