Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization

Net energy, that is, the energy remaining after accounting for “cost” of extraction and processing, is “profit” used to support modern society. Energy Return on Investment (EROI) a popular metric assess profitability processes, with EROI > 1 indicating more delivered society than in process. Over past decade, analysis particular has grown popularity, resulting an increase publications recent years. The lack methodological consistency, however, among these papers led situation where inappropriate comparisons are being made across technologies. In this paper we provide both literature review harmonization values accurate EROIs thermal fuels electricity producing Most importantly, authors advocate use point-of-use rather point-of-extraction as processes get most from point drastically lowers their EROI. main results indicate PV, wind hydropower have at or above ten while vary significantly, petroleum oil notably below ten.