Extended-exergy based energy return on investment method and its application to shale gas extraction in China

Chen, Yingchao; Feng, Liu; Song-lin, Tang; Wang, Jianliang; Huang, Chen; Höök, Mikael

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120933

Cited by 20 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…There are a range of resources and products in the oil industry, so to limit spurious comparisons, this review was limited to conventional and shale oil production, inclusive of both on-shore and off-shore production [23,[38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. Studies that calculated oil and gas EROI together were excluded since the individual values could not be separated, e.g., Brockway et al [28].…”

Section: Literature On Eroi Of Thermal Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Net energy, that is, the energy remaining after accounting for the energy “cost” of extraction and processing, is the “profit” energy used to support modern society. Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is a popular metric to assess the profitability of energy extraction processes, with EROI > 1 indicating that more energy is delivered to society than is used in the extraction process. Over the past decade, EROI analysis in particular has grown in popularity, resulting in an increase in publications in recent years. The lack of methodological consistency, however, among these papers has led to a situation where inappropriate comparisons are being made across technologies. In this paper we provide both a literature review and harmonization of EROI values to provide accurate comparisons of EROIs across both thermal fuels and electricity producing technologies. Most importantly, the authors advocate for the use of point-of-use EROIs rather than point-of-extraction EROIs as the energy “cost” of the processes to get most thermal fuels from extraction to point of use drastically lowers their EROI. The main results indicate that PV, wind and hydropower have EROIs at or above ten while the EROIs for thermal fuels vary significantly, with that for petroleum oil notably below ten.

show abstract

Section: Literature On Eroi Of Thermal Fuelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Juxtaposing some important factors with energy or focusing on the use value of energy may be promising new research directions. For example, Huang et al (2019) have come up with EROC and EROW, and Chen et al (2020) have proposed ExEROI.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most studies, the calculation is based on standard EROI, which only includes direct and indirect energy and material inputs and outputs. However, standard EROI is highly inaccurate for some energy sources, such as shale gas, biomass energy, and solar energy (Chen et al, 2020). If the input and output factors are not determined strictly, EROI will be one-sided and misleading.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Explanation of Energy Return on Investment From an Entropy Perspective

Chen

Song-lin

et al. 2021

Front. Energy Res.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Low-carbon energy transformation is a major trend in world energy development, and measures to mitigate carbon emissions can vary substantially in terms of the energy they require. A common method of evaluating energy use in energy resource exploitation is energy return on investment (EROI). One of the criticisms of EROI concerns uncertainty regarding the input and output factors for the calculation. To make the issue clear, we interpret EROI in terms of entropy, which is the most basic concept in physics. We consider an energy resource exploitation system to be a kind of dissipative structure and construct a basic entropy analysis framework for an energy resource exploitation system. We then derive the relationship between EROI and entropy change. The theory of EROI is consistent with the basic requirement for a dissipative structure, which is that the total entropy change must be negative. EROI is a method of using entropy theory to evaluate energy resource exploitation. It is inappropriate and unnecessary to quantify all factors as energy units as the input and output factors are multidimensional while energy is a one-dimensional standard. Future development of the EROI method should be guided by entropy theory. A series of EROI related indicators will increase its application and policy significance.

show abstract

“…Cheng et al [60] analyzed domestic and imported oil and gas EROI for China. Chen et al [61] extended previous EROI estimates of China shale gas extraction, considering labor, auxiliary services and environmental factors.…”

Section: Eroi Of Gas At Local Regional or National Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shale-Tight gas estimates are derived from a compilation of sources [44,54,56,61]. The low estimate is the first quartile of the collected values, the high estimate of the third quartile and the medium, taken as the average.…”

Section: Erois Estimatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Global Long-Term EROI of Gas: A Net-Energy Perspective on the Energy Transition

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Natural gas is expected to play an important role in the coming low-carbon energy transition. However, conventional gas resources are gradually being replaced by unconventional ones and a question remains: to what extent is net-energy production impacted by the use of lower-quality energy sources? This aspect of the energy transition was only partially explored in previous discussions. To fill this gap, this paper incorporates standard energy-return-on-investment (EROI) estimates and dynamic functions into the GlobalShift bottom-up model at a global level. We find that the energy necessary to produce gas (including direct and indirect energy and material costs) corresponds to 6.7% of the gross energy produced at present, and is growing at an exponential rate: by 2050, it will reach 23.7%. Our results highlight the necessity of viewing the energy transition through the net-energy prism and call for a greater number of EROI studies.

show abstract

Extended-exergy based energy return on investment method and its application to shale gas extraction in China

Cited by 20 publications

References 56 publications

Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization

Energy Return on Investment of Major Energy Carriers: Review and Harmonization

An Explanation of Energy Return on Investment From an Entropy Perspective

Assessing Global Long-Term EROI of Gas: A Net-Energy Perspective on the Energy Transition

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About