Jamie Bull at oCo Carbon Blog has conducted a literature review of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for electricity generation technologies.
He also calculated Energy Internal Rate of Return (EIRR), a concept I promoted here and here to incorporate the timing of energy flows. Timing of energy flows is as important as total energy flows because renewable electricity generation typically requires almost all energy to be invested up front, while fossil generation technologies spread out this investment over the lifetime of the plant.
Jamie’s numbers make fossil generation technologies look much worse than mine did, but mine came from just one report and some simplifying assumptions, while his were based on a literature search. We’re still trying to determine the source of the discrepancy, but until we do, you should assume that his numbers are more accurate.
Photovoltaics Literature Survey | Pafos Photos said
[...] on a literature search. cleanenergywonk.com [...]