[Tanada]

Gail Tverberg has a new piece out just in time for Christmas. Her conclusion, Solar PV and Wind Turbine electricity are not nearly as high EROEI as their advocates would like us to believe. Much more, make that very much more at link below quote.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')pecific Problems with the EROEI of Solar PV

(1) Prospective EROEI calculations tend to have a bias toward what is “hoped for,” rather than serving as a direct calculation of what has been achieved. If the EROEI of an oil field, or of a hydroelectric plant that has been operation for many years, is desired, it is not terribly hard to find reasonable numbers for inputs and outputs. All a researcher needs to do is figure out pounds of concrete, steel, and other materials that went into the initial structure, as well as inputs needed on a regular basis, and actual outputs; with these, a calculation can be made. When estimates are made for new devices, the bias is always toward what is hoped to be achieved. How much electricity will a solar panel produce, if it is properly sited, properly maintained, maintenance costs are very low, the electric grid can actually use all of the electricity that the panel produces, and all parts of the system last for the expected life of the solar panel?

(2) All energy is given the same “weight,” whether it is high quality or low quality energy. Intermittent energy, such as is produced by solar PV, is in fact extremely low quality output, but there is no adjustment for this fact in the calculation. It counts the same as much better quality electrical output, such as that provided by hydroelectric.

(3) There is no charge for the use of capital. When capital goods such as solar panels are used to produce energy products, this has several negative impacts on the economy: (a) Part of the energy produced must go to pay for the interest and/or dividends related to long-term capital use, but there is energy cost assigned to this; (b) A country’s debt to GDP ratio tends to rise, as the economy is required to use ever more debt to finance all of the new capital goods; and (c) The wealth of the economy tends to become ever-more concentrated in the owners of capital goods, leaving workers less well off. EROEI calculations don’t charge for any of these deficiencies. These deficiencies are part of what makes it virtually impossible to scale up the use of wind and solar PV as a substitute for fossil fuels.

(4) EROEI indications tend to be artificially low, because they leave out hard-to-estimate costs. EROEI analyses tend to focus on amounts that are “easy to count.” For solar PV, the amount that is easiest to count is the cost of making and transporting the solar PV. Installation costs vary greatly from site to site, especially for home installations, so these costs are likely to be left out. Indirect benefits provided by governments, such as newly built roads to accommodate a new solar PV installation, are also likely to be omitted. The electric utility that has to deal with all of the intermittent electricity has to deal with a whole host of problems being dumped on it, including offsetting the impact of intermittency and upgrading the newly added electricity so that it truly meets grid standards. There are individual studies (such as here and here) that look directly at some of these issues, but they tend to be omitted from the narrow-boundary analyses included in the meta-studies, which researchers tend to rely on.

(5) Precisely how solar PV at scale can be integrated into the grid is unclear, so costs required for grid integration are not considered in EROEI calculations. There are a number of approaches that might be used to integrate solar PV into the electric grid. One approach would be to use complete battery backup of all solar PV and wind. The catch is that there is seasonal variation as well as daily variation in output; huge overbuilding and a very large amount of batteries would be required if the grid system were to provide electricity from intermittent renewables throughout the winter months, without supplementation from other sources. Even if storage is only used to smooth out daily fluctuations, the energy cost would be very high.

Another approach would be to continue to maintain the entire fossil fuel and nuclear generation systems, even though they would run only for a small part of the time. This would require paying staff for year-around work, even though they are needed for only part of the year. Other costs, such as maintaining pipelines, would continue year around as well.

A partial approach, which might somewhat reduce the energy needs for other approaches, would be to greatly increase the amount of electricity transmission, to try to smooth out fluctuations in electricity availability. None of these costs are included in EROEI calculations, even though they are very material.

(6) Solar PV (as well as other intermittent electricity, such as wind) causes direct harm to other types of energy producers by artificially lowering wholesale electricity prices. Wholesale prices tend to fall to artificially low levels, because intermittent electricity, including solar PV, is added to the electric grid, whether or not it is really needed. In fact, solar PV adds very little, if any, true “capacity” to a system, so there is no logical reason why prices for other producers should be reduced when solar PV is added. These other producers need the full wholesale cost of electricity, without the downward adjustment caused by the addition of intermittent energy sources, if they are to obtain a sufficient return on their investment to make it possible to continue to provide their services.

