Renewable Transition 1: Targets & Troubles
Posted by jeffvail on July 21, 2009 - 10:15am
In this series I will again approach the issue of energy return on energy invested (EROEI), or net energy. Rather than a detailed analysis of the EROEI value of specific types of renewable energy technology, however, my goal is to consider systemic implications and the role of uncertainty in the ability of our civilization to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. In this first post I will discuss the challenges and potential goals of such a renewable energy transition, noting the criticality of EROEI values to our ability to transition. Next, I will look more closely at EROEI itself, exploring our inability to produce an accurate, inclusive, and verifiable measurement, and explain why the resulting degree of uncertainty is very significant. Finally, I will consider the path forward amidst this uncertainty.
To the extent that the global community is concerned with energy scarcity at all, it is my opinion that there is a pervasive faith that, over the coming decades, we will overcome these challenges by gradually transitioning to a renewable-energy economy. Certainly not everyone shares this vision of the future, but it appears to be both the conclusion of many intelligent commentators within the field, as well as the only politically-viable vision offered by politicians to the masses. The result is that, while it is acceptable to debate the mechanics of realizing this vision, any attempts to question its general feasibility tend to be swept under the rug.
Let’s start with what we know, or at least what we are reasonably confident in and that I will assume for the purposes of this series: We know that fossil fuels won’t be producible at present rates forever. We know that it is possible to generate renewable energy from sources such as the sun, the wind, waves, and geothermal heat. What I will argue that we don’t KNOW—despite frequent and occasionally self-serving protestations to the contrary—is whether the EROEI of available renewable energy technology makes replacing our fossil fuel-economy with a renewable-energy economy possible.
The trouble with transition begins with the issue that (present) renewable energy sources such as solar and wind require an investment of energy up-front, after which these technologies proceed to return energy over a period of time:
While this is all quite straightforward, there is at least one important implication that seems to be generally overlooked: at some rate of investment in renewable energy infrastructure, the economic burden of this up-front energy investment will make the program politically impossible. What do I mean by that? If you want to increase the amount of energy derived from renewable sources (and thereby help to ameliorate energy scarcity), you need to first exacerbate that scarcity by using an increasing share of our currently available energy as an up-front investment in these new renewables.
If the EROEI of the renewables towards which we’re transitioning is sufficiently high, if our timeline for meeting some transition target is sufficiently long, or if the transition target is sufficiently low, then this “burden” will be minimized as we will be able to meet our target with a small up-front investment of fossil fuels (minor exacerbation of scarcity) and then bootstrap the energy production of the first wave of renewables to finance the energy demands of the remainder of the transition.
However, if some or all of these conditions are not met, then the transition target will not be possible because the level of up-front fossil fuel investment will exacerbate current energy scarcity to a politically unacceptable or economically infeasible degree. Imagine: if the EROEI is only 2:1, or if we want to transition all fossil fuels to renewables within 5 years (via some kind of WWII-style economic mobilization), then a huge portion of our current fossil fuel use will need to be diverted to this renewables transition. The result, due to underlying supply and demand inelasticity, will be massive price spikes, rationing, or other politically and economically devastating events.
Of course, if EROEI is 100:1 on a generating life of 20 years, or if our target is only to maintain current rates of renewables transition, then these problems won’t arise. As I will argue later in this series, EROEI is likely far lower than 100:1. And I am working on the assumption that, independently due to peak oil and climate change, a status quo transition rate is unacceptable.
Transition Goal: First, it's important to recognize that there are a variety of possible transition targets. Some include: a general transition target (either total transition to renewables, or transition to some arbitrary %), a peak-oil mitigation target, a peak fossil-fuel mitigation target, and a climate change mitigation target, to name a few. All have differences and similarities. Clearly, one can define a "target" that is plainly achievable, as can one define a "target" that simply can't be done (e.g. 100% transition by tomorrow). As such, the definition of "transition target" represents an easily manipulable variable in any discussion of renewables transition. If two people or organizations don't address the same target, they'll be constantly talking past each other in discussing renewables and the practicality of transition. While I certainly don't think that I'll be able to convince all parties to adopt a unified transition target in this article, I do plan to argue for a threshold target that, in my opinion, represents a minimum rate of transition to keep the "viridian vision" of a renewable future possible: a peak oil mitigation target.
So, it seems clear that a renewable energy transition will need to, at a minimum, replace the decline in oil production post-peak with renewable energy generation. I'll elaborate on why I draw this line in the sand below, but in brief the viridian vision (by which I mean a general continuation of our current neo-liberal, capitalist/market-socialist civilizational structure into the distant future by leveraging technological advances and a transition to a renewable energy base and "green" consumer function) requires that we maintain generally the same level of present energy consumption into the foreseeable future.
It's also important to point out the obvious, that there are significant differences between the energy produced by renewable technologies (that, for our purposes, produce electricity) and the energy lost by declining oil production. In general terms, in order to use the electricity produced by renewables to replace oil, there will be an additional energy cost required to transition the energy-consuming infrastructure to utilize electricity rather than oil. This will increase the overall amount of energy required to affect this transition. For the time being, I'll ignore this additional cost (see my note on conversion efficiency of oil to electricity, below).
One key argument in favor of the viridian vision is that we can mitigate peak oil with increases in efficiency and energy conservation. These arguments generally don't, however, address how we're going to meet the energy demands of 1) a growing population, and 2) a huge third-world population that wants to live at Western standards of energy consumption. The more optimistic population estimates show the Earth's population peaking at 8.3 billion, and more pessimistic estimates show population peaks between 9 and 13 billion.
It's important to point out that many population estimates reason that population will stabilize--and then decline--because of the effect of bringing the standard of living of the world's poor closer to Western standards. Will the energy pressures presented by population growth and efforts to improve living standards roughly balance out any improvements in efficiency and conservation? I think so, but I recognize that this is a significant source of uncertainty. In fact, I think that this is overly optimistic, and that demographic pressures will more than eat up any energy savings from efficiency and conservation.
Additionally, while the possibility of radical demand destruction due to significant global reduction in our standard of living would also “solve” peak oil, such a future is incompatible with the viridian vision that drives current transition efforts and political posturing. For these reason, I think that we must increase renewable generation capacity at the same rate that oil production declines--we can't count on efficiency and conservation to make up any of this decline with a sufficient degree of certainty.
If peak-oil mitigation is the target, then how fast must we build out renewable energy, and what is the energy “burden” of that project? Below I’ll present an admittedly rough estimate of the numbers:
The world consumes roughly 500 Quads per year (Quadrillion BTUs) from all energy sources. Of this roughly 186 Quads come from oil consumption. IF you accept a post-peak decline rate of 5% per year, then that represents a decline of 9.3 Quads per year. 9.3 Quads equates to roughly 102.3 GW-years, or 896,000 GWh. To round that off, let's call it 100 GW-years, or 900,000 GW-hours. That's how much new renewable generation must be added each year going forward to mitigate peak oil. That's the transition target. How does that compare with current renewable generation rates?
The current global installed (nameplate) solar capacity is about 15 GW, including about 5.5 GW added in 2008. That works out to roughly 1 GW-year of solar generation capacity added in 2008. At the end of 2008, global (nameplate) wind generation capacity was 121 GW. That works out to roughly 42 GW-years of total global wind generation annually, of which 35 GW, or about 12 GW-years of wind generation was added in 2008. Combining solar and wind, we added about 13 GW-years of renewable generation capacity in 2008. That's a bit over 10% of the rate at which we'll need to add new renewable capacity each year just to compensate for a 5% global oil production decline rate (not to mention future natural gas decline, coal decline, etc.). There are two take-aways from this: 1) the current rate at which we are increasing renewable energy generation is an order of magnitude lower than that necessary to mitigate peak oil, and 2) the amount of energy invested in renewable energy projects at present does not pose the kind of energy drain that will be presented by investment sufficient to mitigate peak oil.
On this last point, mitigating a decline of 4.4 million barrels of oil per day (roughly 5% of global total liquids production) each year with new renewable generation capacity will impose a significant up-front energy cost.* If the energy payback time is 1 year for the mitigating renewable source, and if we must increase current renewable energy investment by 90% over current levels, then we need to invest the equivalent of an additional 3.96 million barrels of oil each day to facilitate the transition. That's like adding another half of China to global demand, and that 1-year payback time assumes an EROEI of 40:1 on a 40-year generating life. If the energy payback time is 2 years (or a 20:1 EROEI) then you can add another full China to global demand. If it's 10 years (an EROEI of 4:1), then go ahead and add 5 Chinas. You can see where this is going--getting an accurate measure of EROEI, and properly understanding the mechanics of scalability, are critical before we can determine if it's possible to achieve the peak oil-mitigation target outlined above...
*I recognize that there is an efficiency loss if one converts oil to electricity. While some reduction in this figure may be warranted on that ground, we must also consider the additional energy that must be invested to convert our fossil fuel consuming infrastructure into an electricity consuming infrastructure. The degree to which these opposing forces balance each other out remains unknown.
Carbon considerations: One of the most powerful arguments in favor of a transition to renewable energy generation is that these systems tend to have very low carbon emissions or be entirely carbon-neutral. However, what is the carbon cost of the transition itself? At least the initial energy burden of a renewables transition will come primarily from fossil fuels, and therefore will be very carbon intensive. Here, again, EROEI (and EROEI as a function of generating life) will be critical—a high EROEI means that a transition can be financed primarily by bootstrapping the clean energy from the initial wave of renewables to build ever more renewables in short order. A low EROEI may mean that we must emit a huge lump of carbon in order to build out the renewables infrastructure on a timeline fast enough to deal with peak oil, let alone a more rapid transition designed to reduce carbon levels…
Wrapping up this first post, the issues of transition goals and carbon emissions hinge on the “true” EROEI of available renewable technology. We cannot adequately formulate realistic transition goals, nor can we understand the climate implications of those goals (or the feasibility of climate policies in general) until we have a firm understanding of EROEI values. As I will discuss in the next post, our current EROEI calculation methodology is inadequate and we (should) have little confidence in our EROEI estimates. As a result, our energy policy plans at this point are largely an exercise in faith…
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Thanks!
I think the point that we the need to make much larger investments in renewables, if we plan on using renewables for the future is a good one.
The whole idea of adapting electricity to replace oil is mind-boggling though. It seems like we would need to start now transforming all of our heavy machinery to run on electricity, as well as long-haul trucks, not to mention cars. Then we would need to have a system in place to keep replacing the vehicles that wear out. We would also have to have an electricity-based system of repairing and replacing wind turbines and PV. It is hard to imagine the changes we would need to make, in a relatively short timeframe.
A related issue is that current EROEI measurements integrate legacy manufacturing, transportation, etc. machinery and infrastructure that was built with much cheaper and higher EROEI fossil fuels. Eventually our renewable energy infrastructure (and all supporting societal infrastructure) must be built and maintained with (presumably) much more costly and lower EROEI renewables or similarly more costly and lower EROEI fossil fuels. There will be a significant lag time here as current infrastructure and machinery will continue in operation for some time, and the result is that the EROEI for the same renewable technology will continue to degrade over time.
This doesn't address the increasing amount of renewables on a year by year basis, so this number would drop year on year (and does not account for current renewable energy generation either).
BP solar plant in Maryland with its own PV power
This doesn't take into consideration improved PV or wind technologies (i.e., materials, design, production) that can result in increased energy capture, and lower energy expenditure. The older machinery you mention wasn't designed so much with energy efficiency in mind.
Will,
I disagree that the 3.96 mbpd figure doesn't address the increasing amount of renewables available. The concept I intended to convey (though may have been unclear) is that these 3.96 mbpd go to the production of renewables, but the total production from those renewables must be dedicated to replacing declining oil production, and not to the production of future renewables. Current renewable energy generation is similarly negated--we're already relying on that energy generation to meet current consumption requirements, and therefore diverting that generation to produce new renewables would impose the very economic burden I'm trying to convey with the 3.96 mbpd figure.
Regarding the degredation of EROEI as legacy infrastrcuture goes off-line, my statement pertained to "the same renewable technology." I agree that technology may improve, but that would be comparing to a moving target. Instead, my argument is that this legacy effect will reduce the gains from (assumed) technological advances...
Ok, if you are referring to BAU, I would understand. However, with much greater attention to much higher efficiency vehicles and buildings (new and old), with the onset of peak oil, and with a likely lower level of economic activity, I would contend that we will settle into a lower energy consumption level, hence requiring less energy to construct/replace the renewables. After reading more of your replies, I see we have similar views on this.
Disclaimer: I recently became an independent contractor affiliated with a south Florida company that designs and installs grid tied PV systems with battery backup.
Yesterday I was visiting a prospective client and while sitting on his shaded porch overlooking the waterfall cascading into his swimming pool, I was explaining that the system that he was looking at could power all of his basic household needs minus the air conditioning. His geeky teen age son was egging his dad on to go with the system and his dad looked at his son and paused a moment and the said "Maybe we could find a way to do without the AC" His son enthusiastically agreed!
For the briefest of moments I had a renewed sense of hope for the human race...
Then I had to drive home through rush hour traffic.
Evaporative cooling.
1/4 power requirements of AC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
Evaporative cooling only works in regions of low humidity.
and plentiful water.
And if you don't mind an increased incidence of Legionaries disease.
Legionaires disease is assocated with air conditioning and industrial process cooling towers which are an altogether different thing from evaporative air conditioning. There is a risk that a poorly maintained system may allow legionella to grow to high enough level to cause infection. It is unlikely however as there is no external heat source in a swampy to maintain the critical warm temperatures overnight orforlong periods to allow incubation.
Actually as a a percentage of total household water usage, evaporative A/C is very efficient. Water is recirculated within the cooling pads so that only a very small amount is actually evaporated off. Its not like the water is being boiled off at very high temperature.
Sandia Base in New Mexico had these for their quanset huts and were referred to as swamp coolers, which was sort of the effect they had on the environment in the quansets.
