Embodied energy use in China's industrial sectors

As the world's top energy consumer, China is facing a great challenge to solve its energy supply issue. In this paper energy use from all industrial sectors in China's economy of 2007 was explored by conducting an extended environmental input–output analysis. We compare the energy consumption embodied in the final demand for goods and services from 29 sectors with the energy demand required for the actual production process in each sector. Two different viewpoints for sectoral energy use have been presented: energy use is directly allocated to the producer entity, and energy use is reallocated to sector's supply chain from consumption perspective. Our results show that considerable amount of energy use is embodied in the supply chain, especially for "Construction" and "Other Service Activities" sectors, which is not detected if energy use is allocated on a production basis. When further dividing embodied energy consumption into direct energy consumption and indirect energy consumption, total indirect energy consumption is much higher than that of total direct energy consumption, accounting for 80.6% of total embodied energy consumption in 2007. Our results provide a more holistic picture on sectoral energy consumption and therefore can help decision-makers make more appropriate policies. - Highlights: ► A hybrid IO-LCA model was employed to analyze China's energy use at sectoral level. ► A case study on China's sectoral energy consumption is done. ► Construction and service sectors are actually energy intensive from the supply chain perspectives. ► Upstream and downstream ectoral collaboration along the whole supply chain is necessary. ► Energy conservation policies should be based upon a comprehensive analysis on sectoral energy use.