The potential for improving energy efficiency in the Netherlands up to the year 2000 is discussed with the help of a database containing 300 energy conservation techniques. Investigations show that technically it is feasible to reduce emissions by 41% by applying all the energy conservation techniques. The policy of the Dutch government is directed to increase energy efficiency between 1990 and 2000 by about 20%. From our study we conclude that this figure is feasible and can be reached by applying energy conservation techniques with net negative CO2 emission reduction costs. However, we also conclude that stronger incentives for energy conservation are probably required than applied at present.@en

A monitoring method was developed with which changes in the energy consumption of a country can be analyzed. A special feature of this method is that we used physical instead of economic indicators of activity wherever possible. The method distinguishes between the influences of improved energy efficiency and structural changes. With this method, the energy consumption in the Netherlands was studied for the period 1980-1990. The energy-to-GDP ratio decreased by 2.1% annually between 1980 and 1985 and by 0.3% between 1985 and 1990. A large part of this decrease can be attributed to the decreasing specific energy consumption in the subsectors.@en

Industrial energy consumption in the European Union has been studied, the focus being on specific energy consumption of various industrial sectors. An analysis is made of the main structural factors (e.g., primary or secondary production, product types) that affect energy efficiency. The industrial sub-sectors and production processes considered are those that are most important from an energy point of view, namely, oil refining, petrochemicals, ammonia, paper, cement, and steel production. These sectors consume 18% of the primary energy in the EU. There are considerable differences between the energy efficiencies of industries in EU member states. If each sector were to apply "best practice technology", then potential improvements in energy efficiency in the EU would be on average 15 ± 4% for oil refining, 21 ± 2% for ammonia, 25 ± 5% for paper, 13 ± 1% for cement, and 27 ± 3% for steel. No analysis can be made of possible improvements in the energy efficiency in the petrochemical industry because insufficient statistics are available. An improvement in the quality of international statistics is necessary to produce more reliable assessments.@en