The official German energy balance includes energy flows for fuels (e.g. do-
mestic biogas production or oil imports). The crude oil import is counted totally independent of the purpose (producing energy or material). Material produced from oil or gas is officially called ‘non-fuel application energy (non-energy use)’. Used plastic can be burnt to produce electricity or heat for heating buildings. The import and export of such non-fuel application energy is officially not considered. This is the first major methodological inconsistency. This correspondence aims at ‘repairing’ this inconsistency partially by delivering a ‘supplementary energy trade balance’ based on the lower heating values (net calorific values) of the materials imported and exported.
 http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/10apr2011/989.pdf [2]