Burning Water: A Comparative Analysis of the Energy Return on Water Invested

Kenneth Mulder; Nathan Hagens; Brendan Fisher

doi:10.1007/s13280-009-0003-x

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1 February 2010 Burning Water: A Comparative Analysis of the Energy Return on Water Invested

Kenneth Mulder, Nathan Hagens, Brendan Fisher

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AMBIO: A J. of the Human Environment, 39(1):30-39 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-009-0003-x

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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Kenneth Mulder, Nathan Hagens, and Brendan Fisher "Burning Water: A Comparative Analysis of the Energy Return on Water Invested," AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 39(1), 30-39, (1 February 2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-009-0003-x

Received: 16 April 2008; Accepted: 1 October 2009; Published: 1 February 2010

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