The following is from
Democracy And Education, by John Dewey (Author) :
Chapter 1 Education as a Necessity of Life
1 Renewal of Life by Transmission.
The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. ...
As long as it (=the living thing) endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows.
生物和非生物之间最明显的区别，在于前者能通过更新维持自己的生存...
只要生物能持续存在，它就要尽力利用周围的能量。它利用光、空气、水分和土壤。所谓利用它们，就是说把它们变为自我保存的手段。只要生物不断地生长，它在利用环境时所消耗的能量 由其得到的回报进行补偿：它生长了（或直译：通过它所得的回报 得到更多的补偿）。
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the energy it expends ... is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows.
That's because it isn't a complete construction.The sentence says, in its basic active form, that the return it gets compensates for the energy it expends. This is then made passive, so we get inversion: the energy it expends is compensated for by the return it gets. Finally, "more than" is added, to say that the value of the return is not merely enough to compensate for the energy expended, but more than enough.
It expends some energy. It would not do that if there were not some return (reward), and the return in this case is it growing. This isn't a statement about energy balance but value: growing is more valuable to it than the energy it needed to expend in order to grow.
[生物消耗能量得以生长，生长就是回报。比起为生长而消耗的能量，生长更有价值。]
"Turn to account",利用, to derive profit or use from; turn to advantage；//
"More than compensated for by" is a reasonably common expression, although "compensated for" is often replaced with a term having similar meaning ("more than made up by" or "more than rewarded by" for example). It always means that the compensation is more than is necessary to satisfy fairness.
Q: Could I say the sentence without 'than'： 'the energy it expends... is more compensated for by the return it gets.'？
A: No. Apart from it not being idiomatic, it would change the meaning.
The meaning is not that the energy is more (compensated for than) something else might be compensated for.
The meaning is also not that the energy is more (compensated for than) the energy itself might be compensated for in different circumstances.
The meaning is that here we have a situation in which the cost (energy being expended) is being compared to the benefit (return, growth). If the value of the return were equal to the value of the energy, it would be a fair trade, and we could say that the energy is compensated for by the return, or perhaps that the energy is fairly compensated for by the return. But here the writer wants to say that the situation is biased in favour of the return, the trade is more than fair. That is how we get (more than) (compensated for by)...
Q: Maybe the difference is from different sentence structure: the meaning of 'A is more than + (noun) ’ is different from 'A is more than + verb+ed .." ?
A: Yes, pretty well. Think of "compensated for" as an adjective. Here is a simpler example: "I am more than grateful for the help you have given me."
More examples:
what you feel you lack in one regard you may be more than compensated for in another.
你觉得你在某一方面有欠缺，你也许在另一方面得到了更多的补偿。
such weaknesses are more than compensated for by well-developed acoustic sense. 这些缺陷完全可以被他们那高度发达的听觉系统所弥补。
more than compensated for by the increased costs arising from..//
The pluses more than compensated for the inconveniences involved in making the trip.
各种有利因素大大抵消了出行过程中的种种不便。
[主动语态是 involve the plus … in making the trip),【后置定语】more than compensated for the inconveniences 大于弥补各种不便./谓语:(are) involved 直译:大于弥补各种不便的有利因素 与进行这次出行有关(或包括在这次出行的过程中)。在这次出行的过程中,存在大大弥补各种不便的有利因素。
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