The point was, no AC no power requirement...
The fact that an upper middle class American living in South Florida could even imagine such a thing was what gave me the fleeting moment of hope.
Gail
"Then we would need to have a system in place to keep replacing the vehicles that wear out."
We already have such a system, most ICE cars and light trucks are already replaced in 15-20 years, Ev's will probably last longer, although batteries may have to be replaced, savings on engine and brake wear and tear.
"We would also have to have an electricity-based system of repairing and replacing wind turbines and PV. It is hard to imagine the changes we would need to make, in a relatively short timefram"
In 20years we are going to still have some oil and certainly CNG where electric vehicles do not work. We can retrofit heavy trucks which last longer with CNG. If most of the electric power replacing oil comes from wind energy in next 20 years, we will only need a few % of today's oil consumption for transporting wind components, if trucks can be fitted with CNG will only need oil for wind gear-boxes.
I agree with 'Gail .. " in failing to understand how the scarcity of oil can be replaced in the transportation sector by generating electricity from renewables (wind and solar here) ... If one would say that renewable energy generation is important for replacing coal or natural gas taking into account the emissions (and impact on climate) is still understandable ...
Here's a table of the top 10 countries by (2008) installed wind capacity plus Scotland together with their populations. Of course, Scotland is a country within the UK.
Now work out the installed wind capacity per capita and we get this
Denmark and Spain are out in front with Scotland, Germany and Portugal in a second grouping. Third ranked are USA, Italy, France and the UK with China and India grouped in fourth.
In general, the smaller, less populous countries are nearer the top of this second table.
I know that Denmark have reached the limit for windenergy at about 30% installed capacity. There must be regular power plants so you can control the frequency to 50 (60)Hz. That can be done best with hydropower or other power plants that are quick adjustable, contrary to nuclear or coal power.
Jeff --
Your post succinctly states the scale of the problem.
It seems to me there are also some systemic economic feedbacks that could come into play as well. For instance, setting up pv and wind to produce large amounts of electricity will be costly to the first investors (i.e., us?), but the marginal cost will be very low, perhaps nearly free. Will this distort future electricity usage in ways that cheap fossil fuels distorted our usage?
An additional economic feedback comes to mind. Hypothetically, if we were successful in expanding renewables to high levels, the cost of fossil fuels could ease with easing demand/increase in spare capacity. I don't think this would happen with oil since the easy oil is mostly used up, but it could become a factor with coal and natural gas. The temptation to use these resources vs. the ongoing burden of building capital-intensive renewables will, as you say, increase with time.
Steve,
Your second point is what concerns me the most: by focusing on how we can maintain our current levels of energy consumption, rather than figuring out how we can buoy quality of life with less energy consumption, I think we're setting ourselves up for a scenario where we do, infact, burn all the fossil fuels, with resulting climate consequences.
Agreed.
My as-yet-untested hunch is that we can do 'enough', with less energy, in principle. You go big on clean energy, but reduce energy use per capita to 'meet in the middle' in terms of overall energy requirements. You touched on population expectations, which likely need regulation as well. So: ration population, ration access to energy. It would be a level of planning and control that is unprecedented on a global scale. It's not hard to see why people throw up their hands and say it will never happen.
Hi Jeff, this topic is certainly 'in the wind'. How to get where we want to go from where we are and under what circumatances.
Briefly, the constraints are already here, they have been obscured by amassing credit and buying future energy production, among other things. The salient fact - the 800lb gorilla sitting on my head - is that anything like current GDP is non- existant without credit. GDP out of cash flow would be a fraction of what we 'enjoy' now. This isn't a matter of speculation. The fact of the debt speaks for itself; as does the increase in it.
If Americans 'invest' in some energy approach - with credit - it becomes a wild gamble. We lack the current energy reserves to see the project to a productive conclusion (otherwise this discussion would not be taking place), we are a sovereign default away from lacking the future reserves that are only made available to us by credit. A mis- investment would mean no return from the half- finished energy approach with current reserves exhausted and the means to gain future conventional reserves exhausted as well. One can insert 'Wind farms', 'Thorium reactors', 'photo- voltaics', 'electric cars', 'wave/tidal energy', 'geo- stationary energy satellites'or 'geothermal' and the gamble remains.
What would really work? The answers are buried in the politics and claims on resources made by special interests. This is how ethanol became an energy 'alternative' the political connections of participants gained mandates and subsidies. Yet, ethanol is a tool that accelerates consumption, (ethanol isn't used to make more ethanol, it cannot scale directly.) The fact suggested by developing ethanol fuels is that allocation - fuel consumption OR energy investment but not both - is unnecessary.
Not a good situation to be in at all. Yet, this is where we are.
On its face expanding conventional oil production by diverting more resources into it shows exponentially diminishing returns. Most investments are directed toward amplifying consumption, tertiary recovery techniques don't increase available reserves, the accelerate depletion. Creating new car batteries adds consumption pressure by adding to energy consumption routes.
The two things that would work would be to first cut consumption subsidies and repair credit - which means shrinking it - dramatically. GDP would eventually align with cash flow albeit at a very low level. Americans might not have much in the way of 'services' but they would have the tool of valuable money to invest.
The other is to cut actual energy consumption so that allocation can be done more efficiently. Right now, energy investments are in a (losing) race with energy consumption and with the growth economies trying deperately to restart themselves, all attention is being directed toward accelerating consumption growth.
The bottom line is conservation. There is no other way. From a basis of clean energy balance sheet and a clean financial balance sheet, some alternative energy development can take place. Otherwise the credit and insolvency noises will make fairly evaluating energy alternatives impossible.
More, later ...
'ration population, ration access to energy. It would be a level of planning and control that is unprecedented on a global scale. It's not hard to see why people throw up their hands and say it will never happen.'
Yeah, it's not impossible to get to better than sustainable levels on paper:
1) A one-child-per-couple policy (ideally done through incentives, educations, empowering women...) would bring pop down to one billion by the end of the century (Merkel "Radical Simplicity"), faster with incentives to put off childbearing for as long as possible. Global trends are already moving in this direction, though faster in some places than others.
2) In WWII England reduced domestic, non-military consumption of gasoline by 95% through rationing, education, propaganda... (Simms "Ecological Debt"). Consumption of meat and dairy also dropped considerably. On average, health improved over the same time frame.
Massive and rapid reductions in consumption are not unprecedented, but they are not easy, even in times of war (which we are, of course, technically in).
Well, I am a little encouraged by these remarks, which sort hint around the hugely obvious base of our problem - MOST OF WHAT WE DO IS NOT WORTH DOING- in any sense of "worth". What the catalogs i get every day are offering me by the ton is junk. We all know that. Should never have been made, much less offered for sale after being transported 10,000 miles, and then tossed into a landfill after a brief life of doing nothing worth doing.
Now I am gonna pick up one of these catalogs and open a page at random. Here it is- small IC engines. About 5 different brands, all in essence identical. Is a Briggs really any different from a Honda? Big laugh. This particular Briggs IS a Honda!, just a sticker on the front is different. And what are these engines used for? Mostly lawn mower tractors. I rest my case.
And I needn't go into the ghastly scene of battery powered children's toys, one of the very best bad examples of frivolous misuse of natural resources. Not to mention soft drinks, which make us obese and rotten-teethed. And so on. Including one of the very deepest sins of all- the private barge, complete with Cleopatra, aka SUV.
So, I get back to my Johnny-one-note message. If we acted like a sane community, with a real commitment to our future- our grandchildren, who are essentially us shifted a little in time, we would declare a world emergency, quit the frivolity, divert those presently wasted resources and skills to get down to real business, and go for what we know we have to go for- which is a , stable, steady state society based on totally sustainable energy sources, which we already have plenty of smarts to know how to do. Eg. windmills are already effective, and we know lots of ways to make them much more so immediately.
Instead, we keep a-goin' down the same path to the Teutoburger woods, and, as the saying goes, if you don't change our direction, you will get to where you are going.
But you know all that. Now what?
Jeff -
Question:
Your graph comparing estimated $per megawatt-hour between gas, coal, nuclear, and wind includes a large component called 'investment'. I think I can safely assume that this number represents the initial capital investment amortized over some assumed life of the system. The magnitude of this number is heavily dependent on i) the length of the operating life that was assumed, and ii) the assumed interest rate on the money that was borrowed to build the system.
So, I'd be interested in knowing what these assumed values were, as they can make big difference in the magnitude of the 'investment' component of the total $/MWh cost. (An assumed short operating life/high interest rate scenario will show a larger investment component that a long operating life/low interest rate scenario.
And this doesn't even touch upon some of the arguments made by others (such as Nate Hagens) that there is something not quite right with our very concept of the time value of money.
Joule,
Good point with the lack of clarity on the term "investment." I'm assuming it means "up-front investment on up-front energy use," but as you point out that's far from clear. I think this assumption generally follows logically (especially as the graph also breaks out "maintenance" and "fuel" costs which suggests to me that "investment" does refer to up-front energy expenditures), and follows my understanding of wind and solar operations in particular where the up-front cost is the bulk compared to maintenance. I agree that there's a disconnect between our concept of TVM, and also the relationship between money and energy. Financing costs seem to me like the most significant potential for distortion--if you're paying for a wind turbine with cash, I'm more confident that this payment is representative of the up-front energy cost... as you'll see in the next post in this series, the two examples I use (one for solar, one for wind) both do not appear to incorporate these finance costs, though I think this is an important point to keep in mind.
Jeff -
I'm afraid I'm going have to disagree.
I would be almost totally certain that the component called 'investment' is the capital cost of the project including the interest payments on that capital (assuming it was financed) divided by the total amount power produced during some assumed operating life (hence the units $/MWh). I think this should become evident if you just look at the magnitude of the capital components for the nuclear case and the wind case ...... they are huge. Yet, we both know that the initial energy 'investment' in both are relatively small in relation to the total amount of power produced over the operating life (this being particularly true for wind) So it cannot possibly be the dollar value of the initial energy investment.
Anyway, I have always thought it a bit misleading to roll capital investment and direct operating costs into one number (though this is done all the time in industry). I think it more informative to show two separate numbers: i) capital investment per installed operating capacity (e.g., $/MW), and ii) direct operating cost per amount of power produced (e.g, $/MWh). When this is done, the fundamental features of wind and nuclear become more evident, i.e., very high capital investment but very low direct operating cost.
I should also note that one often encounters an inherent industry bias that prefers low capital investment at the expense of higher direct operating cost. The reasons for this are complex, and I'm sure that someone like Gail could explain it far better than I, but it largely has to do with tax and financial issues and the accounting methods used.
Joule: You said "Yet, we both know that the initial energy 'investment' in both are relatively small in relation to the total amount of power produced over the operating life (this being particularly true for wind)." Here we're not in agreement. As I'll argue in more depth in the next post in this series, I don't think that the initial energy investment in wind, let alone nuclear, is relatively small in proportion to the energy produced (especially considering the time over which wind will produce energy). While I don't disagree that TVM and related finance costs may distort the finance:energy relationship, I think that the majority of energy does come up-front as shown by the data that the majority of the cost comes up front. I don't know that the figures in the graph, above, do or do not include cost of money, but either way I think that the majority of both cost and energy (or, at a minimum, a very significant proportion) come up front for wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal. Biofuels are another issue entirely, and one that I haven't addressed here (though it should be integrated into this discussion).
jeff -
Well, confining the discussion solely to wind power, yes it is certainly true the there is a tremendous upfront investment in terms of money, but the question is: how much of that investment directly consists of energy, as opposed to raw materials, the manufacturing of those raw materials into components, and labor? I would submit that direct energy costs represent only a modest fraction of the total upfront dollar investment. Do not wind turbines pay back the initial energy investment in a relatively short period of time compared to their expected operating life?
And when I say 'direct energy costs' I am referring to first-order things such as the energy content of the steel, concrete, and fiberglass, the energy directly expended in manufacturing, the energy needed to transport the components to the job site, and the energy expended in erecting the wind farm. What that term does NOT include is the energy that went into the ham and eggs the truck driver ate the morning he delivered the components to the job site, and that sort endlessly receding nth-order stuff.
Joule-
As I'll argue in the next post in this series, we can't ignore the "endlessly receding nth-order stuff." If we account for it, then I think the energy costs (as opposed to an artifically constrained definition of "direct" energy costs) represent the entirity of the upfront dollar investment. As a result, I'd argue that wind turbines do not pay back the initial energy investment in a relatively short period of time--while they likely do pay it back eventually, it is not fast enough to allow bootstrapping to prevent the kind of up-front burden on society in any significant transition effort.
Jeff -
If the second-order energy inputs are smaller than the first-order ones, and if the third-order ones are smaller than the second-order ones, than at what point do you stop before the whole thing gets hopeless unwieldy and downright silly?
I would submit the restricting the analysis to first-order and perhaps some of the more important second-order inputs would probably capture at least 90 percent of the total energy inputs, and that's plenty good enough for this level of analysis. Once you get past that, it becomes a tricky allocation game that probably diminishes rather than improves the overall accuracy.
Now getting back to the question of energy investment, permit me to go through a rough back-of-the envelope example. Take a wind turbine with a 2MW nameplate capacity and a 0.3 capacity factor and 25-year operating life. On that basis, our wind turbine will produce 131,000 MWh over its operating life.
Let us further assume that the wind turbine and its base weighs roughly 200 tons (I'm guessing, but I think this should be in the right ballpark). The manufacture of steel consumes roughly 16.4 million BTU per ton. Thus, the energy content of the steel in the wind turbine is 3.28 billion BTU, or 960 MWh. Note that this is less than 1 percent of the 131,000 MWh of total energy produced during the life of the turbine.
Even if we double, triple, or even quintuple this number to account for other up-front energy inputs, it is still only a few percent of the total amount of energy produced.