These issues tend to drive needed back-up electricity generation out of business. This is a problem, especially for nuclear electricity providers. Nuclear providers find themselves being pressured to close before the ends of their lifetimes, because of the low prices. This is true both in France and the United States.

In some cases, extra “capacity payments” are being made to try to work around these issues. These capacity payments usually result in the building of more natural gas fired electricity generating units. Unfortunately, these payments do nothing to guarantee that the natural gas required to operate these plants will actually be available when it is needed. But gas-fired generating units are cheap to build. Problem (sort of) solved!

(7) Electricity generation using solar PV cannot be scaled up very well. There are multiple issues involved, including cost, debt, difficulty in handling the variable output, and the adverse impact of the intermittent electricity on the profitability of other carriers.

[vtsnowedin]

That reinforces a point I have made repeatedly that solar and wind are very difficult to expand beyond say twenty-five percent of a power mix.
This is not a problem now but will be when we approach that level of renewable capacity. It is an interesting engineering problem that will be fun to watch them struggle with.

[ROCKMAN]

vt - Gail may be right on point...or off by 180°. But is that important? As I've repeatedly pointed out not one drilling decision ever has or ever will be made based on EROEI. So can anyone point to a single alt project that failed on economic analysis but was built based on a great EROEI estimate? IOW alt A may have an EROEI of 100 but if the project has a poor ROR let alone built at a loss would it ever get the green light?

Of course that excludes crappy projects that only get built with the help of free govt monies. LOL. Again what's the point of arguing over which projects have a superior EROEI if that metric has no bearing on which onnes get implemented?

[sjn]

ROCKMAN, as has also been pointed out a few times, it doesn't matter because any project with a negligible or negative energy return is simply not at energy source. So in the aggregate such projects won't account on the positive side of the net energy ledger.

[onlooker]

To me the biggest problem with wind and solar lies in the fact they've lack of concentrated energy as compared with fossil fuels. How can and how will society adapt to markedly less energy throughput? Can we bear the cost energetically/financially of transitioning to inferior energy sources. Will these sources be capable of servicing the gamut of needs of people?

[sjn]

I actually expect wind and solar are going to be a boon to a future society adapted to less energy throughput.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'C')an we bear the cost energetically/financially of transitioning to inferior energy sources.

[sunweb]

they will grow as long as there is money to be made, there are fossil fuels and the global industrial infrastructure to make, install and repair, maintain and replace them. Look at videos of manufacturing. At videos of installations. This is the reality of these devices.

[kiwichick]

yeah maybe not.....

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_r ... nergy.html

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'v')t - Gail may be right on point...or off by 180°. But is that important? As I've repeatedly pointed out not one drilling decision ever has or ever will be made based on EROEI. So can anyone point to a single alt project that failed on economic analysis but was built based on a great EROEI estimate? IOW alt A may have an EROEI of 100 but if the project has a poor ROR let alone built at a loss would it ever get the green light?

Of course that excludes crappy projects that only get built with the help of free govt monies. LOL. Again what's the point of arguing over which projects have a superior EROEI if that metric has no bearing on which onnes get implemented?

[onlooker]

I think what Sunweb has repeatedly stated must always be kept in mind, that the replacing, installing, maintaining and repairing for the time being relies on fossil fuels. Also the degree of investment to change and adopt our transportation fleet is daunting. With each day more depletion continues and less energy is available to continue to power the Economy and simultaneously power the energy transition

[ROCKMAN]

vt - "... the net cash returned goes negative and drilling activity will soon stop." True. Just as true as the fact there are tens of thousands of shale prospects with positive EROEI's that won't get drilled at the current oil price. They fail to reach the the rate of return required to justify drilling. As I estimated back when oil was $90+/bbl wells with EROEI's below 5 or 6 weren't economic to drill. But with the current price few projects with EROEI's below 10 or so will be drilled. And the proof of that is seen by the higher initial production rates of shale wells being drilled today: the industry has stopped drilling the wells with lower EROEI's.

Want morel proof? The EROEI of wells drilled 3 years ago hasn't changed. But rig count has dropped significantly. Why if the EROEI is about the same? Because it takes more bbls of lower value to generate the same rate of return required to justify the investment.

Now think about how the lower cost of electricity from cheaper fossil fuel sources will require a HIGHER EROEI of an alt system. And obviously the opposite is also true. Which is all the more obvious why alt energy systems expanded as fast as they did when coal and NG prices were much higher.

