Does oil have a high EROI?

EROI values for our most important fuels, liquid and gaseous petroleum, tend to be relatively high. World oil and gas has a mean EROI of about 20:1 (n of 36 from 4 publications) (Fig.

What is the EROI of oil shale?

Energy usage Due to technically more complex processes, the EROEI for oil shale is below the EROEI of about 20:1 for conventional oil extraction at the wellhead. A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the different oil shale deposits to vary between 0.7–13.3:1.

What is a good EROI?

An EROI sum of at least seven is required to be considered a viable and profitable energy source, while an EROI score of seven represents a break-even point.

What is the EROI of gasoline?

For example, gas and oil can have an EROI of 20:1, but in the case of tar sands, the EROI decreases to 4:1. The value for coal is usually higher and can be up to 46:1. Among the most compelling renewable energies, the EROI is 84:1 for hydroelectric generation and 18:1 for wind power (J. Lambert et al., 2012).

What is the EROI of biofuels?

For biofuels, the EROI reported is usually the external energy ratio, and it doesn’t include energy derived from, say, burning the stalks of sugarcane to help power the process of refining sugarcane juice into ethanol.

Is a low EROI good?

“A very low EROI means most people have to work in the energy-supply industries. One could reduce our EROI to 2.5:1 and survive, but there would be… [fewer] possibilities for other activities.” At the same time, he conceded that “EROIs make a little more sense for a finite fossil fuel resource, like an oil field.

What is the difference between oil shale and shale oil?

Key Takeaways. Oil shale is different than shale oil in that oil shale is essentially rock that contains a compound called kerogen, which is used to make oil. Shale oil refers to hydrocarbons that are trapped in formations of shale rock.

What is shale oil vs crude oil?

The difference between shale oil and crude oil comes down to how it is extracted. Because shale oil is bound up tightly in impermeable rock, it is considered tight oil and requires hydraulic fracturing to be extracted. Crude oil can be drilled out conventionally.

What is the EROI of solar energy?

Studies have given figures for the EROI of solar energy as low as 3.9 and as high as 45.45.

What is the EROI of ethanol?

I drew on a meta-analysis that averaged six different estimates, giving an EROI of 1.4. Hammerschlag, “Ethanol’s Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature 1990–Present,” Environmental Science & Technology (2006) (link).

Why is a high EROI good?

A high EROI means you get a lot of energy out for very little energy expended. The reason hydroelectric and wind power do so well on this measure is mainly due to the relatively small amounts of energy needed to build dams and turbines – at least compared to building a nuclear power plant.

What is the EROI of nuclear energy?

An EROI of about 7 is considered break-even economically for developed countries, providing enough surplus energy output to sustain a complex socioeconomic system. The US average EROI across all generating technologies is about 40.

What is the EROI of hydrogen fuel cells?

For hydrogen the EROI is 1:4 or 1:5. In other words, it’s demonstrably negative. Nevertheless, it has its proponents, some of whom promote it as a more efficient way of storing electricity than lithium batteries.

Is petroleum cleaner than coal?

Petroleum (crude oil): Produces less CO2 emissions than coal during production. Scientists estimate that reserves may run out of oil in a century or two. Natural gas: The cleanest burning fossil fuel.

What is the EROI for oil and gas in the US?

The EROI for discovering oil and gas in the US has decreased from more than 1000:1 in 1919 to 5:1 in the 2010s, and for production from about 25:1 in the 1970s to approximately 10:1 in 2007 ( Guilford et al., 2011 ).

What does EROI stand for?

In energy economics and ecological energetics, energy return on investment ( EROI ), also sometimes called energy returned on energy invested ( ERoEI ), is the ratio of the amount of usable energy (the exergy) delivered from a particular energy resource to the amount of exergy used to obtain that energy resource.

What are the limitations of EROEI for oil?

• Lower values of the EROEI for oil cannot be identified with ‘depletion’. • An EROEI calculation is not an energy balance. • A correctly formulated EROEI is a ratio of energies, not of energy prices. Published work on EROEI which avoids these difficulties will be reviewed in what follows.

When did EROI peak for oil and gas production peak?

Recent work found that EROI for global oil and gas production peaked in 1999 and has since dropped [ 13 ], using global oil industry expenditures to estimate energy consumed.