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Page added on September 11, 2015
A Modern Equation For Energy
The global energy landscape continues to change with more and more renewable energy sources and diversified energy systems becoming a substantial component of the energy infrastructures across the world. Given the onset of these new system, the overarching return of the diverse energy sources will become an important factor in the future design of the world’s energy mix. One important factor of that equation is the economic return, which determines how much profit investors can expect to make on a given energy technology. Economic return drives many energy development, such as the recent boom in the residential solar industry across the US and the EU, which has been motivated by falling solar module prices that have catalyzed innovative and profitable business models.
Installed Solar Capacity Across the World – Source: The Guardian
Yet, as energy systems across the world continue to develop in diverse directions, including the surge of microgrids and novel storage technologies to aid their development, another metric of return should become more relevant when making future energy decisions. This metric is the named the Energy Return on Energy Invested or EROEI for short. The concept of the metric is fairly simple: The EROEI factor equals the Energy Output of a given energy source, divided by the Energy Input required to produce the usable energy. In the of a gallon of gasoline, for example, the energy output would be the energy extracted from burning that gallon in the motor of a car, whereas the energy input would contain the energy required to extract the crude oil from the well, the energy used in the refining process of oil to gasoline, the energy consumed in the transportation of the oil to the refinery and the transportation of the gasoline to the car, as well as other miscellaneous energy cost that along the way. A good EROEI ensures that a given energy sources will produce more energy over its lifetime than was required to make it functional, making EROEI an important metric.
The EROEI calculations of many fossil fuels and further traditional energy sources often involve relatively straightforward energy outputs, with some uncertainties on the energy input side. However, the EROEI of newer energy sources, especially wind and solar power, involve many uncertainties in both the energy output and energy input calculations, which can lead to many diverging numbers for various technologies. Moreover, geography becomes a critical factor in the EROEI of many renewable energy technologies, as the location largely influences the energy output of renewables: A solar module in the Arizona dessert, for example, will produce more energy over its lifetime than a solar module on a rooftop in Massachusetts. Additionally, renewable energy technologies often require energy storage mechanisms to function effectively within a larger system, such as in a microgrid, which further adds to the energy input costs required to make the larger system functional. Given the novelty of many storage technologies, the energy costs of many of these systems still remain uncertain, however, current storage technologies as outlined here normally have substantial energy input costs associated with them, leading to unfavorable EROEI for many renewable + storage energy systems.
Due to the factors outlined above, many renewable energy systems tend to have unfavorable EROEI factors when compared to more traditional energy sources, such as fossil fuels, hydropower and nuclear energy. A recent study by Weißbach et al. outlines some EROEI for many energy sources in Germany. The figure below summarizes their essential findings:
EROEI Values For Common Energy Sources – Source: Weißbach et al.
Weißbach et al. calculated that the economic threshold for an EROEI to be a viable energy source in a developed economy, such as Germany, should be ~7 to maintain the energy requirements of the country. As seen from the graph above, many new renewable energy technologies fail to meet this requirement, especially when combined with storage system (referred to as the “buffered” state in the figure). While other studies have obtained differing EROEI values for the various energy technologies, the general agreement suggests that renewable energy technologies have significantly lower EROEI than traditional energy sources, indicating that an energy infrastructure solely based on solar and wind energy sources is unfeasible with current technologies. However, a energy system of renewable energy technologies combined with traditional carbon neutral sources with high EROEI, such as hydropower and nuclear energy, are already being developed: France, a country that has traditionally used nuclear power to supply its energy demands, is moving to a more and more carbon neutral system, and the province of Ontario, Canada, has been combining its hydropower capacity with increasing solar and wind power installations to enable an energy infrastructure without coal as an energy carrier.
The EROEI metric should be taken as a caution that the current energy challenge is extraordinarily complex. Additionally, a future energy system that is both environmentally and economically sustainable will require substantial innovation with smart and resourceful system that can integrate newer energy sources as significant carriers of the infrastructure. However, technological advancement of energy generating and storage technologies are not the only way in which the return on energy for the system can be enhanced. Demand-response systems, which try to minimize energy loss and thereby reduce buffering requirements, will also help increase EROEI values of modern energy systems. In the end, it will most likely be the interactions of various systems within the energy sphere that will yield the most innovative and also most viable solutions.
31 Comments on "A Modern Equation For Energy"
Makati1 on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 8:14 am
More bullshit from the techie crowd. We’re goin’ down baby! Nothing you can do to stop it now. About 50 years too late to even try.
Not to mention that the money and energy to make those ‘possible’ changes is not coming.
ghung on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 8:18 am
So poorly written it’s hard to take seriously (Berkely?!). Anyway, nothing here we haven’t been discussing for years.
onlooker on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 8:40 am
Yep, way too little too late!
