ABSTRACT
In this chapter we illustrate our proposed method of energy accounting built upon the various concepts presented in Chapters 7 and 8. More specifically, section 9.1 illustrates, using an empirical study referring to a multi-scale analysis of the energy metabolism of 14 countries of the European Union, the importance of adopting a dual accounting of energy flows, one referring to quantities measured in gross energy requirement (GER) and the second in quantities measured in net energy carriers (NEC). We show that when studying the characteristics of indi-vidual compartments of modern economies we obtain a different picture depending on the selected method of accounting.