Unless, I've made some serious mistake in my above little example, I totally fail to see where all these large nth-order energy inputs that you claim could possibly come from. Thus, I anxiously look forward to seeing your next installment.
I would like to piggy-back on this and add that a lot what people consider extended n-th order energy inputs are things like "the workers wages, the trucks to get the workers to the sites, the cost of providing A/C to these workers in their trucks, etc..."
But these things are not drains on the economy; They ARE the economy. If we transitioned 50% of the population away from working in the service sector and into energy production, this would be a good thing. Jobs are assets, not jsut expenses. Especially when those jobs are creating something of lasting value. Think Works Progress II.
I agree that these n-th order inputs "are the economy." When comparing two similar technologies, or attempting to measure improvements in a given technology, then constrained EROEI measures are certainly useful. However, as I'll address in the next post, when we're looking at systemic efforts to transition the entire society, then we must consider the full support structure for renewables production. There is a very real possibility (probability, I'd argue) that this inclusive EROEI will be too low to support society at its current size and complexity--that is something that can't be measured without including the n-th order costs, and that is the focus of this inquiry into "transition."
"There is a very real possibility (probability, I'd argue) that this inclusive EROEI will be too low to support society at its current size and complexity"
Doubtless this is true and needs to be repeated endlessly. But the question does come up--if the worker wasn't eating lunch while building a windmill, wouldn't he still be eating some kind of lunch doing something? I don't think that reduces the energy input of the lunch to the outcome to zero, but shouldn't there be some kind of adjustment for these considerations.
I look forward to your future post(s?) on these issues.
The way I understand it would harken back to the tale of the ant and the grasshopper. In permaculture, some of the guiding principles include "obtain a yield", and "stack functions". The energy needed for the workman's lunch can only be ignored in a comparison of two alternatives.
Surely also in comparing alternatives to a given technology? e.g. PV vs oil-fired, or wind vs oil-fired. Or am I missing something?
Andrew in Texas -
You make a good point, and I think we are on the same wavelength regarding this whole subject.
As I've perhaps less than clearly alluded to in my previous posts, the further away you get from direct first-order energy inputs, the more you get into an exercise of allocating multi-use energy consuming activities back to the subject under analysis, in this case wind power. This rapidly becomes an exercise in diminishing returns and one that is largely unnecessary for coming up with a reasonably accurate estimate of what constitutes the upfront energy 'investment' in wind power (or any other form of alternative energy).
In other words, if this EROEI analysis is taken to its ultimate logical conclusion, you would find yourself allocating every BTU of energy consumed to every single activity engaged in by mankind. The problem is that any elaborate energy allocation scheme is fraught with all sorts of assumptions and subjective value judgments. Overlapping and/or high distorted allocations are just about guaranteed, and trying to do this just muddies the whole picture.
Another point that seems to often get lost is that the purpose of producing energy is to consume energy. Eventually, every BTU of energy produced will be consumed in one form or another. If it is not to be consumed, then why produce it?
Thus, it is meaningless to talk about the EROEI of driving one's car, as the object of driving a car is not to 'return' any energy, but rather to use it. In this regard, one can only meaningfully talk about the energy efficiency of driving a car in the narrow sense that some cars are more efficient at moving you from Point A to Point B than others.
As with the concept of entropy, I think that the concept of EROEI is overused and often applied to situations for which it was never intended.
If I can remember the basics correctly,one of the fisrt principles of money is that it provides a very good way to measure the value of disparate inputs into trade ,at the same time that it removes the necessity for barter.
Money is for all intents and purposes all the metric we need in the short term to deal with eroei,at least insofar as lower order returns-the workers breakfast sort of stuff-is of any interest.
In the long term,once energy is truly scarce,eroei will truly be a big deal.
In the short term,even if there is some theoritical reason to believe that a proposed renewables system is a loser based on eroei,we are still face to face with a very basic practical truth:
Energy NOT currently invested in some form,in some fashion,in either renewables or conservation ,is still going to be used,not saved.It will go into the fuel tanks of airliners,the gas tanks of Tahoes,the air conditioners/furnaces of oversized,underinsulated houses,the manufacture of millions more automobiles.
All this debate about eroei, in the near term ,is about as sensible and practical as a wife insisting on leaving whatever remains of housewealth in the bank for old age while her husband steadily withdreaws it and drinks it up.
There is the matter of our very survival as individuals and a society,perhaps even a species,to be
considered.Since we obviously lack the will power to quit wasteing energy,we need to put as much emphasis as humanly possible on creating a renewable infrastructure.
Only the military planners pov is justified in such circumstances.No amount of expense or effort, other than the maximum,is justified when survival and victory are stake.
Every gallon of diesel and every kilowatt hour will be infinitely more valuable in the future than it is today.
Two hamburgers today are worth less than than one hamburger next Tuesday. A kilowatt hour used to pump my drinking water is worth at least a hundred times,a thousand times, as much as a kwh hour used to keep my water heater ready to dispense hot water on a moments notice.
I simply cannot reconcile the facts(as they are presented here on the Oil Drum ) of peak oil and the ELM model with cheap energy just because the economy of the West is currently in decline.
If things go all the way to hell,then the miney owed on renewables infra structure won't matter any more than all the other money owed ,which is not going to be repaid any way.
If the price of electricity triples because the prices of ng/coal go out of sight,wind and solar IN PLACE will look like genius investments later.
So will the prices that will be paid for the proposed current generations of nukes-if they get built.
If we survive,in my humble opinion,we will be pricing diesel to farm and run ambulances
rather than taking the 4x4 f250 to the corner for a six pack.
Nuclear energy never could be too cheap to meter,but even after all the cost overruns,it still turned out to be a damned good deal for me very month when I was scrambling my eggs with electrons from Va's four nukes,due to the even larger later "overruns" in the price of coal,oil,natural gas,taxes,labor, environmental regulation,etc.
It will turn out in a similar fashion in respect to whatever wind,solar,geothermal is built today.
For EROEI analysis to be meaningful, you're right: the "endlessly receding nth-order stuff" can't be ignored. But much of it can't even be identified a priori (or even in the short term after the fact), let alone assigned an agreed upon value. Hence, you can't say how much of the input costs are contained in any given order. You can't even give a meaningful estimate of EI. This being the case, I don't see much point in even bothering with attempting to analyze EROEI.
I appologize for continually referencing the next post in this series, but there I will address exactly this point: I agree that you can't use brute-force input/output accounting to measure the infinitly regressed set of inputs, but that 1) doesn't mean we can proceed in any meaningful sense without addressing them, and 2) doesn't mean that we can't develop a proxy measurement that will estimate the area under this "long tail." Suffice it to say that I think we can meaningfully estimate the totality of energy input, and the resulting EROEI figures are highly problematic.
For first order contributions, you could probably come up with good estimates for materials, energy, labor, and other cost factors. If the goal is to calculate EROEI, the energy part is critical. For the nth-order contributions, could we not simply take the identified cost of those factors (costs borne but not covered in the initial break-down) and estimate an energy loading associated with them? We shouldn't need infinite precision to ballpark EROEI for a project, especially a relative EROEI versus some other project, where errors should offset similarly.
As push comes to shove, I think labor and nth-order costs will drop, as you'll have no shortage of labor once oil peaks, and they'll be working more efficiently.
With respect to investment in wind, I see a couple of issues:
1. Subsidies may make sense at current levels of investment, but if investments are an order of magnitude higher, I think we need to assume that subsidies basically must go away, especially if the economy shrinks as well.
2. With less and less debt going forward, it seems like we should be thinking about these investments more as cash investments, somehow coming out of current cash flow. Certainly the energy that goes into these investments is current energy that is mined or produced as gas or oil or electricity. We have gotten used to being able to put things off into the future, but it seems to me that wind needs to make sense as an investment now, using funds that a company might use for some investment in some other enterprise that has long-term usefulness, if we are to have an adequate level of investment.
"but if investments are an order of magnitude higher, I think we need to assume that subsidies basically must go away,"
The oil industry had accelerated depletion allowances for 50 years, during periods of growth and during recessions.
we should be thinking about these investments more as cash investments, somehow coming out of current cash flow.
That's how wind is being financed now, 50% debt( over 15 years), 50% equity from investor capital and profits.
Wind turbine builders are expanding capacity the same way, Vestas just raised additional capital a few weeks ago for additional expansion. You can't have 80Billion invested in new capacity in last year without strong investor support.
There are various ways to compair costs. Levelized cost looks at energy costs over the life of a facility. Levelized cost is not the whle picture. Since sometime in the next 40 years we will need to replace most energy from fossil carbon based sources with post carbon energy. The most recent EIA National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) indicates that the levelized cost of nuclear will be lower than the levelized cost of solar and wind in 2016,
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/reports/reports_kindD.asp?type=model%20document...
Only fossil fuels will have a lower levelized cost than nuclear. provided there are no carbon penalties. Wind and solar carry a considerable green penalty as CO2 removal technologies:
Nuclear $107 per ton CO2
Wind $141-229 per ton CO2
Solar $263-396 per ton CO2
Hydro $114 per ton of CO2
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-n...
Clearly then conventional nuclear will offer cost advantages over renewables as a means of fighting global warming.
Charles --
I'm skeptical about EIA's assumptions for nuclear costs. Since nothing new has been built for decades, EIA does not vet their cost value for nuclear, as they do for coal, gas, wind, etc. I haven't reverse-engineered their levelized values, but the second link you provide indicates capital costs for nuclear are at a 30% premium to conventional coal in EIA modeling. Recent build estimates from FPL and AECL however indicate that a 100% premium is far closer to the mark.
Other cost assumptions are also likely dated, but nowhere near as badly as the nuclear assumption.
While I don't dispute that replacing a coal plant with wind or solar is an expensive way to reduce carbon, I don't think nuclear is less expensive than wind on a levelized basis. Even solar is pretty close.
Actually solar (thermal) is already 'way ahead. See Assessment of Parabolic Trough and Power Tower Solar Technology - Cost and Performance Forecasts - Sargent & Lundy LLC Engineering Group Chicago, Illinois
[QUOTE]For the more technically aggressive low-cost case, S&L found the National Laboratories’ “SunLab” methodology and analysis to be credible. The projections by SunLab, developed in conjunction with industry, are considered by S&L to represent a “best-case analysis” in which the technology is optimized and a high deployment rate is achieved. The two sets of estimates, by SunLab and S&L, provide a band within which the costs can be expected to fall. The figure and table below highlight these results, with initial electricity costs in the range of 10 to 12.6 ¢/kWh and eventually achieving costs in the range of 3.5 to 6.2 ¢/kWh. The specific values will depend on total capacity of various technologies deployed and the extent of R&D program success. In the technically aggressive cases for troughs / towers, the S&L analysis found that cost reductions were due to volume production (26%/28%), plant scale-up (20%/48%), and technological advance (54%/24%).[/QUOTE]
Given Sargent & Lundy Engineering's worst case scenario provides peak time solar electricity at $0.062/kwh by only building 2.8 GW and doing a few minor and definitely achievable R&D improvements, plus transmission, and a clear path is provided to offering 83% capacity factor using cheap sand and gravel tanks for thermal storage with 3x collector area and no additional central plant, which should make the installation no more expensive PER KWH if only the industry can get to 2.8 GW installed, I don't see what we are waiting for.
It also appears to me that the more agressive forecasts of NREL / SunLab of $0.035 / kwh if we can get to 8.2 GW installed quite quickly is entirely within reach.
Moving the units from Arizona to Iowa only requires increasing the (relatively cheap) reflector surfaces by 8.2 / 5.25 = an added 56%, changing the energy costs from 3.5 to 6.2 ¢/kWh by (1 + .5 x .56 = 1.28) to perhaps 4.48 to 7.94 ¢/kWh .
Or Stirling Energy Systems - SES SunCatcher - Technology - More efficient and potentially higher EROEI than above systems.
I respectfully submit that "believing" in these systems is not cornucopian. What a lot of the above discussions miss is that there are some reasons installation of these systems is not growing faster now. a) Economics is presently skewed toward exhausting all fossil fuels before building any of these replacements. That needs to be fixed. b) Even though oil is running out, abundant natural gas selling at 1/4 the price of oil on a kwhr equivalent basis in N America is making any investments in this sort of system too financially risky.
A good post which sums up the Herculean challenge ahead of us. I am of the assumption that our per-capita energy consumption can not, and will not, be sustainable.
Just one point though. I think you may have overlooked the effect of reverse exponential decrease in FF consumption. If we are assuming a 5% decrease in FF each year, then the BTUs required from renewables in year one will be 'x' and then in year two will be 'less than x' etc. A minor point and would almost certainly be swallowed in the rounding error noise.
thanks.
Good point--someone with more math and progamming skills than I could probably put together a niftly java app that lets one input certain assumptions and then see the results displayed in graphical form, e.g. the rate at which renewables generation must increase to keep pace with oil decline at X% per year, etc.
Also agreed that we won't be able to keep up our current per-capital energy consumption. That's my not-at-all-secret agenda behind this series: if we accept that "transition" can't maintain the status quo, then we need to begin to allocate more of our intellectual, political, and capital resources to the flip side of: "how do we maximize quality of life under the assumption of continually declining per-capital energy consumption"?
""how do we maximize quality of life under the assumption of continually declining per-capital energy consumption"?"
Well put. This must be the first, second...nth priority, yet relatively little attention is given to it compared to the amount of ink (rather electrons) spilled discussing the latest wiz tech that will generate X amount of energy.
I sometimes wonder if this is partly a function of the male dominance still existent in the energy field. In household finances, when presented with monetary shortfalls, women tend to look at what they can cut back on, while men tend to look for new sources of revenue. (On the other hand, my wife tends to just look for more things to shop for;-(
I noticed Jeff's linear approach, but after thinking about it, decided that replacing oil over a 20 year period was not a bad strategy. Beyond 20 years, it looks like oil availability will be so low, that we really cannot count on much of it for use in wind turbine production, so we somehow must front-end the process a bit. I guess I would argue for perhaps even more replacement in the early years than Jeff suggests, but tapering off. This makes our current problem even worse than Jeff suggests.
