4 ms·
Eh. If it takes two barrels of oil to extract one barrel of oil, where do you get the energy for extraction? Then you're using solar/wind/nuclear to pump oil. A
by beat 8y ago
Eh. If it takes two barrels of oil to extract one barrel of oil, where do you get the energy for extraction? Then you're using solar/wind/nuclear to pump oil. At some point, it's cheaper to just synthesize.
- i_am_proteus 8y agoMaybe. Cf. every mineral that's mined. Energy expended to extract a resource.
- beat 8y agoNot the same. You don't use up the iron you mine in the mining process. That's what EROEI < 1 is, unless you get the energy input from some other source. And since anything that's in petroleum can be synthesized from simple molecules like water and CO2, given enough energy...
- dredmorbius 8y agoAircraft and shipping require hydrocarbon-level fuel energy densities by mass and/or volume. There are no, or exceedingly few, substitutes. Petroleum consumption will, can, and has proceeded well beyond EROEI 1:1 parity within such uses -- see Germany's WW2 Fischer-Tropsch process. The correct measure here is total economic return. Fuel synthesis is negative EROEI.