Abstract
Since the efficiency of obtaining energy is decreasing, it is important to determine how the degradation in energy quality will influence society. Despite the rising importance of net energy, few quantitative studies have been conducted on the relationship between energy quality and quality of life (QoL). Energy return on investment on a society scale at a national level (EROIsoc) is used as an indicator of energy quality, energy consumption (EC) per capita is used to represent energy quantity, and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is used as an economic factor. Eight indices are used for QoL. Simple linear regression analysis is used to discuss the correlation coefficients between the three indicators (EROIsoc, GDP per capita, and EC per capita) and eight QoL indices for 29 OECD and 37 non-OECD countries, and their annual changes over the 25 years from 1990 to 2015. We demonstrate that the relationship between the three indicators and eight QoL indices changes annually and differs between OECD and non-OECD countries. We also demonstrate that although GDP per capita is the most influential factor among the three indicators for the Human Development Index (HDI), which is one of the best-known composite indices of well-being, the importance of GDP per capita for non-OECD countries has declined, especially in times of increasing energy prices, while the importance of EROIsoc for OECD countries has increased.
Highlights
Fossil fuel resources are among the most important global commodities and are essential for the production and distribution of the rest (Hall et al, 2014), the depletion of accessible fossil fuel reserves has outpaced improvements in technologies used to extract fuel (e.g., Gagnon et al, 2009)
If there are no sudden changes in gross domestic product (GDP) or energy consumption (EC), predicting energy prices might be the key to predicting EROIsoc
Since energy prices returned to their 2005 levels, the steep drop in prices will likely stop and the prices will remain steady in the future, resulting in a steady EROIsoc
Summary
Fossil fuel resources are among the most important global commodities and are essential for the production and distribution of the rest (Hall et al, 2014), the depletion of accessible fossil fuel reserves has outpaced improvements in technologies used to extract fuel (e.g., Gagnon et al, 2009). Guilford et al (2011) extended the work by Cleveland (2005) by including additional data, and estimated that the EROI for production for the United States’ oil industry dropped from roughly 24:1 in 1954 to 11:1 in 2007 They found that there is a clear inverse correlation between EROI and drilling rates, suggesting that depletion has more importance than technology in the U.S oil and gas industry. Gupta and Hall (2011) provided a review of the literature available on data for the EROI of the 12 sources of fuel/energy: oil and natural gas, coal, tar sands, shale oil, nuclear, wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, wave/tidal, and corn ethanol They pointed out that the EROI of the fossil fuels we depend on most are in decline, whereas the EROI for those fuels we hope to replace them with are lower than we have enjoyed in the past
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