[vtsnowedin]

Rock..." Your theory of lower prices causing higher ERoEI only works as long as there are sweet spots to drill and oilmen that know how to sort them out.
What you are saying is quite true today but once those sweet spots are exhausted lower ERoEI will lead to higher prices as lower EroEI will become the cause not the effect.
The surge in renewables was caused by government subsidies and cared not a fig about oil prices or energy produced.

[KaiserJeep]

Not to put too fine a point on this, but these matters are actually irrelevant. I was reminded of that when I flew back from Wisconsin a couple of days ago, and saw the gleaming cities laid out five miles below me.

There is no need for such energy consumption as we have. In fact, speaking as an Electrical Engineer with decades of experience, any lights that can be seen from space are wasted energy. My estimate of the power grid energy consumption says that 5/6ths of the energy expenditures today are completely wasted.

Take this matter of "security lighting", for example. Look at the photo above. The Earth from space is beautiful, as it is from an airliner only five miles up. But there are many parking lots, miles of expressways, and lots of buildings bathed in light that nobody is actually using. You could easily expend a fraction of this power simply by using either low light cameras or infrared cameras at night, and not bathing the entire landscape in visible light. Software exists that can monitor such cameras and notify you of intruders - then a human must decide whether to shoot, or scare off, or let alone a human intruder, a varmint, or a large predator.

That's just one example. Since Edison invented the light bulb, we have had "street lights". The planet gleams from space, for no good reason, and at least 5/6ths of the electrical energy we consume today can be eliminated via modern electronic devices.

Wind and Solar energy are NOT IMPOSSIBLE if you first reduce your electrical power to only the essentials.

Now look at the matter of gasoline and diesel fuels expended in moving 1-4 ton private vehicles around. Without trying very hard, by pre-planning my trips, I was able to eliminate over 90% of the miles I travel in my (I admit it) terribly inefficient 12mpg modified Jeep Wrangler. Yesterday was a good example. First, I had a doctor appointment that mandated a 18 mile round trip to his office and back, after fasting for blood tests. So I was committed to expend 1.5 gallons, and with some foresight, could expend about 1.8 gallons doing everything I needed to get done. There is very little food in the house, since we just returned from two weeks in Wisconsin visiting the family. So I made a grocery list, stopped on the way home from the doctor and had brunch at the bakery, and bought fresh bread. Then I went to the supermarket, and got my list, packing the cold items in insulated bags with the blue gelled ice packs. Then I stopped at a local nursery and got a small 22" evergreen that will first serve as my Christmas tree for a little less than a week, and then replace a drought-killed landscape shrub. Then I went to the post office and picked up the mail, and filled a new prescription at the local pharmacy while I waited in line for the postal drones to do their thing. Then I sat in my car, sorted out the mail that was not actually addressed to me (I have had far too much experience dealing with post office incompetence) and returned the mail that was not mine by dumping it into the mail box on the way out, while hoping that other mail patrons would be as thoughtful with my own misdirected snail mail.

Bottom line is that I have eliminated over 90% of my fuel consumption and with it 90% of the time I spend in my ICE powered Jeep Wrangler, just by pre-planning how I expend fuel and with it my personal time and my income. If I was not 65 years old and planning to move to a state with real Winter, I might own a 125cc moped and reduce my fuel consumption even more, in the style of the Third World.

Alternative energy sources absolutely are not impossible, if we first reduce energy consumption to the irreplaceable minimum across the board. Then having done our thoughtful and pre-planned power down, we might discover that on the downslope of the peak oil graph, we might actually have a few more centuries worth of petroleum fuels, if we choose to burn them wisely and only when necessary. You don't have to jump in your 2.5 ton pickup and run to the package store for a 6-pack, you should have planned your beer consumption along with everything else.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am planning to buy a few acres of land on the Western shore of Lake Michigan, and build an extremely energy-efficient home. Second choice but still viable is to buy an existing structure, add insulation, modern triple glazing, and geothermal HVAC. I expect to have the money after the wife admits she is done working and we sell our present home in this overheated Silly Valley real estate market, and with pre-planning, I can have both an energy-efficient new residence, an electric vehicle or two also "fuelled" by wind turbine and/or solar PV, and enough land to easily grow food for a family even if we don't plan to do so immediately.