Kenz300 on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 8:47 am
Nuclear energy is too costly and too dangerous.
Remember the ongoing disasters at Chernobyl and Fukishima…….
How many billions will it cost to store the nuclear waste FOREVER and who will pay for it.
There are safer, cleaner and cheaper ways to generate electricity.
The Year Humans Got Serious About Climate Change — NYMag
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/sunniest-climate-change-story-ever-read.html
penury on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 9:41 am
Kenz300 asks”How many billions will it cost to store the nuclear waste FOREVER and who will pay for it.” We will talk about storage, and other mitigation, however at the end of the day all we can do is talk, act busy and hope people think we are making progress. It is a “feel good” for the people but not useful.
BobInget on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 11:25 am
Don’t count out Nuclear forever.
While in its current configuration, nukes are indeed too expensive and dangerous, keep in
mind, UK, France, US and Soviet Union developed technology 60 years ago to
bolster supplies of bomb making materials.
Japan bought its technology from the US
Iran from Russia. ‘
Now, nuclear weapons are useless in asymmetrical warfare we find ourselves engaged, we have warheads a plenty.
rockman on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 11:57 am
EROEI is as unimportant to the decision making process to developing an alt as it is to drilling a well. It matters not how high the EROEI of any alt might be if the economics don’t support the investment. As costs come down it will help. The big problem will remain: the upfront capex of the alt compared to the lower cost of continuing BAU. That’s where most projections fail: they don’t amortize the alt capex investment.
Pennsyguy on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 3:05 pm
I think that low EROI can be “The Silent Killer” of economies. It may be obscure and hard to measure, bout it is as real as carbon monoxide.
The U.S. become the most powerful and prosperous nation in history when it was the largest oil producer and exporter with the EROI of Texan oil fields of 100:1 at the well head, per Chas. Hall, et al.
Nony on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 3:37 pm
Companies make their decisions based on $$, not EROI.
GregT on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 3:45 pm
No EROI, no $$.
beammeup on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 4:15 pm
Rock – It may not matter to the decision making process, but it matters a lot to society at large over the long haul
Boat on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 7:05 pm
What about omen. They will use solar to heat up their oil fields. How do you figure that energy used.
Makati1 on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 7:20 pm
BobInget, don’t count out a nuclear exchange just yet. I would say that we are closer than ever to a “Duck & Cover” event.
Truth Has A Liveral Bias on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 8:33 pm
Personally I can’t wait for the collapse. Fat stupid Americans everywhere asking ‘what’s going on?’; no doubt blaming the perceived crisis on Democrats or Muslims of gay marriage. I think many people world wide will ride the collapse no problem. Remote communities in Africa might hardly notice. But America, where you gotta burn a gallon of gas to go get a gallon of milk and the keystone of the economy is driving around looking at show homes, is going down hard. The world is laughing while you suffer.
Boat on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 9:09 pm
Truth,
Your very strange. Your issues have issues.
tahoe1780 on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 11:26 pm
Interesting site – http://alternativeenergy.procon.org/
GregT on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 11:46 pm
“Interesting site”
One really should wonder what is motivating those who say that alts can save modern industrial society and maintain BAU. They are either trying not to panic the herd, or they flunked basic arithmetic, badly.
GregT on Fri, 11th Sep 2015 11:48 pm
Boat said;
“Truth,
Your very strange. Your issues have issues.”
Completely agree with you Boat. Except that I prefer to address him as bias, not much truth going on there.
ulenspiegel on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 1:22 am
Authors of a paper that uses wind turbines which are not longer sold on one hand and sells brochure data for other sources do not lie but provide irrelvant data, esp. when overestiomating the demand for storage at the same time.
Their EROIE values are a joke.
Davy on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 6:29 am
Thanks Greg, that’s why I like you. You are fair and balanced with those American issues that need critical review. The Cat from Montreal who uses Truth in is board name is and extremist. It is extremism that hurts the quality of our board. At this profound time of change it is critical that our message get out. This is a doom and corn message alike. I disagree with many of the cornucopian positions but I do agree doom must be tempered and honed. Rash doom decisions could be counterproductive at the individual or societal level. The message is somewhere in between as the truth always is. We need to get as close to that message of truth now as possible because our collective survival depends on it.
Davy on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 7:23 am
Tahoe, we here on this board through our daily battle between the dooms and the corns are doing a similar pro and con. AltE is profoundly important as an additional tool to battle our energy descent. There are hundreds of tools, skills, policies, attitudes, and lifestyles that must be embraced. In this respect AltE is only a part of the equation.