Another issue is that if wind turbines really need to be replaced at about 25 years, I would like to make certain that structure is well in place, so we can begin the difficult project of making replacements, with only wind energy. To make certain we can do this, it seems like we should get wind turbines in place as soon as possible.
...replacing oil over a 20 year period was not a bad strategy. Beyond 20 years, it looks like oil availability will be so low...
The well known pessimist, Colin Campbell of ASPO, predicts all liquids will be down from 80Mbpd in 2010 to 55Mbpd in 2030. You make it sound like we'll have little or no oil in 2030; I beg to differ. I agree with you about getting the wind turbines in place as soon as possible though!
What do you estimate China's oil consumption at in 2030? How about Saudi Arabia? When you go from 80 to 55 a lot of countries (possibly including the USA) will have to sharply decrease consumption to allow these two to continue consuming.
Wind turbines are clearly not the optimal choice for replacement. Solar (either thermal or Optical Rectenna) are better renewables.
All discussion above appears to ignore the huge Natural Gas resources available, which is simply a gross error. Natural gas can substitute directly for petroleum in most applications, can supply the energy for factorys to produce eg. solar thermal plant parts or wind turbines, and efficiently generate electricity itself.
To say nothing about coal resources. The only way a lot of the above discussion could ever happen is if some magical arbitrary event occurs to make coal inaccessable. Please explain that process, because I would like to support it.
LOL. Nice post.
The assumption that we must "at a minimum" replace fossil fuels at the same level as they are depleted is just that... a very big assumption.
More realistically I believe we will need to learn to live with a smaller energy budget. This is quite possible as demonstrated by many countries around the world that have a decent standard of living yet consume far less per capita than we do in the United States.
Renewable energy probably can't be scaled up effectively to equal our current consumption, but it could likely be scaled up to the level at which we can continue to live with a lot of modern conveniences. Nevertheless, that in itself is still a very challenging scale to achieve.
"Renewable energy probably can't be scaled up effectively to equal our current consumption, but it could likely be scaled up to the level at which we can continue to live with a lot of modern conveniences."
I agree that we can't scale up to our current consumption. My concern with the statement that we can scale down to a renewable basis is that while we in the West may be able to scale up renewable production to allow us to live at a relatively comfortable level, the expectation for 5/6 of the world is that they will be able to rise to that level to which we must scale down. In balance, that would represent a net increase in global consumption--which would require scaling up "effectively to equal our current consumption" or more. If we fail to do this, then we're faced with a variety of problems: 1) unrest in the those areas left behind, which will inevitably (though to an uncertain degree) affect "us" in the West; 2) undermine our ability to serve as the top of the pyramid presiding over a global South that facilitates our current standard of living; 3) use of environmentally destructive and high-carbon producing fuel sources by this global South in an effort to catch up or even maintain current (low) levels of energy consumption (everything from palm oil, coal, wood, etc.), consequences of which will have significant (potentially devastating) impact on our economic viability.
Thanks Jeff. I completely agree that scaling renewables with long energy durations will exacerbate the problem in the short run, which is yet another example of focusing on present (via the market) unlike New Deal type forward policy thinking. (This was one of the subtler points of Gever et al Beyond Oil - that crash renewable programs would dramatically reduce available net energy to non-energy society for over a decade before it began its rise again.)
As long as decisionmakers are rewarded for short term performance, built infrastructure with low marginal costs will trump any high marginal cost (i.e. paying for everything up front, not just the fuel) investments.
Have you read Energy Return On Investment - Towards a Consistent Framework on said topic?
I haven't read it, but (referncing David Murphy's comment below), I'd certainly like to. Is it available on the internet anywhere without subscription or payment?
No - I will email it
Exactly. That's the real problem, somewhat slightly exacerbated by a very few downers who fight EVERY potential solution from nuclear to solar.
Here's the reddit & digg links for this post (we appreciate your helping us spread our work around, both in this post and any of our other work...):
http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/937d2/renewable_transition_1_...
http://www.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/937cq/renewable_transition_...
http://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/937ct/renewable_transition_1_tar...
http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/937cu/renewable_transition_1_t...
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/937d1/renewable_transition_1...
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Jeff
I support the idea that EROI is one of the most important metrics by which we should be examining energy and climate policies. I also believe that these estimates are far from perfect, and I look forward to reading your ideas. However, I disagree that we should have little confidence in EROI numbers (on the other hand I do not believe we should have complete confidence either). I believe that a proper EROI analysis explains all the assumptions that were made to estimate the EROI of this or that process, and I have more confidence in EROI numbers than, for example, net present value numbers calculated in a CBA, because EROI numbers are based on physical quantities and thus avoid many issues such, as inflation.
David,
I agree with your statement about EROI analysis. From Jeff's blog, he is assuming the "long tail" is very long, when in fact we know the limits must be less than the total energy used by the economy.
Since only a very small part of the economy is devoted to building new energy capacity, new energy investments must only be a small part of energy use by the economy.
It seems the upper limit for EI has to be; (the capital cost $$/kW capacity) X (average energy(kWh)/$GDP), with the ER(kWh) the kW capacity x capacity factor x lifetime(hours) . For new wind farms this gives a value for EROI of 30:1 to 80:1 depending upon the location, and energy/$GDP of the economy, and type of energy used.
Capital cost must be overestimating actual energy used in a fast growing industry, because some profits would be re-invested in future capacity. Conversely, a declining industry would have paid off past investments so may be underestimating EI based on capital cost. I think this is what is happening with oil industry.
Your formula for EI yields a result in hours, not kWh, which makes no sense. The kW capacity doesn't belong in there. I hope that is not changing your numbers. Also, what is the "type of energy used" factor? Isn't EREOI conceptually supposed to be independent of the source of energy? So shouldn't the result not be dependent on that?
Your "upper limit" assertion ignores the considerable debate going on elsewhere in this thread about methodology, I think.
It would be interesting to know the sources for the numbers you are using. I'm not sure how much stock I'd place in any kWh/$GDP numbers, for a variety of reasons, though the ballpark results might be still worth knowing.
excellent post
Thanks Jeff,
I'm really glad you asked the question: "OK here's the solution, Can we get there from here in time?". I certainly do not know what the EROEI of various renewables is. One can attempt to consider the energy costs of steel, concrete, silicon, etc that goes into building these power sources, and one can consider the cost of reduced EROEI for the input fossil fuels to get there. But other factors complicate the picture immensely.
Any future energy economy will be heavily dependent upon the ability to distribute and mobilize electricity. This is heavily dependent up critical metalic elements which may soon become much more expensive to acquire. See posts from Dr. A. M. Diederen and Ugo Bardi and Marco Pagani below. While I believe the cost and timing of production of renewable electricity will be a serious challenge as you point out, the cost of useful electricity consumption is likely to grow even faster since much more energy will be needed to consume electricity in a form that can replace fossil fuels. Namely batteries, capacitors or some other form of relatively high energy density storage. These solutions are likely to depend upon relatively rare metals.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3086
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5239
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5559
EROEI theory would suggest that low EROEI oil would be uneconomic to produce. The US with the oldest oil fields(and among the most energy intensive
) in the world is still the 4th largest producer of oil.
Look at the US field production decline rate since 1970.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus1a.htm
Between 1971 and 1985 there was a .47% annual geometric decline rate with as many years showing gains as declines(undulating plateau).
Between 1985 and 2000 there was a 2.73% geometric decline rate(era of cheap oil) but between 2000 and 2008 the year-to-year decline rate dropped to 1.87%.
At a 2% year-to-year decline the US in 2050 can be projected produce as much oil as Brazil or Iraq pumps now.
Indonesia has old oilfields with a low EROEI
but has dropped 1.2% in 1987-2006 and 5% y-to-y in 2000-2006. Still they pump as hard as they can.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Indonesia/images/indonesia-oil_prod_and_cons...
Canada produces 3 billion barrels of oil/yr of which 40% is from low EROEI oil sands and will probably increase.
With a 2% y-to-y drop(a old oilfield world) world oil production in 2050 will still be 43% of what it is today which is still a lot.
So old lower EROEI oil fields are still producing and new even lower EROEI oil resources are being used massively.
Doesn't that suggest that EROEI isn't much of a factor in determining existing oil production?
Technology extends the life of old oil fields in spite of a greater energy draw.
Geology, not EROEI will determine how long the oil lasts because the need for oil is insatiable.
No, it does not. EROEI theory suggests that low EROEI oil produces less "net" oil, or profit oil, which is far from saying it is uneconomic. By the way - what do you mean by "low" EROEI - 20:1, 10:1, 1.1:1?
No. First, old oil fields have much of the built infrastructure already in place, so it is cheaper to continue production as pressure drops (to an extent of course) rather than ditch the oil field at the first sign of lower EROEI, i.e. decline. Second, tar sands are producing oil somewhere between 3 - 8:1, according to my calculations and others that I have read, which is still MUCH higher than the alternative - corn ethanol - which is roughly 1.3:1.
I agree that geology has an influence on the depletion of oil, but it is not the only influence. What about extraction rates, water cut, etc...?
That sounds really weird: less profit sounds a lot like uneconomic.
profit = production x (selling price-variable cost)
- fixed cost, so if variable costs like energy rise, either you produce more for the same profit or you lose money, unless the selling price rises.
Besides the oil companies are still DEVELOPING oil fields in over a kilometer of sea water, surely that is less economic than onshore yet development continues.
http://www.bnamericas.com/news/oilandgas/Chevron_starts_oil_production_i...
I guess they expect to lose money.
As I remember, according to youse guys--low EROEI is less than 5:1.
At that point the walls start collapsing.
And yet ethanol production continues to rise!
Amazing!
Production is up by about 78,000 bpd over a year ago.
http://renewablefuelsassociation.cmail1.com/T/ViewEmail/y/9BA8DCB82AA558BF
87 million acres of corn have been planted this year after 86 million acres last year.
2007 it was 93 million acres, due to speculative bubble you may remember.
Will it feed cows? Check the condition of the dairy farmers--it will go to ethanol.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=dep...
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews/2008/0409AbendElmorePedersen.htm
Secondary and tertiary extraction extends geology, the oil companies do it despite higher energy requirements.
Take our old friend Kern River(There Will Be Blood!). The State of California says that there
are 475 Mb of oil left. Its production has been by steam flooding since the 1960s. It takes 1 Mcf of natural gas to produce 1 barrel of unrefined heavy oil which is interesting because a barrel of oil has equal energy to 5.5 Mcf so the EROEI is at best 5:1(an end-of-the-world low EROEI).
There is about 475 billion barrels of heavy oil identified by geologists(USGS) and currently ~10% of oil produced is heavy oil and the Saudis want in.
Steam flooding is starting in Saudi Arabia at Wafra.
http://www.chevron.com/news/press/release/?id=2009-06-29
majorian,
"Look at the US field production decline rate since 1970.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mcrfpus1a.htm
Between 1971 and 1985 there was a .47% annual geometric decline rate with as many years showing gains as declines(undulating plateau).
Between 1985 and 2000 there was a 2.73% geometric decline rate(era of cheap oil) but between 2000 and 2008 the year-to-year decline rate dropped to 1.87%.
At a 2% year-to-year decline the US in 2050 can be projected produce as much oil as Brazil or Iraq pumps now."
What you say may be true but it hides the fact that these decline rates are for an increased geographical area, i.e. addition of Alaska and GOM to US lower 48. If you look at lower 48 alone you get a more typical approximation to Hubberts curve and much greater declines;
http://www.peakoil.org.au/charts/us-48.oil.prod.gif
How many new geographical areas are still awaiting exploitation and how much oil are they likely to contain?
TW
Of course, depletion is a reality, but depletion isn't an EROEI issue, only energy returned on energy invested.
Imagine that all the worlds oil dried up.
People would start producing oil from shale or coal, even hydrogen from wind turbines to run their cars on.
The fact that it would take a lot more energy would only mean more people would be riding bikes or walking.
There is also the idea that below a certain EROEI
civilization collapses. This is laughable IMO.
Did a lack of high EROEI oil in 1944 cause Germany to collapse when it lost oilfields in Romania and had to use coal?
A lot of oil remains in the form of heavy oil, bitumen and oil shale. Oil shale production in Great Britain(Lothain) in 1913 was 3.2 million tons.
The reason production was stopped was the development of oil tankers, not low EROEI.
I don't think unconventional oil will be developed unless CO2 emissions can be elim inated but that isn't an EROEI issue.
Um, yes, it did. Surprised you would choose that example. Aside from the obvious fact that Germany lost the war, all the evidence suggests that both the war effort and German daily life suffered all the more severely after the event you mention.
Only if oil is produced as an energy source that competes with other energy sources. Oil has other uses.
But the fact the stuff is in finite supply is the ultimate limit, even if 100% recovery were possible.
The captital "V" Viridians (Bruce Sterling,et al) certainly do expect that radical demand destruction for fossil fuels will occur, with at efficiency contributing at least as much as renewables.
While I am skeptical of "free-market" ideologies, if the capital and energy-constrained future that you predict occurs, conservation will make so much economic and logistical sense that it will be implemented with unprecedented speed.
As an engineer working in building energy efficiency who has lived in and built several passive solar houses, I know that reducing building energy use by 80% or more is not particularly difficult or expensive. The fact is that energy is still so cheap that most people just do not bother. My neighbors run their air conditioner full blast with windows and skylights open. Clearly the cost is not significant to them. Meanwhile I operate my house with night-time passive cooling and a very small amount of fan energy. I achieve equivalent or better comfort (night breezes,etc.) at less than 5% of their energy use. At some price per KWh, my neighbors will turn off their AC and install a whole-house fan, or open their windows to the cool night air.
