Month: November 2020

Our Energy System Visualized Through A Sankey

Post author By chov
Post date November 16, 2020

The National Academy of Sciences uses Sankey visualizations to explore our nation’s energy system. Although this type of visualization may be unfamiliar to many of us, Sankeys allow us to visualize flow when there are multiple inputs and outputs, which is why it is a perfect visualization to use when mapping out our nation’s complex energy system.

Based on the thickness of the various colored flow lines depicted in the picture above, you can easily see that oil, natural gas and coal are the nation’s leading sources of energy. The inputs (energy sources) then flow into various outputs (energy uses such as residential, commercial, industrial, transportation and electricity). We can see that the majority of oil is used for transportation purposes while coal is used for electricity. This visualization is also interactive. By clicking on some of the textboxes you can find more detailed explanations about that topic.

Clicking on “Unused Energy” brings up a text box with an explanation of why some of the energy we produce is lost.

Separate visualizations are also provided for a regional energy system (MD, OH, PA and WV) as well as visualization for California state’s energy system.

Sankey showing the energy system for MD, OH, PA, WV region. It is interesting to note that coal is the largest energy source for this region. Only a small amount of oil is produced in this region which is why the oil is imported.

Sankey showing the energy system for California. Coal and natural gas are the largest energy sources for the state of California while coal use is almost non-existent.

In conclusion, depicting the various energy systems in the United States through use of a Sankey visualization seems to be a great choice. Color coding the various inputs or energy sources allows the reader to quickly decipher which color belongs to which energy source. Since there is also a significant difference in oil, coal and natural gas usage compared to renewables such as solar, hydro, wind and geothermal, it was easy to recognize which sources contributed most towards our energy system and which contributed the least. Furthermore, the reader could easily see how each sector (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation) contributed to either useful or unused energy since these were depicted in starkly different colors.

Tags Data Visualization, energy, Sankey

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Our Energy System

Post author By gibsonr4
Post date November 16, 2020

This week I had the pleasure of looking into the inner workings of the US energy system through the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Their approach to visualizing US energy production through the use of a SANKEY graph, pictured below, was very unique but fitting at the same time.

The beginning phase of the graphic already does a lot to convey the basic functions of the energy grid and the its various aspects. The flow from source to energy use is very natural and lends itself well to establishing the fact that the generated energy has to be moved through various stages before reaching its intended destination. When combined with the useful and unused energy figures, it establishes that there is some inefficiency in our current electrical grid that will lead to energy losses during transmission and that our current generation sources are not as efficient as we might believe.

The option to expand the tabs on the left to access more information is useful as well. It helps keep the main space of the graph from becoming too cluttered with information. The breakdown of where the energy goes in terms of electricity and other uses is cool too, as it helps show off the fact that not all energy produced in the US is directly used for electricity generation. Some may be used for industrial process or for other applications like heating for homes an businesses in the case of oil and natural gas.

Overall I found the SANKEY graphic very fitting for this kind of information, but I can see it having very limited usefulness anywhere else. It seems like it would only be a good fit at describing processes that flow naturally from one step to the next.

Tags Sankey

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SANKEY

Post author By Kelsey Wallace
Post date November 15, 2020

This website is an excellent tool for those collecting data that concerns the U.S. primary energy sources. You are greeted by a bar graph visualization portraying the “start” button for the visualization but also some insightful information about the energy usage in 2014. While this is not a lot of information to start with, it is enough to entice the audience to delving into the presentation further.

Once you begin the presentation you are greeted by the following visualization pictured below!

The above visualization contains a lot of information to say the least! The very first thing I notice about this visualization are the colors. Pictured above you see the colorful “cords” on the left hand side of the visualization, and blue tubes on the left. The colors in this visual do wonders to help the audience interpret each individual topic. However, this visual would not be very useful in a presentation where the presenter did not wish to explain this visual. This is because the audience will need some context of where to look on the visualization and why for the presentation. Each topic on this visualization is also a link to a different screen containing data and visualizations concerning the topic selected.

For this blog post, I choose to delve into “residential” energy use. As seen above, a small pop-up appears containing a more information on residential energy use within the U.S. How crazy is it that the residential energy use accounted for 21% of the total amount of U.S. energy usage!?

Once navigating to view more information about U.S. residential energy usage, I found this pie chart visualization. In 2015, the largest contributor to U.S. residential energy usage was space heating (27.3%) followed by water heating (13.1%). Space cooling (11.8%) came in third and was followed by multiple other factors that contribute 8% of less. I do think this visual was effective in communicating what it needs to. However, I do feel that the colors distract from each individual topic. I think this would be more effective to use the pie chart to point to one colored factor (such as space heating) and leave the other factors in a grey/ neutral tone.