Nothing can save our status quo of increasing growth and development of consumption and population. When I say nothing I mean no new technology or some super giant oil reservoir. This is a baked into the cake systematic dynamic issue. The momentum of growth is over because of limits and destruction of our underlying natural support systems. This is something we must acknowledge and quickly before serious systematic decay prevents needed adjustment and mitigation.
We have a short window of decision making that could make a difference. We have a window to prepare people for the consumption and population descent coming. We have a window to make the pain and suffering less. We have a window to motivate and give people purpose.
This is going to come down to a shortage of food and energy to run a complex high population society. The global society has a minimum complexity, confidence and cooperative level below which it collapses. All locals have been delocalized in an unhealthy dependence on this global. All locals have been delocalized in the name of efficiency and comparative advantage into monocultures in the global cog. We have critical nodes that matter more than others but all are connected and dependent like parts of the human body.
Once we do embrace descent policies the admission and the acts of adjusting to descent will be the end of globalism because the solutions are local, slow, and less. This does not jive with the narrative and requirements of growth to maintain globalism and complexity. This global system besides having a minimum operating level of its complexity, cooperation, and confidence also has a networks that must be maintained with resources and energy. This is part of the complexity element of just in time global production and distribution. This will have to be abandoned as unsustainable with local, slow, and less. There can be global trade but vastly reduced.
Once this path is taken globalism will decay quickly. The question is can we even make this change or will this change just bring on an end we could delay a few years. We could live comfortably for another decade as an example of acting out a terminal illness patient’s diagnosis. Dr. Dude Doomer Davy says you have 10 years then it is over. That is a critical question for plan B’s. Is there even a plan B? I know there are no status quo plan B’s beyond let’s say 10 years but there may be a transitional plan B that is less painful and offers some kind of future. If there is no future why bother? This is a profound question for dooms and corns alike!
I feel considering climate change, ecological destruction, and overpopulation we could slow these down. By initiating a crisis now we could begin a preparation. Crisis would force change and eliminate poor lifestyles and attitudes. Much of our time is spent in consumerism or unneeded leisure. We could be using that time and energy in preparation. Yet, it is far easier to talk about then implement.
Implementation of a back to the land policy is our only answer. Fossil fuel agricultural and global distribution will decay rapidly. All of us are dependent on these vital components of modern life. Even those who are off the grid so to speak are surrounded by people who could go desperate and overwhelm their localized agriculture.
Long story short is which path? Live comfortably for a few more years or pull the trigger on change? AltE is part of that change but it is no answer. It has good applications in emergency services and end users applications.
I feel the large AltE power farms are going to be stranded assets when the power down gathers speed and the vast centralized grid destabilizes. When the complexity of IT breaks down so will AltE. All large power generation assets are in the same boat. If you can’t get fuel or people to them they will be stranded. If vital command and control of IT breaks down things stop. Everything needs constant service and maintenance which can’t stop.
These are examples of the choices facing us. So many choices and currently a cornucopian societal attitude of technological development that claims optimistically we will overcome these obstacles. This narrative is dangerous and false but the alternative of crisis initiation is dangerous but I feel true. Either way the status quo ends dangerously. I always choose the truth over the alternative.
Makati1 on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 9:50 am
Truth, you are telling to much truth. LOL
I like the gallon of gas for a gallon of milk. My sister lives 12 miles from anything. My parents live the same distance. No one I know lives within a reasonable walking distance of necessities.
shortonoil on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 10:18 am
“This metric is the named the Energy Return on Energy Invested or EROEI for short.”
The author of the article is using the term ERoEI incorrectly. The term was originally coined by me in 2004. The term ERoEI was meant to differentiate between EROI, which had been used extensively including in the the biological sciences since the 1930’s.
Energy Returned on Energy Invested is a time, and position dependent variable. For example, the EROI is different at the well head, than it is at the refinery gate, than it is at the end consumer. It is also different today than it was a year ago. ERoEI was explicitly defined as the Energy Returned on Energy Invested at the “well head” on day 1. It refers specifically to petroleum. For other applications the term EROI should be used to prevent confusion.
That definition was presented in the 2004 paper, “Available Energy Produced from the extraction of US crude oil”. An excerpt of that paper was posted here at PO News in 2008.
Available Energy
http://peakoil.com/forums/available-energy-t39163.html?hilit=%20Availability
ERoEI can be a very useful metric in determining the the overall social, economic benefit of a petroleum project. In our report, “Depletion: a determination for the world’s petroleum reserve” we show that at an ERoEI of 6.9:1 a oil well reaches a WOR (water oil ratio) of 40 to 45:1. That is the point (a water cut of between 97.5 and 97.8%) where reservoir engineers usually shut in a well as they are considered no longer economically viable.