The EROEI of building energy efficiency is very high and much easier to quantify than renewables, because the system boundaries are less vague. Of course, increasing insulation levels have decreasing EROI, except that super-insulated building can have smaller or no heating and cooling systems.
For Danish attic insulation, EROEI ranges from 120:1 to 3:1 depending on thickness installed, but attic insulation to moderate levels in most climate zones will have EROEI values that dwarf renewables. Similarly, financial ROI for building energy efficiency will be more attractive than renewables in an energy and capital constrained environment.
http://www.inive.org/members_area/medias/pdf/Inive%5CIAQVEC2007%5CRudbec...
So adding renewable capacity to match fossil fuel decline rates will not be a financial or logistical optimum and is unlikely to occur. Riding a bicycle or taking a bus makes more economic and logistical sense than corn ethanol or plug-in hybrid autos, and is therefor a more likely future.
Jeff,
Great work in highlighting the dimensions of the problem. It suggests to me that the material inputs and, most significantly, the energy costs they represent, are key parameters in gauging the likely success of a transition strategy from FF. As a result, I think energy density and reliability of the source are important parameters as these influence the amount of infrastructure 'stuff' required to build and operate an alternative system. Moreover, climate change concerns mean we have to be mindful of life-cycle carbon costs. These lead me to one direction: toward nuclear power. It seems to be a virtually inescapable conclusion as the MILLION-to-one order-of-magnitude superiority in energy density over FF, and further orders of magnitude again over renewables, is an immutable fact. High energy density, and high temperature operation, translates into clear advantages in the amount of infrastructure necessary to convert the energy into useful forms.
This energy COULD be tapped in ways suitable for a transition tool. Take, for example, the molten salt reactor:
- Rapidly scalable, esp. with factory production of small (~50MWt) modular units resulting in low cost via serial production in large numbers
- high-temperature, meaning steamless turbine operation possible at high thermodynamic efficiencies = smaller turbine requirements
- It operates at atmospheric pressure and the salt is chemically very stable, meaning explosive failure mode not possible, permitting much less investment in containment structure steel and concrete
- Intrinsically safe (reactivity self regulating by physical properties of salt, cannot melt down as already molten!), reinforcing the point above regarding low-cost containment requirements
- Can breed new fuel (thorium cycles: 1tonne / GW-year, so world resources are virtually limitless in terms of energy potential), and can be configured to consume existing spent fuel. So, input resources are NOT a limiting factor.
- supports fuel cycle that is consistent with goals of non-proliferation
- automatic fuel recycle with actinide burning (the long-lived nasty stuff)
- automatically load following
We know it can be done as MSRs have been operated before, albeit as test / research reactors, and the Navy has decades worth of experience with micro-reactor units that can operate for years on a single fuel load, so this is not fantasy. We would be looking at perhaps 5 years of development for a commercial design as we know all the background science and most of the engineering.
Time to deployment would depend on whether or not the government insists on squelching such progress through its regulatory powers, which could delay things for another 5-10 years if they so deemed it.
So, what is wrong with the vision of miniature, factory mass-produced modular reactors with intrinsic safety features for electricity production (swap out coal units at existing coal plants?), synfuel production, industrial process heat, district heating, and trans-oceanic shipping, in a nuclear-electric economy?
Have I not described a silver bullet, or are we so blinded by "there are NO silver bullets" and past ways of thinking (nuclear plants only come in one format, with only one fuel cycle, and innovation is next to impossible, or radiation is too scary) that we refuse to see the possibilties given sound science and already tested reactor concepts? If not, what is it about my lack of understanding re nuclear technology potential that prevents me from seeing this as being impossible?
I'm going on about this as I'm scared to death about peak oil and climate change, and after much consideration, I see nuclear in new forms based on a marshalling of 50 years of global experience with the technology as being our only good shot at pulling this transition off over the next generation or two with the smallest over-all environmental impact.
Maybe you should ask A.Q. Kahn what could possibly go wrong with the above scenario?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan
Dirty bombs in population centers are almost a certainty in a scenario with ubiquitous nuclear materials scattered all over the planet. Currently, the backroom bomb-makers use old cellphones, Mattel ICs, fuel oil and fertilizer, etc., but they clearly will use whatever is easily available. If nuclear materials are easily available, they will be used, under any realistic scenario.
The "MILLION-to-one order-of-magnitude superiority in energy density over FF" is wildly unrealistic, as the any analysis of the financial and energy return on investment for the complete nuclear fuel cycle will show, with both ROIs similar or lower than the fossil or renewable alternatives. Although financial and energy ROIs are not equivalent, a very bad financial ROI is a warning sign to anyone with common sense and finite funds.
If a pile of nuclear material is hot enough to be anything near effective as a "dirty bomb" then it would be hot enough to kill the bomb assemblers. Not a likely scenario.
For some perspective on MUCH more likely scenarios, check out this youtube clip:
of a massive propane explosion in Toronto last year.
That would be pretty spectacular for terrorists, I think. It would be far easier to hijack a few railcars of that stuff and blow it up and do FAR more damage than to jack around with some pieces of radioactive material of insufficient strenght to kill the terrorists handling it. What about chemical rail cars (cars filled with, say, chlorine), chemical plants, refineries, gas pipelines, LNG terminals, etc. Do we ban all of those too?
The dirty bomb scenario is fearmongering bullshit peddled by those who are selling "BOO!" about anything nuclear. Just as we don't cower in fear and ban use of all propane and industrial chemicals, neither should cower from the purely hypothetical construct of a terrorist stupid enough to kill himself with hot materials and ban nuclear technology, which delivers today more carbon free electricity than any other source. Fear of the mythical "dirty bomb" says more about our collective irrational fear of radiation, and those seeking to exploit it, than any honest scientific assessment of the real threat.
As to the conflation of nuclear power with bombs, again fearmongering nonsense. A nuclear reactor designed for power production is a very poor source of any bomb material. You need a reactor specifically designed for the task of making weapons grade plutonium. A MSR, for example, would be a very poor choice for trying to extract any useful bomb material. If based on Th232 -> U233 cycle, it would be virtually impossible. Proliferation-resistant designs are more than available to take this small risk and render it virtually nil. Not the best reason to ban technology that, given a century of physics since E=MC2, has been demonstrated to be fully capable of powering all of humanity without emissions nor intractible waste problems (e.g. with deep burn / reprocessing rendering only fission products for disposal).
So in your ideal world, nuclear power and bombs have no connection.
On the planet called Earth, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel have used "civilian" nuclear power to aid in bomb development. In the nuclear-powered world you envision, will there never again be leaders like Kim Jung, Idi Amin, Kadafi, Saddam Hussein, etc.???
Is considering the potential interactions of nuclear power and nuclear proliferation "fearmongering nonsense"??
The Strangelovian certainty of nuclear proponents might work OK for preaching to the choir, but out in the real world, financial realities, waste disposal, security, fuel cycle costs and impacts, unknown decommissioning costs, etc., are realistic concerns that have and will continue to limit the role that nuclear power plays. If current rates of growth continue, wind alone will be producing more power than nuclear in the US within a decade.
There is no more of a connection between nuclear bombs and nuclear power than there is between fuel-air explosive bombs and natural gas power plants.
Yes, the basic materials are the same, but the technologies to apply them are quite different.
To say otherwise is nothing more than base fear-mongering.
To then invoke the names of foreign dictators as a reason not to pursue domestic nuclear power is even worse, it is fear-mongering and changing the subject.
Address the real risks of nuclear power. Show that you understand what they are, and that you understand the technology in at least a basic way that is not ruled purely by fear.
Then you will be able to make decent arguments against particular implementations.
Oh sure, I agree. Several points however:
Atrophy in US nuclear power workforce along with difficult licensing issues with the NRC means that the first plants built will face large cost overruns and limited scalability for the next decade for existing light water reactors.
Infrastructure for airbus/boing mass production of modular reactors would take additional time to build up.
A big problem is who signs up for reactor construction given existing nuclear power companies live on the profits of nuclear fuel servicing and LFTR reactors dont need hardly any fuel and certainly dont need fabrication. Capital will be hard to lure.
Finally the message is largely unwelcome here. Many here are misanthropes look forward to peak energy output and decline of civilization.
I think the systemic barriers to innovation put in place by government via regulation (NRC choke points), the irrational fear of radiation sold throughout the system (e.g. setting Yucca mountain exposure limits to an order of magnitude less than F!ING NATURAL BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS), the misinformation about virtual equivalency between nuclear power and bombs, etc. is a feature, not a bug. Inexpensive, intrinsically safe reactors that can dispatch high-grade heat where required, for 10-30 years, on a single fuel charge... where's the profit in that? How can Exxon sell $300-400 BILLION of product each year if our economy ran on such things?
That is our real problem...
My own back-of-the-envelope calculations have led me to be very sceptical that the US can operate a sustainable economy at anything much more than about 25% of our present per capita GDP. Our ecological and carbon footprints at anything above that will just be too great, and I really doubt that we have the renewable resource base to support anything close to our present population at anything much more than that. Yes, it is true that a considerable decline in population might leave more to be spread around across fewer numbers, but it is also true that most scenarios that result in such a population decline would also result in a permanent degradation of our carrying capacity, and that the economy would be so damaged that the renewable resource infrastructure would never get built out at anything close to its potential. We could end up at well below 25% (which translates into something around $10,000 GDP per capita in current dollars), but IMHO we are just deluding ourselves to target anything much above that. Trying to grab for more is likely to be counterproductive, and will likely result in the wrong decisions being made, the wrong investments being made, and the wrong things being built. That is exactly what we are seeing right now, by the way.
It is perfectly possible to still have an advanced industrial economy and a high level of human development with a per capita GDP of around $10,000. Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Cuba are all nearby examples of societies that are very close to that level; the US itself was at that level as near ago as 1941. We COULD live with that. We would just have to live differently, and learn to live with less.
Not to argue with your numbers, but how did you arrive at them?
Thanks
Don
Oh, that's sort of evolved over the past couple years over a number of threads here. My basic starting point was a post a couple of years ago by Dr. Francois Cellier on ecological footprints vs. the Human Development Index for each nation. His interpretation of the data was that there was a "sweet spot" where the ecological footprint was sustainable (or at least within reasonable reach of being so), but HDI was still pretty close to what is enjoyed in most OECD nations. He found that Cuba, of all places, was the only nation that was actually in that sweet spot. In further discussion, we identified Costa Rica and Uruguay as two nations that were very close to being there; The Dom. Republic, Ecuador, Phillipines, and Thailand were a bit farther away, but still within reasonably close range. I noted that the per capita GDP (in PPP) for all of these nations is somewhere around 25% of the USA.
When considering energy in particular, I note that WT's ELM model seems to be pointing toward oil exports going away entirely within the next decade or two. This, combined with the economic problems the US is already having, and the huge pile of debt we are building up, suggests to me that we will not have the resources to rapidly build out a renewable energy infrastructure that totally replaces those oil imports, let alone all the other depleting FFs, AND be able to make the continuing and increasing investments needed to do what we can with whatever domestic FFs are less, AND to make the energy efficiency investments needed (such as extensive electrified passenger and freight rail transport), AND keep up with the rest of our deteriorating infrastructure. I therefore see economic decline as inevitable and a foregone conclusion. I do not know its pathway or timeline. I admit the possibility of a decline all of the way to zero, but am not yet convinced that this is inevitable and unavoidable. If not 0% of present GDP pc, and not 100%, then what? I have felt that 25% represents a number that is severe, that would be viewed by many as quite pessimistic (and by some others as optimistic), but might be within the realm of actual possibility. Given the uncertainties inherent, I think it pointless to suggest any sort of precise number. I say 25% because that is 1/4 of the present level, and I do not believe that it is possible to talk about these things with any greater level of precision than that. We can talk about 100%, 3/4, 1/2, 1/4, or zero % of the present GDP pc, but anything more fine-tuned than that is just silly.
An advantage of speaking in terms of 25% of present GDP pc is that it gives people something concrete to imagine. I can cite the examples of CR, Cuba, and the other countries, and with a little effort people can find out something about what life is like there. The fact that there IS life there, that people in those countries are apparently able to go about their daily lives with some happiness, should be somewhat reassuring.
We can also go back in time with that number: to 1941, as it turns out, is when the US GDP pc was 25% of our present level (in constant dollars). That happens to be a pretty interesting year. That was the year when the depression was just about over, but it was still a pretty frugal time for a lot of people; many were still gardening, putting up food, sewing their own clothes, and doing all of the frugal things they had to do during the depression. Yet, things were not so terrible - most people could find work. That was also just before the US entered WWII. There were definite war clouds on the horizon, and the storm broke on Dec. 7th, but the military was not yet the predominant driver of the economy. There are still people living among us who can remember what life was like in 1941, and the era is well documented. People alive today can learn something about what life was like then, and relate to it. They can be reassured by the fact that there WAS life in 1941, and at the time the people living in it in the USA felt that life was pretty good.
Re WNC's excellent point about closely examining what life in the USofA was like in 1941, over three semesters in 06/07 I had students in my intro. cultural anthropology course undertake an oral history project with an elderly person (usually a grandparent or greatgrandparent). The main goal was to flesh out how people managed during the Great Depression and/or WWII. This was in the context of some discussion of peak oil and societal collapse. (The secondary goal was to get students engaged with their elders, successfully met in most cases.) I'll be putting those 90 or so interviews online in the next few weeks (finally!), I hope they'll be of interest to people. I'll post a link when they're ready.
See, that's where you loose me. Predicting that "the USA is in deep because ALL fossil fuels are depleting" is nonsense. Tight gas development in the last few years has just added more energy to USA reserves than were ever available from petroleum. The coal resources in N. America are ridiculously large, eg. 100+ meter deep seams reasonably accessible by in-situ gasification underly most of the southern half of the Canadian province of Alberta, too deep to now be counted as reserves. All can readily substitute for petroleum with very resonablely stable increases in cost. I don't "get" the argument.
