råenergien

Råenergien refers to the energy contained in natural resources as found in nature, prior to extraction or processing. It includes chemical energy in fossil fuels, kinetic and potential energy in hydro and wind resources, and radiant energy in sun and wind potentials that can be captured. The term is used mainly in energy accounting and resource assessments to express the upper bound of energy that could be accessed from a given resource base.

In practice, råenergien is not a directly exploitable quantity; its usable portion depends on technology and economics. For fossil fuels, the råenergien is the chemical energy content of the resource (often expressed as higher or lower heating value). For renewables, it can be represented by resource potential or intensity (e.g., solar irradiance, wind speeds).

Råenergien is related to primær energien (primary energy) in that both describe energy before conversion; however, primary energy typically includes realized transformations and losses across the energy system, while råenergien emphasizes the raw, unconverted stock.

Policy and planning use råenergien to gauge resource adequacy, sustainability, and transitions to lower-carbon energy, while acknowledging uncertainties in technology, access, and environmental limits. Critics note that the concept can be ambiguous without clear definitions of what counts as 'raw' and how units are applied.

See also: primær energi, energireserver, energibalanse, ressursforvaltning.