Concept
Energy Return on Investment
Also Known As EROI
Systems Measure
The ratio of usable energy a source delivers to the energy spent obtaining it. Early gushers returned perhaps a hundred to one, unconventional oil and biofuels far less, and the measure gives a physical floor beneath energy economics: a society cannot run for long on sources that return barely more energy than they consume. Published estimates vary widely with the chosen system boundaries, a known methodological dispute in the literature.
Facts
Disputed
Formulated YearNet-energy analysis debates trace to the 1970s; Charles A. S. Hall's 1984 paper on the cover of the journal Science is the widely cited landmark that popularized EROI as a named metric. Concept DomainEnergy systems analysis 1 Connections
Associated With
Biofuels, Energy Sources Biofuels are commonly cited among the lowest-EROI sources in production today, a point of debate in the energy transition literature.
Early conventional oil gushers are the textbook high-EROI case, commonly cited near a hundred to one.
Sources
1. Energy and Civilization: A History
Vaclav Smil, MIT Press, 2017
2. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationHistoryQuote, History
The concept would have its greatest exposure in 1984, with a paper by Hall that appeared on the cover of the journal Science.
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