[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', ' ')However, waste is also part of the economy. So, in the unlikely event that we will cut the waste first, I'm not sure it will buy us any time for a paradigm shift.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')hat is the only part of the cancer analogy that is weak. Malignant cancers speed up as they advance, in other words, they consume more of the bodies resources. In the case of EROEI our modern societies are going to slow down dramatically their consumption once EROEI exerts pressure. A silver lining in all of this is the incredible waste built into our energy consumption that we will be forced to wean ourselves from. This will buy us some time for a paradigm shift.

[NEOPO]

Can we start referring to the sheeple as "they" please as "we" all know WTF is up here

We are very aware of EROEI.
45 posts came up when I searched EROEI in topic title only.
One of my favorites below but only because Lorenzo did an about face and admitted that EROEI is a useful tool, one of the few tools we peakers have.....

EROEI is a shallow concept by Lorenz'ho

So many things are not being and have never been considered/counted in the EROEI of mankind's activities.

Even today do we consider the cost of the Iraq war into the EROEI of todays Oil??? because we should.
What price for 650,000 dead Iraqi's?

Man - looking at it that way tells me that we are in really bad shape folks, really bad shape.... my ed sullivan impersonation.

I can laugh but its usually hollow and it really is not funny.
Nope Gazzatrone no one forgot about EROEI.
We have just been in deep depression ever since we last had this discussion.....
___________________________

Nice thread Monte - I must have been away when that was posted.
Wow is that annoying when they edit out their posts like that er what.

[gego]

Prior to this thread, I thought of EROEI and peak oil production in separate contexts. Yes there have been discussions of EROEI, mostly in relationship to possible substitutes for oil, and yes there have been discussions of the decline rate in production after peak and the related halving period. I do not remember seeing a discussion of the combined effect of declines in production post peak and the change in EROEI for that production.

Maybe others of you understood the combined effect, but to me, this thread is a lightbulb thread because I realized that both these factors will operate separately post peak; production will decline at some rate, and independent of that EROEI will keep falling for that production (energy cost of that production will keep rising). These two independent variables, oil production and energy cost of oil production will determine the net amount of energy available, and with consequences far worse that just declining gross production; this means that once production starts to fall the effect will be with the speed of a lightning bolt, not a manageable problem.

Maybe just quantifying the effects of these two factors at reasonable estimates of their rates, and using the Bartlett concept of doubling/halving was enough to shock my old brain into a clearer picture of the future.

I imagine Queequeq in Moby Dick might have felt something like this when he read his own future.

[NEOPO]

The first discussion I recall having about EROEI was all about the falling EROEI of oil production alone and only later did the EROEI of alternatives take center stage and that seems to be a direct result of the biofuel-peak oil will be a non event crowd emerging en masse.

I distinctly recall Matt Savinars Radio interview - feet to the fire - where he used the metaphoric apple tree - the 100 calorie apple with the 200 calorie effort needed to obtain it.
Better for us just to stay put then to climb the tree and lose 100 calories.

Well said and the concept applies to much more then just the EROEI of petroleum.

Yes we are not only faced with the low EROEI of alternatives but a gradually decreasing EROEI of petroleum production and this in turn will lower the EROEI of alternatives that require petroleum inputs....Doh!!
As you seem to understand the term "gradual" may not apply that well to what we are about to experience.

I believe you are correct in that I do not recall a thorough look at both of these situations simultaneously and I do not recall anyone noticing the halving like that before but maybe I just missed it.

I think alot of us learned about EROEI in the reverse order so we may have done the math mentally and never started a thread.
If anything we can blame the huge Biofuel/alternative distraction that seemed to consume this forum for a time.

IMO powerdown is the only global solution.

[TonyPrep]

The latest Scientific American (Jan 07) has an article about ethanol (from corn and from cellulose). It's not particularly positive about ethanol from corn, and not much more positive about cellulosic ethanol.

Oddly, it includes a graphic sidebar that wasn't discussed in the main article. That sidebar says that gasoline has 1.19 units of fossil fuel energy input for every unit of gasoline energy produced. Corn ethanol has 0.77 units of fossil fuel inputs for 1 unit produced and cellulosic ethanol has 0.1 unit of fossil fuel energy for 1 unit produced. That was from studies by the California Institute of Technology. I think this line of thinking was discussed on The Oildrum. I've no idea how the figures were derived but the figure on gasoline seems reasonable, though it obviously ignores the EROEI on getting the raw crude oil itself. It also ignores the fact that the ethanol production still uses fossil fuels (including gasoline at technically negative EROEI), and cannot be scaled up. It's unfortunate that the sidebar wasn't discussed in the main article (which mentions studies showing more that 1 unit of fossil fuel input for 1 unit of ethanol energy produced); it seems to have just been flung in there to provide a counter view or to confuse the reader.

