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Solar — it's not just a clean power source producing zero emissions and almost no local water impact, it's also now one of the best choices on the basis of how much energy you get back for your investment. And with climate change impacts rising, solar's further potential to take some of the edge off the harm that's coming down the pipe makes speeding its adoption a clear no-brainer.
In 2016, according a trends analysis based on this report by the Royal Society of London, the energy return on energy investment (EROEI) for oil appears to have fallen below a ratio of 15 to 1 globally. In places like the United States, where extraction efforts increasingly rely on unconventional techniques like fracking, that EROEI has fallen to 10 or 11 to 1 or lower.
Meanwhile, according to a new study by the Imperial College of London, solar energy's return on investment ratio as of 2015 was 14 to 1 and rising. What this means is that a global energy return on investment inflection point between oil and solar was likely reached at some time during the present year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23 2016, @03:48PM
These numbers are based on wishful thinking about solar panels durability and omitting some of the energy used during production and probably completely omitting energy used during transporting them. Real EROEI is probably somewhere between 3 and 6. Better than in 70s when it was below 1 or food and nature preserves to fuel plants that have around 1.2 but still far from oil. Also note that coal has EROEI around 50 and uranium probably several hundred.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday December 23 2016, @05:08PM
And does that "Real EROI" for oil factor in all the externalized costs of oil? The total cost of all the wars fought in the Middle East since WWI? And the value of the subsidies and tax breaks given to oil companies? Not to mention the total cost of oil spill cleanups paid by the government? And the total lost income and and oil-related health expenses of all the people impacted by various oil spills?
I mean just because none of those costs are included in the market price of oil doesn't mean they aren't directly attributable to its use. And heck, we haven't even discussed the expected cost of adapting to global warming yet - that's liable to start getting extremely expensive by the end of the century.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday December 23 2016, @08:23PM
But, how would doing that result in oil industry execs getting raises?