The petroleum industry has never considered ERoEI as an important metric for the simple reason that they sell barrels of oil. Oil’s overall economic benefit is of no significance to them, as long as they could find a profitable market for their liquid hydrocarbon production. The quantity of low energy delivery hydrocarbons has now reached the point where they are slowing the world’s economy, and subsequently forcing down the price of oil. Poorer quality oil such as shale, bitumen, ultra deep water and high sulfur extra heavy are being priced out of the market. This will continue until the ERoEI of the average barrel increases to a sustainable level. The ERoEI of the average barrel of conventional crude (API 30 – 45) is now 8.9:1.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
Kenz300 on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 10:41 am
Time to wind down the use of fossil fuels and move to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources.
Wind and solar are the future……
Solar Beats Gas in Colorado – Renewable Energy World
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/solar-beats-gas-in-colorado.html
—————
US Wind Energy Selling At Record Low Price of 2.5 Cents per kWh – Renewable Energy World
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/us-wind-energy-selling-at-record-low-price-of-2-5-cents-per-kwh.html
ghung on Sat, 12th Sep 2015 10:53 am
Mak said: “BobInget, don’t count out a nuclear exchange just yet. I would say that we are closer than ever to a “Duck & Cover” event.”
Yeah, Mak, some others would agree. The “Doomsday Clock” was reset at the beginning of the year. These guys seem to think that climate change will be the big straw that breaks the MAD Camels back:
“From: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board
To: Leaders and citizens of the world
Re: It is only three minutes to midnight
In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.
In 1984, as the United States began a major defense build-up that included the pursuit of a potentially destabilizing ballistic missile defense system, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union reached an icy nadir. “Every channel of communications has been constricted or shut down; every form of contact has been attenuated or cut off. And arms control negotiations have been reduced to a species of propaganda,” the Bulletin wrote then, in explaining why the hands of the Doomsday Clock had been moved to three minutes to midnight, the closest they had been to catastrophe since the early days of above-ground hydrogen bomb testing.
Today, more than 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board have looked closely at the world situation and found it highly threatening to humanity—so threatening that the hands of the Doomsday Clock must once again be set at three minutes to midnight, two minutes closer to catastrophe than in 2014.
Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena in the past year, reflecting continued advancement of renewable energy technologies, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Absent a dramatic course correction, the countries of the world will have emitted enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by the end of this century to profoundly transform Earth’s climate, harming millions upon millions of people and threatening many key ecological systems on which civilization relies.
At the same time, efforts to reduce world nuclear arsenals have stalled. The disarmament process has ground to a halt, with the United States and Russia embarking on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties—and other nuclear weapons holders joining in this expensive and extremely dangerous modernization craze.
The science is clear: Insufficient action to slash worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases can produce global climatic catastrophe. Even a so-called “limited” nuclear weapons exchange will produce massive casualties and severe effects on the global environment. We implore the political leaders of the world to take coordinated, quick action to drastically reduce global emissions of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide, and shrink nuclear weapons arsenals.
We also implore the citizens of the world to demand action from their leaders. The threat looms over all of humanity. Humanity needs to respond now, while there is still time.”
I don’t think they’re listening…. I’ve often considered that, as climate change and resource depletion take a toll on society’s ability to survive, desperation will push governments to take more desperate measures.
marmico on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 9:50 am
An excerpt of that paper was posted here at PO News in 2008.
Thank you very much for pointing out that you were a fuctard in 2008 with “Available Energy Produced” and a fuctard in 2015 with “ETP”.
Davy on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 10:49 am
Marmi, has to go online and “beat the dog” because his itty bitty penny stock portfolio is doing so bad. He is so frustrated and pissed off because of his failure of a life. Marm, why don’t you migrate somewhere we don’t need the noise that comes out of your suck.
marmico on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 11:24 am
No, the quart shy of oil buries himself in his self-induced fuctardland, you fucking demented innumerate word salad prattle asshole.
apneaman on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 11:30 am
marmipuke, what’s wrong reality got ya down? Go reread “The Prize” that i’ll give you a lift. It’s like Red Bull for corns.
ghung on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 11:37 am
Marm said: “No, the quart shy of oil buries himself in his self-induced fuctardland…. “
Being a quart shy of oil beats the shit out of being utterly devoid of good character, eh Marm?
marmico on Sun, 13th Sep 2015 12:46 pm
Fuck you ghung. You are a selfish unproductive dipshit who wouldn’t know about specialization of labor unless your spouse worked.
The EROI literature says that oil EROI was 15:1 in 1930 and 10:1 in 2010.
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0301421513003856-gr5.jpg
Oil efficiency has increased 2 times+ since 1930 which completely offsets the EROI decline.
A bunch of innumerate fuctards protecting the quart shy of oil fuctard.