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108 comments on Welcome to The Oil Drum: EROI
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108 comments on Welcome to The Oil Drum: EROI
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A salient comment by Boof, and in fact I personally use "net energy" as a conversational term for the same reasons; TOD:Net Energy would probably be a lot more intuitively accepted by new TOD readers.
Certainly here on TOD acronyms shouldn't be a problem per se among the cognoscenti. I know what the post is about. But it's rather the point that people who DON'T currently understand it not be hindered by unnecessarily poor terminology.
I'd say that the most important messages to get across here are that there are absolute thresholds beyond which energy carriers and mineral resources are not available even if they physically exist; and that the ER/EI ratio may be the one of the best quantitative determinants of the level of complexity which human societies can maintain. The words "invested" and "investment" should probably not be used at all due to the fiscal default connotation...
allright, that's it, I'm off to bed. g'nite gang.
Or maybe just TOD:Net
;-)
Nah, that sounds fishy as well as fiscal.
When it comes down to it, EROEI vs EROI is an add homonym argument. ER/EI would be a lot better, but it doesn't roll off the tongue well. "net energy" is probably the best compromise.
Other alternates might include words not currently in use, so one would be obliged to refer to the definition. Off the top of my head, I might suggest
e-mojo
monkey mischief factor
entropoopy
ploofmibble
gettability
hagens (where a 5 hagen source corresponds to a 5/1 EROEI)
etc
None of these are perfect, but none are as inherently confusing as is EROI. Just saying.