Yes, we still do have a lot of FF in the ground. IMHO, we really do need to give some thought to conserving those for future generations, as this is the last of it. Once these are burned up, that's it, there will be NOTHING left for them, ever. Maybe we'll be foolish enough and selfish enough and short-sighted enough to just extract it and burn it all as rapidly as possible, but I hope not.
I would also point out that speeding up rather than stretching out our depletion of our remaining FF reserves will likely also accelerate rather than retard global climate change. That will more than undo any economic "benefit" that we get from burning more FF. Just imagine what the abandonment of most of Florida, south LA, and east NC will do to our economy, along with the abandonment of most of the states of AZ, NV, NM, and UT as they become even more arid and the water supplies fail completely.
Finally, I would point out that just because FFs are in the ground does not guarantee that they will be extracted and burned sooner rather than later. While there is indeed still much in the ground, all of the cheap and easy stuff is already gone. From here on out, the cost to find and extract all this stuff climbs exponentially. I really wonder whether our economy will be able to come up with the ever-increasing amounts of investment capital needed, especially given all the other demands for investment capital which I listed above. It would be a challenge even for a healthy, growing economy, and the US economy from this point forward is going to be anything but.
I actually am very glad that we DO still have these extensive FF reserves; they are our "ace in the hole", and are the main reason why I still hold some shred of hope that the worst case doomer die-off scenarios might not come to pass, for the USA anyway. These do give us quite a bit of a cushion, and might just enable our economy to decline more or less smoothly to a permanently sustainable level rather than experiencing a hard, fast collapse.
Can these FF reserves enable the USA to totally and forever escape the need to transition to a renewable-resource based sustainable economy? No way!
That's clearly not true regarding Natural Gas. It appears that tight gas can be extacted for a very low price, witness current $3.50 / mcf.
The argument which I don't "get" and on which much discussion here is founded, goes something like "oil is depleting, therefore there will be no energy of any kind available in future".
I didn't say that and clearly don't believe that. What I am saying is that the energy supply curve is necessarilly going to be bending down rather than continuing up, and that GDP pc must necessarilly follow suit. Yes, there will continue to be some energy available, and I am thankful for that, but we are going to have to get by on less energy than we have been up to now
Hi WNC,
I was born in 1939 in Duluth Minnesota and lived my childhood and teen years there. At that time, winter temps could get to 40 degrees F below zero. Duluth was hardly on the cutting edge of economic prosperity. It was not an easy life.
But, gowing up in Northern MN in the 40s and 50s was a great life! We had few of today's gadgets, but we had a rich experience with the natural world. Work was relatively easy to get if your needs were modest. All-in-all, it was a great time.
However, much of the employment was based upon lumber, mining and fishing - very little of that anymore. The air and water were relatively clean - OK today, but a struggle to keep it there. Duluth and northern MN are not the same as they were in the 40s.
I totally agree that going back to a 40s lifestyle would be a wonderful thing - I wonder, however, if this is possible in any manner? The natual environment has been so degraded since that time that the entire equation has changed.
WNC: If the USA had the GDP per capita of Costa Rica the USA would be an unbelieveable hell hole. CR has no overhead-the USA has an incredible, bloated overhead that is increasing daily. During the financial crisis, as Paulson talked of martial law, there was ZERO discussion of the need to scale back the global military empire to save money-ZERO. Obama hasn't even whispered it-this is just one example. Imagine CR trying to support the US military, US health care, US insurance companies, Wall Street, etc. etc. None of these connected interests are controllable or interested in financial sustainability or the survival of the overall economy.
Of course. CR has no military at all, and that helps with the quality of life a great deal. There is indeed no way that the USA can continue to support its present military establishment. That I take as a given under any circumstances or scenarios - we must pull back, regroup, and downsize. I have no problem with that at all. I know that a lot of powerful people DO have a big problem with that. A lot of good people will end up losing their lives as canon fodder while these big babies have their tantrums and throw their playthings around the global playpen. Eventually, and somehow, reality and sanity will have their way.
Reality will always have it's way in the end.....Sanity will not be present when the nukes fly.
Not directly related, but this article from today's Drumbeat is interesting:
Weaknesses In Chinese Wind Power
Gail,
Last year wind energy doubled, it would be surprising if every farm had completed all grid connections by the last day of the year, we see the same thing in US with almost all energy projects, oil fields waiting for pipelines to be completed, power plants having delays in cooling tower completion, ethanol plants having start-up delays.
The big news is that Chinese wind capacity doubled in one year! That's the story.
While many would say that increased consumption ala the Western model will head off population growth, I must point out that this is a rather insane proposal.
This is important because it undermines the idea that we will have a continuation of the dominant model of an infinite planet.
Because the consumption footprint of a Westerner is somewhere around seventy times that of the average third worlder, first worlders each represent seventy people. That means the United States holds an effective population of 21 billion people. To bring everyone up to Western standards means increasing the effective human population to approx. 476 billion people.
This is not possible. With peak metals occurring within the next few decades, peak soil already having happened, peak water biting our asses even now, the oceans crashing, etc., we will be lucky to enslave the rest of the world and live high on the hog ourselves. (This is apparently the Western strategy through the spread of "Democracy," which is really only a way to infiltrate economies with corporate vampires. If democracy was effective, we would have universal health care, free education, and a green world--that is, after all what all the polls show the population wants, despite right wing propaganda.)
The problem, as I see it is an irrational faith, yes faith, in science and engineering. A faith that this omnipotent god will lay its blessed hands upon us and cure our faults, our inability to live within the planet's constraints, our tendency to defecate in the nest, and our hatred of the rest of the biota which inhabit the planet. You see, our dream is not a paradigm that doesn't create the problems in the first place, our dream is to pursue "progress" even if we make horrible destructive mistakes in the name of science and then whip up "solutions" that merely sweep the scat under the bed rather than stopping humans from crapping all over in the first place.
Change the paradigm, not the paradigm's techno stuff.
Very good post Cherenkov.
humans suck, everythings ending, bla bla bla...
Seriously? Its another misanthropic doomer rant filled with unbacked assertions, conceit, and ideology. Its like every other would be Cassandra prophecy that is so common around here.
Sounds to me like the reality of the situation scares you very deeply Dez. Hopefully your denial gives you a degree of comfort.
Cassandra was right, her curse was that her prophecies would not be believed. Find another metaphor Dez.
Vicky
Except that Cassandra was mythical. These would be cassandras are living in a fantasy world where they fear their prophecies won't be believed.
Dez
The point I was making was that Cassandra was an accurate prophet, just that nobody would believe her. You are the poster child for that meme. I was suggesting that you find a better metaphor, because it is shooting you in the foot. Just go back to calling people negative and stupid for not listening to your cornucopian fixes for the mess we find ourselves in.
Vicky
Ok. I'm calling you negative and stupid for diving down a rathole on whether or not Cassandra as a prophet of doom is an appropriate metaphor for doomers.
Dez
You're right. I never should have gone down that path of trying to correct your usage of the language. It is like trying to correct the younger generation for using simplistic as a synonym for simple. You can call me a Cassandra any time. It will make my day. I don't even mind negative and stupid. Raising children is the cure for a thin skin.
Vicky
He did say "would be Cassandras". This is an appropriate usage and means exactly what he meant.
The implication is that the target would like to think they are an accurate prophet cursed to be ignored, but the reality may be considerably different.
Agreed - very good post Cherenkov
300 million Americans could be equivalent to >400 billion 3rd Worlders or a somewhat lower figure depending on where you measure 3rd World comparison, but the point is well made. There is not the energy to go round and never will be to allow a future world an American style, so any prospective world roll-out of that particular industrial model is impossible. Europeans use about half the energy per capita of Americans, but the point still holds.
Can the rest of the world afford us, even in the next decade or so?
Food use in America is not so extravagant as total fossil fuel use, but the majority of primary calories and protein e.g. corn and soybeans, is fed to the meat sector (and a sizable quantity now to the biofuels sector). Figures quoted and linked in my guest post last March on ToD suggest that dollar value of US primary farm production is less than a quarter of total US farm output dollar value, and that more than half of the dollar value of output is due to the meat sector. America depends critically (mostly) on fossil fuels for food production. Bangladesh with perhaps 1/50th of per capita American fossil fuel use, remains in food deficit, despite an increase in food grain production from 8Mt in 1962, 18Mt in 1992, to ~30Mt 2008. One needs to acknowledge that although a very little fossil fuel can go a very long way in that country, continued population increase in Bangladesh still very obviously matters a great deal.
Despite its severe poverty, Bangladesh has improved (declined) its population growth rate from 2.4 (1970-1990, 2.0 (1990-2007), now 1.8%, but even if it can continue to stabilize further, must see a larger eventual population. That remains problematic for Bangladesh.
United States Census Bureau shows a recent rate of increase of 0.95% for the US resident population. Though high by industrialized country standards, (many other industrial countries do not show much increase) this is below the world average annual rate of 1.19%. Nevertheless, US population with its present unsustainable industrial and food extravagance and associated resource consumption, has to be a serious problem for the World, not just an impossible act to follow.
Hi Cherenkov,
Good post - but where do you suppose most humans have acquired this tendency to have "irrationaly faith" or "hatred of the rest of the biota"?
Ha yes, when we are tiny children we are indoctrinated with the idea of "faith" in gods with some sorts of extraordinary supernatual poweres. And then we are told that we are the only creatures on earth with an immortal "soul" - other creatures are "beasts" to serve our needs as we are spend time in this valley of tears to earn brownie points for a better seat in heaven.
Wonder why people have a tendency for "irrational faith"?
One questions for all TODers. How much time in your opinion we have to shift to a village? or do you realistically believe that 20 to 30 years from now we could be able to live in cities? I mean ofcourse 2 to 3 percent people would be living in cities but what about the bulk of population.
I live in a small city (circa 30 - 40K) but I live in an isolated neighborhood on the outskirts on ~2 hectares along a river. I own water rights for irrigation so I can grow a considerable amount of food and have trees for fuelwood. I would rather live in a more rural location on a larger parcel of land but am content where I am for the time being. As liquid fuels become unaffordable if not completely unavailable, people will be forced by necessity to attempt to provide food for themselves and their families. I don't see how this will be possible on any more than a minimal scale in the urban environment. Urban Cubans, due to the trade embargo imposed by the US, have had some success in city gardening but still much food is trucked into the cities from the countryside. In densely populated cities, with people living in highrise apartment complexes, I have a hard time imagining how people will avoid starvation in the liquid fuels constrained future.
IMO you could live in a city in 2039 if that is your preference. The products will continue to be shipped to and the services will continue to exist in the urban centres when some rural locations start to regress IMO. OTOH some USA city cores are literal jungles, so it depends which city you are referring to.
A majority of humanity now lives in cities and that trend will only accelerate over the next 20-30 years.
Again, you astound me with your ability to see the future!
It should be obvious to anyone that analyzes trends. People flock to cities to improve their lives. Its that or farm, and frankly farming doesn't offer as many opportunities as cities often do. Oil depletion isn't going to change that trend. If anything it will accelerate it away from suburbs to denser cities.
Lack of oil seems to have changed the trend somewhat in Cuba and North Korea. More labor is required to produce food with a shortfall of oil, and standard of living is often better in those countries near where the food was produced.
You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you?
Cuba imports up to 80% of its food. These are command economies that are poor analogies for modelling urban development in the modern world.
3.423 million tonnes of food imported in 2008, approximately 1.4 million tonnes grown organiponicos in 2008, down from past years. There's about 1.5 million tonnes of sugar exports for 2008, also down, about .5 million tonnes of tropical fruit exports. That doesn't include grain, beef and dairy production from the farms consumed inside of Cuba. The 80% figure may be the dollar amount, but they certainly aren't importing 80% of their calories, and with the exported sugar they're exporting more calories than they are importing.
Do you have a cite for that 80% figure?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Cuba
Really, all this doesn't paint Cuba as a picture of the future of agriculture.
Follow the reference link to the claim of Cuba importing 80% of their food. It's at CNN and says "Cuba imports about 80 percent of the food it rations to the public".
Did you read the article, other than the transcription error about 80% of the food imported? None of the article content supports you're argument.
The monthy food ration is show here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_Cuba
80% of that ration is what the source is referring to.
The government supplied ration is only around a pound of food a day, maybe 25% of the total food consumed.
Good thing Wikipedia articles can be improved. ;-)
Since everyone else is going to throw out wild-assed conjecture on this point, why not me too?
I predict cities will be around for a while. As has been pointed out, we have a lot of natural gas to keep the cities glowing for at least 20-30 years. It is easier to distribute goods to centralized populations and I see no reason why a park and ride (or bike and ride) scheme cannot be employed relatively quickly to make up for shortsighted investments in suburbia.
I agree with Andrew.. except for the 20-30 years.
We've had Citymice and Countrymice for Several Thousand Years now. Cities are part of our structure as a species, no less than villages, isolated farms and ranches, and the occasional hermits. And at one point or another, each plays a role in our survival.
There will be a great rebalancing.. and some cities, just like some hermits, will discover that they are located in a place that can't support life without a lot of energy inputs that have mysteriously dried up. I give NOLA much greater odds than Las Vegas.. I think NOLA can just creep upstream if need be.. Vegas is already all the way up the creek without a creek.
But ask all those Canteloupes summering at John Cougar Mellencamp.. The City is just so easy a target, big and loud and smelly. Who can resist taking a few potshots at it?
Bob
"Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look whos in the big town
But my bed is in a small town
Oh, and thats good enough for me" - John Mellencamp "Small Town"
(Funny.. I always thought he said 'Still HATE it enough to say Look who's in the big town' .. I apologize, John. Should have given you a little more credit!)
I don't believe it is possible to maintain our current standard of living, our current population density, our current energy density or our current level of technological sophistication; at the same time we transition to some type of renewable energy infrastructure.
