Energy Return on Investment

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Basics

  • The energy that is returned, after all the energy used to produce, as well as maintain (and eventually dissasemble/recycle etc) the device/system for it's entire Product Life Cycle
  • One of the most important metrics in a LCA (Especially in power plants, or more likely in OSE's case smaller devices)
  • Also an intresting way to see technology develop, Photovoltaic Panels were considered very low, or even negative, in the early days, but are now ~10x Net Energy Gain
  • Another intresting usage of this metric is in analysing diminishing returns behind Fossil Fuel Phase Out , and the potential "economic Peak Oil / Resource X (in the case of areas such as Lithium Battery Recycling vs more mining) " (ie there may be some "unconventional petrolium reserves" that could be used, but the ERoEI is low enough to make it no longer viable as a business model, especially in comparison to ever cheaper renewable power / Bio-Petrochemicals

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