Having discussed this, the wife and I are not planning to even attempt food self-sufficiency. We will have the arable land, we will have the seeds and the tools and the water, and we will have the supermarket, for the last 1-2 decades of our life. Yes we will grow vegetables and fruit and perhaps even have a few chickens, but we will also be buying food, from the dairy farms and the orchards that exist in Wisconsin's rural areas, from those who have been growing and raising food for generations. We will, thanks to pre-planning and planned lifestyle changes, also have a viable and attractive piece of property to pass on to the grandkids or perhaps their kids, which has off-grid power, well water, a working septic system, a compost pile, arable land to feed a family if required, and a comfortable family home that will last for generations.

One more time: Planning is everything. It's also what Engineers do - no, make that Kudzu Apes who plan to survive. It's better than wailing about TEOTWAWKI, to no purpose and little effect, isn't it?

[sjn]

KJ, how's that really different from what I said above except perhaps an implicit assumption it will be a painless transition as we switch off the unneeded lighting? TEOWAWKI, it will be, as we're once again exposed to a clear view of the cosmos. As I said, the system will be simplified, you think that will be easy and painless, I think it will be "interesting".

[kiwichick]

fossil fuel subsidies in 2013 $ 500 billion US

renewable subsidies in 2013 $ 120 billion US

https://www.iisd.org/gsi/fossil-fuel-subsidies

[kiwichick]

@ sjn..... I agree with your characterization ......it is going to be interesting.....

it seems that many people have trouble quite how fragile our agricultural systems are....and how many areas are already borderline

on the other hand the best minds are continually working on adaptations even though many in the agricultural sphere are deeply conservative.....it's a race against both ingrained policy's and time

[kiwichick]

sure ...not just wind and solar , but it does demonstrate the trend imo.....even in the UK....

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... on-sources

[ROCKMAN]

vt - Lower oil prices leading to higher EROEI projects being drilled isn't a "theory" but a cold, hard undeniable math FACT. Remember this is what I've made a living doing for more then 40 years...nothing theoretical about the work. LOL. If a company requires a projected $X of production to justify drilling it requires $X. If it takes 50,000 bbls to create $X then the target is 50,000 bbls. Doesn't mater whether it's a sweet spot or not. And if the price of oil declines and it takes 100,000 bbls to generate the same $X of production yielding the same return then only prospects with a target of 100,000 bbls will be drilled. Which obviously means only prospects with higher projected EROEI's will be drilled when oil prices decline.

So again just as EROEI has no bearing on any drilling decision I make neither does the numbers of potential bbls to be produced. Seriously: not one manager I ever presented a project to gave a f*ck how many bbls it would produces...just the $'s. When I calculate the potential return on a proposed prospect there are no bbls in the formula...just $'s. I don't really give a f*ck if a well produces 50k or 100k. Really don't. It's the potential net revenue in $'s that matters. Neither the $A/bbl nor B bbls determine the decision: it's their product, $Y times B, that does that.

And the only way to keep that product at an acceptable level when the $Y decreases is for the B to increase. And a larger B = a higher EROEI. As I said earlier: not a theory but simple math. Of course anyone else can decide the basis for drilling they like. OTOH "they" aren't drilling any f*cking wells, are they? LOL.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'v')t - Lower oil prices leading to higher EROEI projects being drilled isn't a "theory" but a cold, hard undeniable math FACT. Remember this is what I've made a living doing for more then 40 years...nothing theoretical about the work. LOL. If a company requires a projected $X of production to justify drilling it requires $X. If it takes 50,000 bbls to create $X then the target is 50,000 bbls. Doesn't mater whether it's a sweet spot or not. And if the price of oil declines and it takes 100,000 bbls to generate the same $X of production yielding the same return then only prospects with a target of 100,000 bbls will be drilled. Which obviously means only prospects with higher projected EROEI's will be drilled when oil prices decline.

So again just as EROEI has no bearing on any drilling decision I make neither does the numbers of potential bbls to be produced. Seriously: not one manager I ever presented a project to gave a f*ck how many bbls it would produces...just the $'s. it's their product, $Y times B, that does that. .just $'s. I don't really give a f*ck if a well produces 50k or 100k. Really don't. It's the potential net revenue in $'s that matters. Neither the $A/bbl nor B bbls determine the decision: it's their product, $Y times B, that does that.

And the only way to keep that product at an acceptable level when the $Y decreases is for the B to increase. And a larger B = a higher EROEI. As I said earlier: not a theory but simple math. Of course anyone else can decide the basis for drilling they like. OTOH "they" aren't drilling any f*cking wells, are they? LOL.

[vtsnowedin]

Rockman wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd the only way to keep that product at an acceptable level when the $Y decreases is for the B to increase.