As a specific example; solar cells do not represent a renewable resource. The energy deficit that is inflicted is not paid back by the energy those cells generate over their lifetime. What I am looking at is the total cost (in energy consumed) throughout the production cycle, right from the initial processing and transportation of very specific types of chemicals and silicone.
On a more general level, there is a very important area that I have seen noone address. There is a general level of social/governmental/engineering/infrastructure sophistication that must be maintained in order for alternative energy transitions to occur. Returning to solar cell manufacturing, there is a level of cleanliness that must be maintained in order for production to occur. This requires a very specific, high level of infrastructure and stability; all of which requires a high level of energy input. This is before you can discuss how alternate energy technology will "save" us.
Simply put, you cannot manufacture solar cells with power solely derived from solar cells.
Ack. Did not do the research. Look, I'm not big on photovoltaic power because of cost issues; its just not competitive with wind or nuclear. But its simply untrue that modern photovoltaics dont produce as much power as they cost to manufacture. Oh, and its silicon, not silicone.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics
Well you wouldn't want to given there's many direct thermal processes involved, but your statement is demonstrably false.
Wow, dez defends PV!! Write the date down on your calendar!
I've allways liked PV, especially concentrators. Its fascinating engineering. I just suspect it will be decades before its competitive with even wind, and inappropriate for oil depletion mitigation.
Can you described which "direct thermal processes" in modern PV module production don't use electricity as their energy source?
I'm genuinely curious.
Any steel in supporting structures use coal directly for reduction.
However I must confess I assumed that silicon production itself was a direct reduction process rather than high temperature electric arc reduction.
So mea culpa. Very few if any. Apparently PVs can power PV production plants directly.
That's what I thought. Good point about the supporting structures, I guess. That'll be a bigger factor on utility and commercial scale installations than home installations.
I suggest that energy savings via efficiency will be completely swamped by new demands. For example electric cars needing an average of say 5-10 kwh per day or desalination boosted water supply requiring say 1 kwh per person per day. If heatwaves and cold snaps become more severe then peak electrical load could go through the roof. Both could occur under prolonged calm cloudy conditions so neither wind nor solar may be able to fully help out.
Even if future per capita energy needs can be reduced on average the system will need very large swing capacity.
Jeff, The "dangerous omission" and "problem with transition" we're still tragically missing remains that there'll never be enough money for solving the problem as long as the real effective central purpose of mitigation is to stabilize the economic growth that is multipliying the problem.
What we need is to effectively "confiscate" the money being used to multiply the climate impact system in order to save it from itself. Only then will the problem stop leaping out ahead of the scale of any solution we throw at it.
Trying to stabilize a system of multiplying impacts is essentially suicide, and that's what we are mostly all blindly attempting to do. We're competing over precious public funds to add to the effort to stabilize the compound growth of investment in adding to ALL the environmental impacts. “It’s the economy stupid!”, and stabilizing it’s compound growth is the true problem. That is tragically what the central purpose of climate mitigation and sustainable development actually is, stabilizing the growth of the problem. We should stop that, dead in its tracks if we knew how.
I know how to define that deep economic systems problem definitively, and so the real parameters of a solution. I'd need more than a little help on defining the path, of course, but almost no one is joining me in making sure our thinking goes deeply enough. It's only solvable if we address it...
I have other writings on the core problem, but from the EROI perspective my "Profiting from scarcity" piece is still fairly complete. Almost everyone is trying to solve the problem by fixing things that make it far worse.
Regarding the original article, a couple of questions that come to mind:
1). It didn't seem clear to me where the 3.96 million barrels per day energy requirement to build renewable sources came from.
But, assuming that number, that doesn't seem too onerous. Oil supply will be dropping at some rate over time in the post-peak world, I believe 5% was assumed in the article. On top of that, you will have to siphon off a certain amount of the oil to use to build the renewables.
However, the amount you divert to the renewables is essentially a one-time step-function drop in the oil supply available for all other uses besides building renewables. For brevity let's call that the OSAOP, "oil supply for all other purposes".
The oil depletion rate gives a downward sloping supply (vs time) curve, while the oil needed for renewables results in a fixed translation of the entire curve in the downward direction.
In fact, the situation is actually better than that because if we are trying to build renewables to displace let us say 5% of the oil supply per year, that 3.96 million or whatever barrels per day at year one will be a smaller number at year two, etc. Once you have completely displaced fossil fuels then that number of course goes to zero.
I am not accounting for the finite lifespan of the renewable sources, they eventually will wear out and need replacing. But it appears that the way you are factoring that in is with the EROEI.
2). The EROEI discussion makes me realize there appear to be two primary mechanisms by which the "EI" comes about. Here we are looking at energy invested to build and install a wind turbine, plus transmission hardware, etc. In other words, a one time energy input to create the energy source.
I am more used to thinking of EROEI in terms of process input energy, such as let us say natural gas used to distill ethanol.
So when I think of EROEI I tend to think, for example, if EROEI is 5:1 then for every 5 units of energy your generator produces you have to recycle one back into the process to generate the next 5 units.
Hence you have to oversize your powerplant by a factor of 6/5 in order to get the desired output based on zero energy input.
But I can see that if the primary energy input is the one-time input of energy needed to create and depoloy the generator, then it makes sense to look at EROEI in the context of the lifespan of the generator. Evertime the generator hits its lifespan you have to inject a new quantity of EI to build the replacement turbine.
(by the way, I would think if we are lucky, the cost to refurbish renewable generators may turn out to be quite a bit less than the cost to build them in the first place, in which an assumption that we have to build one from scratch every time one reaches the end of its lifespan may be quite a bit too conservative)
I would think that at a macroscopic level you could treat both types of energy input using the same analysis.
If we take a simplistic view and look at a wind turbine only having startup energy input while we assume an ethanol plant only has ongoing energy input, then the only difference is that for the wind case, if we assume for example the generator lasts 40 years, you are plowing energy input into the wind generator every 40 years, while in the ethanol generator you are feeding it on an ongoing basis, but if you time-average they both can be viewed the same.
And, when you are building the wind turbines on an ongoing basis, then even though their energy input is a single-time event (once every 40 years let us say), the energy input for the totality of wind generators is relatively constant over time, so is closely analogous to the constant energy input you have to put into the ethanol plant.
Anyway, my point here is simply that it thus seems that it should be possible to analyze the EROEI issue based on what seems to me to be a more intuitive way, namely, that once you have determined the EROEI, you can then assess the impact of the EROEI by stipulating that the renewable source must be oversized by a factor of (EROEI+1)/EROEI relative to the amount of oil it is displacing.
Thus, finite EROEI means you need a bigger generator, instead of needing to build x GW of wind power every year to displace the energy of 5% of the oil supply, you need to build x times(EROEI+1)/EROEI.
disclaimer: Obviously, there are all sorts of huge assumptions in all of this as have been pointed out elsewhere. For example, once fossil fuels are virtually all gone, we had better be able to use electricity for close to 100% of the energy requirement for creating a wind or solar power plant or we are going to run into trouble.
Anyway, I'm not sure I have reason to be, but somehow this handwaving has made me a little more optimistic about renewables.
As I reread your article, I realize that one reason I came to such a rosy outlook is I am looking at simply what it takes to replace declining oil with renewables.
As you point out, the developing world is going to want to greatly expand its energy useage.
So the new energy we need to create is not only the oil that's being depleted but the energy the developing world will want to consume to bring its standard of living up to parity with the west.
I tend to agree with those who feel that even if we are extremely diligent in improving energy efficiency and waste, the natural desire for most humans to lead a life of relative comfort and the fact that most people in the world lead a life of considerable hardship compared to the case in the west, means that energy consumption is going to increase for the forseeable future unless nature blocks that from happening.
Lance-
I'd also point out that the 3.96 figure (which is just a conversion to oil of the amount of energy required to build enough renewables to generate the electricity to mitigate a 5% decline in global oil production) assumes a 40:1 EROEI. If the "systemic" EROEI of renewables turns out to be 4:1, then that figure is 39.6 mbpd!
All this, of course, is a set up for the next post in this series (probably in 10 days or so, depending on site scheduling) where I highlight the uncertainty over EROEI. If EROEI of renewables (from an inclusive, "systemic" perspective) really is 40:1, then I think we have a shot at a successful transition. If it's 4:1, then I think you're better off buying lottery tickets. Bottom line: there's a hugely significant difference to society between 40:1 and 4:1, and as a result we need to carefully examine our confidence in EROEI figures before committing our fading energy surpluses to such a transition...
Jeff,
I would agree that the difference between an EROEI of 40:1 and 4:1 ( assuming payback times are the same) is hugely significant.
Before deciding on a figure it's important to be sure that you are comparing like with like as far as different energy sources are concerned. For example wind power generates kWh's of electricity that will displace the use of coal fired electricity( displacing three times the MJ of coal energy that is present in every kWh). So for EROEI for wind we need to calculate kWh's used in deploying a wind farm with kWh produced over the lifetime of the investment.
For ethanol production, ethanol will be replacing gasoline so we need to know the number of gallons of gasoline used to produce ethanol,or where other energy is used for example NG for ammonia synthesis, or diesel the equivalent conversion. For output we need to know the efficiency of a E85 engine versus a gasoline engine( not the MJ equivalent, although they will be similar).
Some may think this is too complicated, just convert everything to MJ, but this doesn't model what is really going to happen as renewable energy replaces FF energy. This is especially true with EV's replacing ICE vehicles, the US doesn't have to replace 42EJ of oil with 42EJ of electrical energy, any more than it has to replace 24EJ of coal with 24EJ of electricity, only the 8EJ that coal generates today.
Your concerns of not counting indirect inputs, what you call the "long tail" are only relevant where where you are trying to account for individual inputs. These can be aggregated using capital cost basis.
We can set upper limits on the "long tail" these will be the % of wind manufacturing(capital cost) to the total economy x energy used in total economy. Double counting comes in if you consider the energy of previous investments(for example a steel mill) without considering the GDP of previous years when that mill was produced.
But this is simplistic as well because it does not include the added cost of the more resource intensive electric vehicles (and the needed supporting infrastructure). Or the lower economic utility of a vehicle that has a short range.
It also does not factor in the costs of moving critical infrastructure, like warehouses, because they must now be located on rail lines instead of highways, etc.
And it does not factor in those energy sources were cost goes up significantly, such as replacing natural gas with wind generated electricity for building heat and industrial processes.
We are also going to need some subsidy and policy support. A massive build in wind power before the vehicles exist to absorb the energy will just crash prices and halt the expansion. Some work will need to be done on working out the cash and energy flows during volatile spike/dips. (I am not arguing it cannot be managed, I am just making a point that if the transition is going to work we need to pay as close attention to the supply/demand balance as well as cash flows).
Jon,
"But this is simplistic as well because....."
That's true, but we were talking about EROEI and a good reason to have an energy resource that has a high EROEI. We don't have to replace the energy content of 90EJ of FF in 20 years either, one of the arguments against renewable energy( besides some claiming that it has a low EROEI) is that it cannot be scaled to replace FF quickly enough.
Medium and long haul trucks have a 40 year lifetime so replacing them over that period allows a lot of adaptation of infrastructure to rail, the re-building of rail spurs. Cars and light trucks have a much shorter life-time, and use the most oil(55%-60% in US) so replacing them with electric needs to be faster and won't be very different from replacing with ICE vehicles, but all of the infrastructure is in place, electric grid, excess off-peak generating capacity, the roads, suburban homes, express-ways work as well with EV as with ICE vehicles within cities. Intercity travel is a different matter, especially air travel and may be better replaced by electric rail, but this is a much longer term investment that will take more than 20 years. As an interim measure long distance road and sea transport could use CNG in place of diesel, by retrofitting existing buses, trucks and ships.
The build in new wind doesn't have to be exactly matched to new EV production, wind solar and nuclear are also needed to replace coal and NG and there is considerable flexibility even now between these energy resources. If we had 200million EV's today there is enough off-peak electricity capacity to provide the energy, at least for the 20-30 years that will be needed to build up renewables and nuclear.
I'm not going to jump in here and offer much of an opinion. I will, however, offer up some points that I look at that are related to the discussion.
I haven't seen much here related to newer technologies (as in, updated versions of established sources). There's apparently progress being made on processing natural gas hydrates, and if the information I found is correct, it'll (eventually) knock any discussion of "peak oil" into a cocked hat when it gets proved out and commercialized. There's also a lab doing preliminary (and successful at that level) experimentation with a fission/fusion hybrid pulse reactor that can use existing reactor waste as a fuel.
I'm curious how sources like shale oil will affect the picture (though not quite as gung-ho as some of the pumpers out there - there's a lot of energy being used with current processing techniques). I'm wondering how the chemicals being used to frac coal beds for CBM are going to affect future use of that coal for other applications. Are we being penny wise but pound fuelish? (sorry, it just slipped out).
Has anyone calculated the results of taking one of those salt caverns and filling it with - let's say farm waste. How much methane would be produced daily?
If the result of this discussion is that we don't know how to accurately measure the net energy of any particular option, then that in itself is a solid starting point and a reason to both prioritize the development of accurate benchmarks and calculations and to proceed with a certain amount of prudence in our adoption of "new and better" energy sources.
Jeff,
I think you have framed the issues correctly, by and large, so thank you for that, BUT...
Calling something "politically impossible", in this case and most cases, is a type of begging the question. Naysaying the politically viability of something constitutes an argument against doing it, and that contributes to its political difficulty. If you are in favor of mobilization to build renewables, then you shouldn't call it "politically impossible" because doing so hinders that mobilization. If you are against that mobilization, you should still not use this as an argument, because it is dishonest. If you are merely trying to be predictive, you could say something like "this mobilization would require a political movement that doesn't seem to have come together yet."
And yet, the result of the actual "WWII economic mobilization" in the US was not political and economic devastation, but essentially the opposite. I think this is another example of your being obstructionist rather than reasonable.
