CO2 emissions from nonenergy use - Methodological aspects and a case studyfor Germany

Nonenergy use is the consumption of fossil fuels as feedstocks for the manu facture of synthetic materials, e.g. plastics. Nonenergy partly leads to sh ort-term carbon dioxide emissions and partly, it is stored in products for longer periods of time. The IPCC guidelines (Reference Approach) offer a to p-down method to estimate the amount of stored carbon. An alternative metho d is material flow analysis, a bottom-up calculation method. A prerequisite for the application of both methods is that nonenergy use data published i n national energy balances comply with a common definition. We found that t his is not always the case and that the resulting errors can be considerabl e, i.e. approx. 10% for Germany and 30% for Italy. Therefore, we performed a harmonization step for nonenergy data. We then applied the IPCC method an d material flow analysis to Germany. One result is that the material-flow a nalysis confirms the outcome according to the IPCC Reference Approach. Anot her result is that total carbon losses equal about 10% of nonenergy use.