Burning Water: A Comparative Analysis of the Energy Return on Water Invested |
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Authors: | Kenneth Mulder Nathan Hagens Brendan Fisher |
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Institution: | (1) Green Mountain College, One Brennan Circle, Poultney, VT 05764, USA;(2) Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, 617 Main St., Burlington, VT 05405, USA;(3) Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA |
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Abstract: | While various energy-producing technologies have been analyzed to assess the amount of energy returned per unit of energy
invested, this type of comprehensive and comparative approach has rarely been applied to other potentially limiting inputs
such as water, land, and time. We assess the connection between water and energy production and conduct a comparative analysis
for estimating the energy return on water invested (EROWI) for several renewable and non-renewable energy technologies using
various Life Cycle Analyses. Our results suggest that the most water-efficient, fossil-based technologies have an EROWI one
to two orders of magnitude greater than the most water-efficient biomass technologies, implying that the development of biomass
energy technologies in scale sufficient to be a significant source of energy may produce or exacerbate water shortages around
the globe and be limited by the availability of fresh water. |
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Keywords: | Biofuels EROEI Water Energy production Ethanol Energy crops |
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