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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 Saturday December 24 2016, @06:08AM
its more like: 1 unit of energy invested will unlock x(>1) amount of energy.
if 1 unit of energy would create x(>1) units of energy, it would require a overunity device.
obviously the energy is below our feet (oil, gas, coal) already but needs some "digging"
or investment of energy to become available.
same with sunshine. it bangs on the planet everyday. if you want to collect it,
then a certain amount of energy needs to be expended to be able to collect it.
EROI is thus not about money but about energy.
if solarpanels have a EROI of 15, it means that 1 solar panel can collect
enough sunshine energy to produce 15 more solar energy collecting panels.
however a EROI of 15 for oil doesn't means that you can create 15 more oil.
Oil, gas, coal will not go away, they are too convenient; rather it will become
obsolete to convert chemical oil-gas-coal energy into electrical energy.
the conversion efficiency is only between 35-70% (small combustion engine to big gas turbines).
Converting sunshine with solid-state solar panels is not a chemical process.
if we have a unlimited energy source on one side (sun) and a finite source on the other
and then invest energy and continue to use a conversion process with crappy efficiency
(above) then it should be obvious that pretty much everyone belongs in the loony bin.
over time, tapping the sun for electrical energy will make it very cheap and extremely
abundant then we need to figure out what stuff to do with it.
as it stands now, tapping a finite source, some things are not considered doing because of
limitations of the source.
for example, re-greening the sahara desert. it would need a gigantic amount of energy to do it
(and would contribute to "climate change" but in a good way) and isn't considered because the main source
of energy is too expensive to do it.
another: RE-freezing the north pole? again, gigantic amounts of energy required.
etc.