Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Ecological Economics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Ecological Economics, 146, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.11.005
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy Returns and The Long-run Growth of Global Industrial Society
AU - Jarvis, Andrew
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Ecological Economics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Ecological Economics, 146, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.11.005
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - The extreme interconnectedness of energy and economic systems will tend to confound any attempt to estimate the energy return on investment at anything other than the global scale. Here, I apply a very simple model of global energy use to specify the dynamic characteristics of global-scale Energy Returns On Investment (EROIG). This suggests that the observed long-run relative growth rate of ~ 2.5% yr− 1 in global primary energy use is associated with an equilibrium return from infrastructure investments of 2:1, with returns accruing with a time constant of 40 years. The analysis also attempts to show how growth leads to reductions in the supply efficiency of energy, and how this decline is offset by increases in the efficiency with which industrial society can extract useful work from primary energy flows. This observed preservation of the overall energy efficiency of the global energy system implicates variations in the decay/decommissioning rate of infrastructure in observed ‘long-wave’ like variations in the relative growth rate of global primary energy use, and hence EROIG.
AB - The extreme interconnectedness of energy and economic systems will tend to confound any attempt to estimate the energy return on investment at anything other than the global scale. Here, I apply a very simple model of global energy use to specify the dynamic characteristics of global-scale Energy Returns On Investment (EROIG). This suggests that the observed long-run relative growth rate of ~ 2.5% yr− 1 in global primary energy use is associated with an equilibrium return from infrastructure investments of 2:1, with returns accruing with a time constant of 40 years. The analysis also attempts to show how growth leads to reductions in the supply efficiency of energy, and how this decline is offset by increases in the efficiency with which industrial society can extract useful work from primary energy flows. This observed preservation of the overall energy efficiency of the global energy system implicates variations in the decay/decommissioning rate of infrastructure in observed ‘long-wave’ like variations in the relative growth rate of global primary energy use, and hence EROIG.
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.11.005
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.11.005
M3 - Journal article
VL - 146
SP - 722
EP - 729
JO - Ecological Economics
JF - Ecological Economics
SN - 0921-8009
ER -