I looked for your elaboration but it wasn't evident to me.
It seems to me that the minimum renewable goal is not what is required to replace the decline in oil production, but what is required to bootstrap the next generation of renewables. If that minimum is reached, then by definition humanity stands a chance of eventually achieving a "renewable energy transition". That is what would make investment in it worthwhile, and what should decide whether people invest effort in renewable energy.
In sum, I think you have set the bar too high. You are in effect arguing that we shouldn't invest in renewables because they can't save "business as usual". Who cares? You have not convinced me, certainly, that keeping the technologies alive won't eventually yield a sustainable civilization that is capable of supporting beneficial things such as scientific research and global communication.
Jaggedben,
My "politically impossible" comment is my attempt to reconcile my general impression that we could, at a minimum, embark on the process of transition laid out in the "Viridian Vision" (no guarantee of the practicality of completion) with a more pragmatic view of politics. My assumption here--and an admittedly pessimistic one--is that politicians will generally be presented with two strategies: 1) we must sacrifice now for future stability and security, or 2) we can have it all (or some variation thereof). I think they'll either all pick some variant of #2 because they think it will help them get elected, or their opponent who does pick #2 will get elected in their place. As a result, because the level of sacrifice that will be necessary to even embark on this process of transition will present such a "message" challenge to politicians, I don't think we'll make anything more than superficial or symbolic efforts on this path... you can call it obstructionist, but I frankly think that the cost to humanity of attempting this transition and failing (due to either politics or thermodynamics) is too great, and the liklihood of such failure is too high to justify the attempt. It's a poor analogy, but it's a bit like advising a kid to ditch promising talents in school and work on becoming a professional sports star instead. I'd happily intervene in that scenario at the risk of being labled an "obstructionist" to that kid's wildly unrealistic dreams.
I'd like to think that there is a compelling argument that the American psyche hasn't changed so much, and that the situations are sufficiently similar, that WWII economic mobilization can serve as a meaningful guide. Unfortunately I don't have either view.
My brief response to you "who cares about our inability to maintain business as ususal" question is that, because our society is structurally dependent on perpetual growth, I think our prospects to try to maintain that growth, fail, and back in to some kind of sustainable stability with acceptable quality of life are extremely poor. If we pursue the Viridian Vision, I think we are most likely to suffer from catastrophic collapse. If we reject the pursuit of the Viridian Vision and instead seek to intentionally contract, shift our structure to one that is not dependent on growth, and focus instead on the maximization of quality of life under sustainable societal structures and resource use, then I think humanity will be far better off. Just my two cents...
Your political analysis of course only really applies in the context where there are popularly elected officials who exert real control and keep their campaign promises. I don't fault you too much for assuming this because I agree that this is how it should be, morally speaking. But I'm not entirely convinced that it has ever really been thus, and certainly not convinced that political structures will necessarily be this way in the future.
I don't understand your apparent assumption that a transition to renewables is incompatible with intentional contraction (or, for that matter, unintentional contraction). Why can't one happen in the context of the other? As long as there is an economic reason (sufficient energy profit) for a renewables sector to grow, I don't see why it has to make up for all the other contracting that may have to occur. There is probably a marginal profit below which renewables will be sunk by the impacts of other economic declines, but I don't think we know what that is, or how fast those impacts will arise.
Really, what matters here is whether PV panels, wind turbines and supporting structures can ever be built, for a profit of sufficient margin, with the required energy inputs coming almost entirely from PV panels and wind turbines. Given that the PV module manufacture process, for instance, uses almost entirely electricity as it's input, this seems feasible from a technical standpoint. Therefore the big remaining questions are: Is the EROEI really high enough to make this worthwhile? And, can a community/country/civilization, however big or small, maintain the technical know-how and access to resources (silicon, boron, phosphorus, a bit of other stuff) to make it happen in a post peak oil world? The latter is essentially the political question reframed, without any political assumptions built in.
I think the jury is still very much out on both (all?) these questions, although I look forward to the rest of the series on the EROEI question, which I think is the only parameter here about which we can reasonably try to achieve answers in the current moment.
I generally agree with you and the sense of discussion here that the "jury is out" on whether renewables will be profitable enough to thrive. The bottom line that I came to is that the infrastructure of our whole economy was built for cheap portable energy, as is our food supply and the global economy. I think having finite necessities of life, at their limit, with growing demand, and high overhead inherited from the past...is an explosive mixture.
What is apparent is that the mode of resource use reductions will not be uniform, but inversely proportional to the energy productivity of the local business community. Said more simply, the way the economies will allocate finite resources for growing demand will be by raising the price high enough to shed users with high costs and low productivity. It'll be done by prices rising (again and again) to the point where sufficient people are forced to give up what they thought were necessities. This time (the global downturn) relatively lower productivity people around the world lost much of their food, cars and work, etc. I think all the arrows point to our having gone past the inevitable turning point (for a growth system) where these losses are permanent and will be progressive (until the growth drivers are unplugged)
There's a lot else to wonder about, but that much seems fairly certain. We need to factor in that the financial collapse of 2008 seems most likely to have really been from credit drying up in response to a major natural resource crisis, as the world ran out of cheap energy and demand exceeded supply the price went through the roof, *before* the whole financial system was caught completely flat footed by it.
Hey, they're all still completely confident that limitless economic growth will be restored in just a few months, right?? Doesn't that sort of mindless lack of caution sort of prove something out there really stinks?
Jeff,
Sorry if my last comment seemed not responsive to the better than usual analysis that you've done. It does totally freak me out that everyone forgets that our economic system is stabilized by growth and can't remain stable without it, and that is the central driver of our growing economic footprints.
The system relationships all clearly indicate that we buy all the impacts and the growth of money is automatically growing impacts at about the same rate. It's really a fantasy that money has no impacts if you want to ignore them, it actually has ALL the impacts, but they're just hidden from us by being embodied in all the services it takes to deliver what you buy.
That said, I think you make a good point in saying "If the "systemic" EROEI of renewables turns out to be 4:1, then that figure is 39.6 mbpd!" I would like to see how you estimate systemic EROI. I use a whole system EROI model to calculate what I call TROI (the combination of net energy extraction gains reduced by system overhead losses) that you might look at for comparison. How do you do it?
Really nice post Jeff. I am looking forward to your filling in the details in the next articles.
This is why I think Sharon Astyk's Riot for Austerity is not in competition with the Viridian Vision, but actually *essential* to it happening. (George Monbiot should be reading your articles!) Just as in WWII, we will need to cut back on current consumption to create enough surplus to invest in a new infrastructure.
Hall and David's piece on Minimum EROI does a nice job of pointing out that a lot of energy is spent transporting and using energy. And there is going to be tremendous cost to change that supporting infrastructure.
It also takes very little growth to drive an energy source from 20:1 (5% energy consumed) down to 5:1 (20% energy consumed).
I've got two EROEI riddles running through my head today.
ONE: Has anyone seen any EROEI calcs' for any Solar Thermal Home systems made from Recycled Materials? I know that's about as variable and fuzzy a technology as anyone could try to project net-energy return numbers onto, but I've just been puzzling over what you can build that uses 'PreOwned' Copper, Aluminum, Glass and other durable, but energy-intense materials.. into a simple collector/storage unit that could expect to have a long service life. Without having a particular approach in mind for crediting the MFG energy that has already been derived from 'Found Supplies' for their former jobs, there is no doubt a great deal of material out there that could be used well in this way, and that the energy return could in fact be considerable.
While I like the concept, I'm not adventurous enough to do the math.. I'll put that energy towards building the units, instead..
TWO: Imagining the mythic 'Solar Panel Factory that Runs Entirely ON Solar Panels', it struck me that with many EROEI discussions, we don't count Sunlight as an input, either for the Sun that grows the grains and cellulose for biofuels, or the Solar 'Input' that becomes the Electricity in a solar panel (or CSP, etc.. right?), since this is energy that we didn't have to 'Provide' to the process, as we would with Fuel-driven processes.
So what does that mean effectively for the EROEI of a Panel that is created with Sunlight as the source of its main process energy? How would any of you calculate this? I do recognize that the produced panel doesn't 'care' where its founding power was derived.. it required X-kcal to be made, and it will then provide Y-kcal of energy in its lifetime, and so there is the ratio.. There is also still going to be the inputs of labor, material transport, mining etc.. but the question still hangs there.. would you count the renewable inputs in an EROEI evaluation or not, and why?
The way to calculate it would be with the global average energy intensity of the money spent. For statistical reasons the services received for most kinds of money spent require the global economy to consume about the same amount of energy per dollar to deliver them. That global average is ~6000btu/$.
So the EROI calc, as pure energy returned for energy invested, would use the energy invested as the embodied energy of the money spent, and the energy return to whatever usable fuel the solar system produced.
I'd be interested in knowing what you get eco@synapse9.com
Thanks for the reply.
If I do hear more on this, I'll try to share it with you.
Due to the 'two modes' of EROEI that are being parsed with my hypothetical, I would be disinclined to use a monetary value for energy, or at least I would want to look at that Solar-made PV Panel using that basis, AND to compare it to a calc that credited the panel with any power that came from renewable sources.. while still debiting the proportional amount of those RE systems and their depreciation that were instrumental in collecting that energy.
FWIW, I think the argument is valid using the inputs of any renewable energy source, since that source has not been 'used up' in the process, as FF or the much more vulnerable Biomass is.
There is, of course, one more reasonable extension to this, which is the 'Solar Panel Factory Powered by Solar Collectors that were made in a Solar Powered Factory' .. which I say at considerable risk of suggesting that any sort of growth derived from sunlight might be possible, even at a miserly 15% efficiency.
Bob
My turn to be the wet blanket, though only mildly damp, and possibly wool:
Silicon solar cell tech depends on particular dopants, if any of those should prove to be limited by either concentration or politics that would put a pretty hard cap on the growth of this particular energy source.
Dye-based cells have more promise but aren't industrially mature yet.
I could certainly believe that to be true.. the question is really one of EROEI theory WRT renewably sourced power, not the promise of PV in particular.
If there was a way to use Concentrators to capture some or all of the process heat, for example, I would want to consider how that Solar Power is counted in terms of EROEI, particularly over a couple or a few batches (generations?) of the RE equipment produced. When sourced energy is not costing you precious and unreplenishable fuel, then the 'Energy Return' is more favorable as a result, and I would think, more durable a technology.
One more iteration would be the recycling of old RE equipment, using Ren Energy as a predominant power source, so that your materials usage is also heavily reduced.
Political factors aside, I don't think the dopants in silicon solar manufacturing should be difficult to come by. Phosporus and boron are not rare elements.
I also don't think dye-based cells are less vulnerable to such issues, possibly more so. Other thin film panels require elements much rarer than those already mentioned. [Edit: I read on wikipedia that dye based cells use ruthenium. Very rare element.)
You would. As you said, it doesn't make any difference to ERoEI calculations whether the source of energy is renewable or not. The PV panel doesn't 'care'.
I think saving oil would be like saving energy its just like balancing so that every energy human used would me not be wasted.
Just a couple points, if I may:
First, population effects...
The article postulates that the world's population will "peak" somewhere between 8.3 and 13 billion people. An unstated assumption is that "peaks" are followed by "declines". Nobody could authoritatively argue that population won't instead achieve a constant, stable value in the future. There is no reason to believe we can estimate what the planet's "peak" human population will be, if there will be one. We simply are too ignorant about the system to model it accurately, therefore any estimations of future world population carry no authority - even from the most esteemed scientists.
The "carrying capacity" of our planet has been vigorously debated for more than a century. Pierre Verhulst, back in 1838, refined Thomas Malthus' understanding of exponential growth of populations to incorporate availability of resources - yielding the famous logistic function which, on its face, seems to make sense. It seems reasonable that a population of resource users would, at some time, begin to be limited in growth due to scarcity of essential resources. This lovely mathematical construct works really well to describe bacterial populations in closed environments. Not so much for determining the carrying capacity of humans on our planet. Attempts to predict the Earth's carrying capacity fail miserably. To wit, Thomas Malthus himself predicted in 1798 that the world would run out of food, and suffer a cataclysmic event (we now call a "Malthusian Crisis"), by the middle of the 19th century. Then Paul Ehrlich predicted in 1968 that a similar worldwide famine would strike us down in the 1970s and 1980s. Professor Cohen, in "How Many People Can The Earth Support" (1995), concluded the logistic function is only helpful up to 10 or 20 years out. My advice, then, is to make very clear that a population, or it's growth rate, that is selected for use in developing scenarios is a completely subjective and, probably, incorrect choice. The truth is, we simply cannot accurately know these numbers.
Second, about the ability of technology to be savior ...
Technological breakthroughs very rarely occur because we throw money at the subject of research or we wish for them. As Nicholas Nassim Taleb clearly points out, these things occur quite on their own, usually unexpectedly during some other pursuit. So, the "viridian vision", as the author describes, is not something to bet on. It may, or may not, be enabled by technology - nobody can know, and faith doesn't create breakthroughs.
A large amount of "hot air" associated with talk of a sustainable future is successfully dispelled with this, but I think there needs to be stated far more caveats in the essay(s). On the other hand, getting too rational would probably reduce the effectiveness of the writing. Can't win for losing. :( I appreciate the author's comprehensiveness - I hope everone else does too!
My takeaways are
5% pa decline = 4mbpd = 100 GW years per year of capacity that must be installed.
Q1: How many tonnes of steel or solar is that in windmills or PV or solar concentrators or solar collectors?
Q2: What is the energy required to produce the first of these? What is the energy required to build the second? How is that energy calculated?
Q3: Therefore the EROEI of each method (given the load generated)?
I realise I am neglecting net energy considerations.
In my opinion, it is too early at this stage of the discussion to be factoring in money. If we don't have the energy to do it, it won't happen, no matter the $ cost.
Now to read Renewable Transition 2...