The Importance of Energy Return on Investment

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E.R.O.I. is the acronym for Energy Return on Energy Embested. It's a ratio between how much energy do you invest to have an energy system providing you energy back? So, here the idea is that you want to build an energy system that is going to provide you 100 energy units over its lifetime. And so on this energy system should require much less than 100 energy units because if not, then you have a net loss. But basically we need between five and fifteen E.R. O.I. standard in industrial modern societies as in USA or Europe.

On this episode, global systems researcher Iñigo Capellán Pérez joins Nate to discuss net energy analysis, and its use as a tool in analyzing the feasibility of an entire system. While net energy analysis is complex and polarized, some form of it will be necessary to guide society into a resource-constrained future. The energy outlook of a technology changes when scaled up to meet the needs of a larger society. Many models and EROI analyses that fail to take a system-wide view and only look at a single technology use case, only reflect the partial net energy story. When looking at the huge scale-up needed for ‘solutions’ such as Green Growth and Net Zero Transitions, do the hopes for renewable technologies hold up the lifestyles we’ve come to expect over the last century of fossil surplus? Do our policymakers and leaders have the full picture to make competent decisions? How can we best use these tools to make creative responses to guide us through a Great Simplification?

About Iñigo Capellán Pérez:

Iñigo is an Industrial Engineer currently doing research with The Group of Energy, Economy and Systems Dynamics (GEEDS) of the University of Valladolid. He holds a Master degree in Electric Energy and Sustainable Development and a PhD in Economics with his dissertation on "Development and Application of Environmental Integrated Assessment Modelling towards Sustainability" at the University of the Basque Country. His research interests focus on the analysis and modeling of the energy-economy-environment systems, the transition to renewable energies in the context of the depletion of fossil fuels and climate mitigation and the technical and social transformations towards sustainability.

For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/78-iigo-capelln-prez

To watch this video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/m9VFYTXSwNw