Alternative Energy Costs (EROI)

During winter, I always start thinking about alternative energy sources. In this months issue of Mother Earth News, they had an interesting article on the cost effectiveness on developing alternative energies. I think of alternative energy as those coming from things other than coal, oil and natural gas. There are many alternatives to these but some of them are more cost effective to develop and use than others.  Some alternative energy sources are wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, firewood, biodiesel, and geothermic. These are some of the most common. In addition to price there are cons and pros to each of these. For instance, nuclear produces radioactive waste that is hard to find a place to dispose it. Some, such as wind are better in specific geological areas.

The interesting thing about this article is it went in depth about energy return on investment (EROI). The term was coined by Dr. Charles Hall, professor of environmental science and forestry at the State University of New York. The EROI is presented as a ratio of energy produced to the energy consumed during production. The higher an energy source is above the 1:1 ratio the more cost effective it is to make.

Here are some interesting facts from the graph presented in the article. Domestic oil in the 1930's had a ratio of 100:1 which is really good where now it has about a 15:1 ratio. Most of this is because easy to obtain sources of domestic oil are decreasing and our demand for oil has increased tremendously. Of the alternative sources, hydroelectric comes in at 40:1, wind at about 30:1, solar at 10:1 and biodiesel at 5:1. The biggest thing this research shows us which new technologies might be the best to invest our time and energy into.

If you would like to see the whole article along with the graph, you can press on this link: EROI