Tags Sankey

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Energy in United States of America

Post author By phamc1
Post date November 14, 2020

The website of the National Academic of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The source data is provided by Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy and from its reports and studies.

Within my limited time, I tried to look for some knowledge about our energy system, as well as how the authors can tell us by visualization in 4 main parts

How we use energy
Our energy source
The cost of energy
Energy efficiency

How we use energy

Among four economic sectors of residential, commercial, transportation, and industry; I consider ” Home & Work” that include about 40% of the energy consumed in the United States in 2015. Instead of carefully read information, it is easy for me to understand how much useful energy is in our life along full data by visualization with the pie chart. The data chart also shows the comparation of different way of consumptions in 2015. I will be more interesting to know the demand trend of different types of consumption with the line chart.

2. Our energy source

Of course, this part I am very consider. I want to know what on the hand of U.S. Energy system and its capability. Also, I like the way the authors express the direct and indirectly supply from energy sources to consumptions.

It is happy to hope we have enough affordable energy in the future. I love U.S government, because they love their people. They always take care us from how to reserve to supply enough energy for our life and every fields in U.S. They know how to invest to exploit nature energy sources in long time due to decline in other limited energy sources, as well as to look for the solution to limit the waste of energy in the process of production, supply, and consumption. On the other hand, if we significantly dependent on the energy source of other country, we can lost some favorited points in our competitive advantage position. The photograph helps me to have this pride emotion.

3. The cost of energy

We need to consider the cost of energy, but I did not see any charts and photograph yet.

4. Energy efficiency

We hope the stable energy in future, but how to ensure and solve the problem. If increasing supply can make our headache, why we don’t think about reducing its demand by its efficiency? The authors of the website pointed out that “the demand for energy has not been growing as rapidly as the economy, resulting in significant drop in what is called energy intense“

The above chart shows U.S. Energy Intensity Projected to continue its steady decline through 2040. The chart author used was the right chart for the right data to effectively communicate with us about an important consideration in our country.

Now, for the issue of energy in United States of America, the government expect the contribute from fields of technology, economic benefit, research, as well as government mandate and others.

Thank you. `

Reference

The National Academic of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2020). What You Need to Know about Energy . Retrieved from http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/

data visualizations Sankey Diagrams

SANKEY

Post author By steve100
Post date November 14, 2020

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine dedicated an interactive website to Energy and “everything you need to know”. While browsing through the well-organized web page, I found a multitude of statistics, using different visualizations from big numbers to timelines and everything in between.

Here are a few examples of different visuals throughout the website.

I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of information found throughout each section and how well they put visuals to use. Not only did the visuals keep the website intriguing but made the information clear and easy to obtain. for example:

This simple visualization draws a clear connection between each variable and shows a comparison to the amount of light each produces per watt of electricity. There is little room left for misunderstanding because the visual is clearly labeled and the description helps interpret the picture. I think using pictures of each type of light bulb was smart because if this was a graph and was labeled incandescent, CFL, and LED it could lead to confusion on which lightbulb is which.

Though I was for the most part impressed with the visuals and the way the information was presented, I did find a few things I would have changed.

for example: BIG NUMBERS

I personally think the wow factor in this statistic was hindered by the lack of emphasis on the numbers. I think they should have chosen a much bigger font to place the focus on US energy consumption.

Line graph:

I think this graph is confusing because incandescent’s line stays consistent it gives off the impression of a benchmark line. I think at a glance without acknowledging the giving information it looks like CFLs and LEDs are falling short of a benchmark.

Listed Statistics

Personally, this section is just a lot of words to get lost in, when reading about the reduction of energy use in refrigeration over the years. I think that using a visualization here would keep this page more interesting and keep readers from disengaging.

Overall, I found this website to be a great resource and very knowledgeable. The visualizations were, for the most part, extremely well done and appealing.

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SANKEY or SNAKEY, which is how I read it first

Post author By mille377
Post date November 14, 2020

So off the bat I imagined I was in for a somewhat dull interactive, because how could you possibly top a website called snakey, even though I had no idea what it was about.

I was pleasantly surprised! Mostly because I have a vague and slightly threatening interest in nuclear chemistry (threatening in the sense that I’ve read a lot of books on the subject and vague because come on… there’s a lot to know and I’m a neuroscience student with a full time job. I’m busy). In the technical sense, I’m fully aware of the problems nuclear energy has and can cause (hi, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima) and that it isn’t exactly the lowest cost form of renewable energy but I was excited nonetheless.

Please ignore the open tabs. I take a behavioral analysis class and my individual project is a behavioral profile on school shooters.