Tony

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'C')orn ethanol has 0.77 units of fossil fuel inputs for 1 unit produced and cellulosic ethanol has 0.1 unit of fossil fuel energy for 1 unit produced.

[MrBill]

I went back to MonteQuest's original post from 2004 to try to put some perspective on EROEI versus tradional ROI of the capital needed to extract energy as that capital may have been raised from land, labor or invested capital not related to energy production or consumption. I think it is an important distinction that he made.

MonteQuest wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')OI (Return on Investment) means the accounting is done in dollars. If an oil well produces enough oil to cover expenses with some left over, then the ROI is positive. Some oil is too expensive to produce at the current price of oil. An economist would say that that oil would be produced if the price of oil rises sufficiently.

EROEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) means that the accounting is done in energy units. It is possible to calculate the energy cost of an oil well. Energy is required to make the steel, to run the drill, to pump the oil, etc. This energy is subtracted from the energy in the produced oil. If the result is positive, the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) is positive. Drilling for oil to get energy becomes pointless if the EROEI goes negative. That does not mean that oil wells will not be drilled. It means that oil will be used for fertilizers or plastics, but not for transport or heating.

[AirlinePilot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'I')f you are thinking that production will decline post peak at a 5% rate making production fall by half every 14 years, think again. You must add to the 5% rate of production drop, the rate of change in EROEI which at a minimum look to be 3.5% giving a combined rate of 8.5% or a halving period of 8.235 years. This is HUGE because it shows just how quickly the amount of oil we have available to use could fall by half. We are not talking 20 years, but may be talking as little as 5 years for net oil available to half if costs escalate suddenly and gross production falls at the higher range of expectations, post peak.

[NEOPO]

yep , yep and nope - the last laugh will be as hollow as the first.

[Revi]

I had a creepy realization the other day. As the EROEI decreases marginal businesses are going to stop selling us stuff soon. The increase in energy prices sucks all the money out of the economy. People who were running small businesses on very little profit decide to quit doing it when the amount coming in becomes almost nothing. So it is on a bigger scale. Why keep supplying us proles with gas and oil so that we can keep our cars and houses going? When there isn't much money to be made doing it, a lot of people will quit selling. I just heard that a lot of small engine dealers are going out of business because people aren't buying snowmobiles and atv's any more. The problem with that is that those same people sold and serviced useful things too, like chainsaws. Things might slow down much quicker than we thought, and the businesses that tank might not be the ones we want to see go away.

[EnergyUnlimited]

This is one of better threads on this forum.
Nevertheless I think that this rapid fall of EROEI within last 15 years or so has much to do with wider use of "enchanced recovery technologies", which became very popular lately.
It is quite likely, that further EROEI drop will no longer be so fast, as current EROEI=3 already addressed this "technofixes" in oil recovery.
Shortly, I expect halving of current EROEI within next 20 years and not faster than that.

[dohboi]

Aren't solar cells being used in Texas somewhere to power oil rigs? If that caught on in Saudi Arabia might that not me a big boost to the PV industry? It would be ironic if the need to shore up the EROEI of oil extraction helped spur the develpment of one of the replacement technologies. Does anyone know how widespread the practice is of using solar power in oil production? What exactly does such a practiice do to the calculation of EROEI?

[NEOPO]

As I recall:
PV's 2005
the #1 buyer = saudi arabia
the #1 supplier = BP

[Ludi]

PV producers are hard-pressed right now to keep up with demand. I wouldn't worry about "spurring development" of this alternative, there is huge demand right now worldwide.

[rdberg1957]

Chevron is telling us a lot about peak oil and EROEI. "The era of easy oil is over." When oil was tapped in Texas in the 1920's, it was under pressure, so that little was required to pump the oil. In addition there was lots of sweet, light crude. Now, in most of the world, we must drill deeper, under water and we obtain mostly sour crude, heavy oils which require more refinement. As we deplete the oil, we need to add pressure to pump it. The energy required for deep sea exploration in the Gulf of Mexico will be substantial.

[JPL]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', ' ')However, waste is also part of the economy. So, in the unlikely event that we will cut the waste first, I'm not sure it will buy us any time for a paradigm shift.

[gego]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')his is one of better threads on this forum.
Nevertheless I think that this rapid fall of EROEI within last 15 years or so has much to do with wider use of "enchanced recovery technologies", which became very popular lately.
It is quite likely, that further EROEI drop will no longer be so fast, as current EROEI=3 already addressed this "technofixes" in oil recovery.
Shortly, I expect halving of current EROEI within next 20 years and not faster than that.