Post-Petroleum Terminology

In the midst of preparing and organizing LetTheSunWork, we realized one day that if we were not careful, we would lapse into a peculiar form of jargon that seems quite natural to those who are post-petroleum literate but can be confusing, off-putting, and impenetrable to those who are coming to these issues for the first time. So here’s a rundown of post-petroleum terminology. We hope to update it as we add information:

  • EROEI – Energy Returned over Energy Invested. One of the foundations of post-petroleum energy literacy. It describes the relationship between what we get out of an energy source, whether conventional oil, solar power, biofuels, etc. and the energy that must be used to get it. Read more about EROEI.
  • Post-Petroleum – relating to the age after the arrival of peak oil, when the price of petroleum and all things needing petroleum increases dramatically.