Naturally the first place I went to was the nuclear energy system tab. As previously mentioned I knew that it isn’t a super popular form of energy but I was surprised to see that the data had gone up from the Three Mile Island incident back in 1979. The thing about nuclear energy (other than the extreme danger to those around a reactor if something goes wrong, or the massive amounts of radioactive isotopes that spread through the air and ecosystem in the event of an explosion) is the safe storing of radioactive waste. Uranium has a half life of 4.5 billion years and even then it only gets broken down into radian-226. Uranium waste is highly radioactive and notoriously difficult to store, so it makes sense that it isn’t the most popular form of energy.

Now, for the design.

This website still feels like it’s in a beta version. I’m not a wiz with coding or anything but just by looking at it and comparing it with other websites that have been beta’d (Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all were beta at one point) it just feels outdated. I checked to see the copyright year, just in case this website was out of date but it wasn’t. It just looks old. I find the use of clunky graphic and text boxes to be unappealing visually. Having your data pop up in front of your graphic kind of defeats the purpose.

data visualizations Sankey Diagrams

Our Energy System

Post author By kacprzye
Post date November 13, 2020

The Sankey visualization about our energy systems in America breaks down the percentages of different energy sources in varying states. Initially, it was confusing to read, specifically the image below, however the other tabs were quite interesting.

http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/interactive/central-east-us-energy-system/

This visual breaks up the different types of energy and shows where each one is used (residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation). The numbers (to the left) are a bit confusing to me because I’m not quite sure what they represent. With that said, I do enjoy how interactive this page is. Just by hovering over the different types of energies, the visual becomes a bit clearer. It was surprising to me that in 2011, 1920 Trillion Btu was the estimated energy usage. I wonder what these numbers would be like now, especially during quarantine.

How We Use Energy:

http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-use/

This section of the website is very helpful as it gives some background of the topic. I specifically like the quizzes on the side of the page because they keep the reader engaged and interested. The statistics are also very interesting to read. I like how the reader can look more into a specific topic that interests them. For example, 28% of all energy in the United States is used to transportation.

At Home:

http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/interactive/understanding-efficiency/

One great feature of this website is that they break up energy usage into homes (including televisions, lightbulbs, and washing machines) and road life. The “At Home” section is very interesting and even allows the reader to turn that dial in the middle of the screen to view the specific number of energy used, coal burned, and CO2 vented.

In Conclusion..

This site is extremely interactive which is why it is so great. There are many great statistics and explanations of how energy is used. Another great feature is that the reader can dive in deeper on a particular category that intrigues them.

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Our Energy System

Post author By madridf1
Post date November 12, 2020

The Sankey Energy Visualization was good way to express energy consumption data to an audience. But it is more involved and requires a bit more effort in order to understand what is going on. The basic set up of the cables going to each industry such as commercial, residential, industrial, and transportation do a look a bit messy but require some focus to follow to each catagory. Below is a picture of the basic set up of this interactive visualalzation.

However, once understood, the Sankey Energy Visualization becomes a great source of information. One thing i did find intresting was that the entire nation relies on nuclear energy for electricty. I found this out by clicking on the nuclear energy tab. One thing that was not suprising was that regional energy system of MA, OH, PA and WV relies on coal for their main soure of electricity. This wasnt to suprising as these regions are dominated by coal. Below is a screen shot of how i found that out

All togther The Sankey Energy Visualization is a great interactive data visualization as long as you take a couple minutes to nagivate through it and understand it fully!

data visualizations Sankey Diagrams

Our Energy System

Post author By borneok
Post date November 11, 2020

The Sankey visualization about our energy system in America was rather interesting by breaking down the percentages in the different energy sources that are used and by focusing on specific regions to give the reader is a better understanding. Below the Sankey diagram describes the regional energy region and the amount of energy sources it use in total. At first, it was difficult to understand what the numerals meant, but after studying it, it became a little clearer.

Coal is mostly used in this region for various purposes compared to the other sources.

On the Road: This is a breakdown on how much energy is lost before it reaches its original destination. The energy that is lost turns into toxic gas such as Carbon Dioxide. Interestingly, vehicles only use about 12% to 20% out of the 85.5% of energy for power while the rest is used as wasted heat.

Concern for the planet: Over the decades, lighting has been improved to save energy and help reduce pollution into the air. This visualization shows that much more needs to be done to save our planet. Since America burns a high percentage of Coal based on the Sankey diagrams, LED bulbs have been encouraged in many public places because it burns less Coal and it is cheaper.

Overall, the Sankey diagram is very interesting to use to describe data, but it is important that when using this type of diagram only the relevant information should be used to remove confusion and misunderstanding. As for our energy system, the data allowed the reader to understand just how much energy is wasted daily and the process that occurs to transport the energy to our homes, vehicles and jobs. With this, we should do our part by monitoring what we do with our electricity and try to save energy as best as we can.

Sankey Diagrams

Our Energy System

Post author By vazque34
Post date November 10, 2020