4 ms·

A major omission of his energy analysis is the concept of Energy-returned on Energy-invested or EROEI. EROEI simply means how much energy it takes to produce a

by dmm 15y ago

A major omission of his energy analysis is the concept of Energy-returned on Energy-invested or EROEI. EROEI simply means how much energy it takes to produce a give unit of energy. Taking this into account provides a much more meaningful analysis than just looking at simple reserve and consumption numbers. For example, it doesn't matter how many billions of barrels I might have in a field if each barrel takes 2 barrels to extract(except as perhaps a chemical feedstock). It's absolutely meaningless to take theoretical oil reserves and simply dividing them by currently yearly consumption and concluding that we have hundreds of years to go. The easy oil has been extracted and all that is left is the hard stuff. Even Saudi Arabia is drilling wells that sit under a mile of water. McCarthy mentions extracting uranium from seawater for christsake! That is really crazy. Also, it doesn't matter if all of our energy problems could be solved by building a million nuclear plants if the building of them takes so much capital no one can afford it. Again EROEI for nuclear is negative until the plants actually start producing electric. And it doesn't matter if we have tons of electric if all of our transportation infrastructure requires oil products. Converting all of that infrastructure is going to take lots of capital and energy. Check out theoildrum.com for lots of good energy articles.

viggity 15y ago
why does it take so much capital to build a nuke plant? Sounds like a regulatory problem.
- brudgers 15y ago
  It's more of a public health issue - analogous to building sewer systems and clean water supplies.
- grammaton 15y ago
  I really hope this was sarcasm. Plutonium is not cheap. Uranium is not cheap. Redundant safety systems are not cheap. Pressure proof concrete vessels are not cheap. Industrial grade power turbines, also not cheap. The list goes on and on.
  - btilly 15y ago
    A lot of that expense is redundant safety systems, inspections, etc. Which cost is born because of regulation. Whether regulations like that are a problem or a solution is a source of endless debate depending on your political position. But given recent events in Japan, it is clear that we are headed for more regulation, not less.
    - mkr-hn 15y ago
      I would hope they'd do most of that stuff in the absence of regulation.
      - shadowfox 15y ago
        Is there a reason to believe they would?
      - JackDanger 15y ago
        Chernobyl proves that that's not a guarantee.
      - btilly 15y ago
        A lot of people would hope that. However all available evidence suggests that people will and do cut corners until they get burned. And companies that refuse to do so will find themselves becoming less profitable than their less scrupulous competitors. The result is public pressure for regulation. Unfortunately economic theory and practice show that once an industry has come under regulation it becomes their priority to get control of that regulation. This process is called "regulatory capture" and inevitably succeeds. Once it has succeeded, the protections erode and the regulatory scheme is used to create barriers to entry for competitors. See the recent financial crisis for an example of this. Depending on your politics you are likely to think that one of these failure modes is a bigger deal than the other.
        mkr-hn 15y ago
        The choice is often between a shaky regulatory structure and a melee between profit and common good. I usually prefer to take a chance on regulation unless someone comes up with a better option. Sometimes the third option of going to an industry and asking them to do something does work, but not always. I'd always try it first, but it's not always going to work, and the consequences of inaction can be pretty bad.
- olifante 15y ago
  ah, the joy of libertarian thought. Let a thousand meltdowns bloom.
- pjscott 15y ago
  I'm not sure why you were downvoted, as your guess was exactly right. The regulatory system for nuclear power (in the US, anyway) is incredibly screwed up, in ways too numerous to list. Just the delays from the bottlenecked building approval process can cause plant construction to run up billions of dollars in loan interest while they're waiting for the red tape to clear. China is currently building CPR1000 plants cheaper than coal plants of the same capacity. These are not meltdown-prone clunkers; they are upgraded versions of French designs with a good safety record. They're also starting a buildup of Westinghouse AP1000 plants, built to the usual western standards of safety and redundancy, and they're doing it a lot cheaper than the US and Europe. We see similar things in South Korea, which gets a large portion of its energy from nuclear plants, and is now beginning to export them. Considering how much safer nuclear power is than coal, paranoid regulations are actually making us quite a bit less safe by crippling our ability to build nuclear plants.
scythe 15y ago
>And it doesn't matter if we have tons of electric if all of our transportation infrastructure requires oil products. Converting all of that infrastructure is going to take lots of capital and energy. I don't think biofuel represents a viable long-term solution, but butanol is practically ideal when it comes to the search for a short-term transition fuel. It runs in ordinary modern engines without modification, and vehicles from the '90s have been successfully run on 100% butanol without issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/nabc_19/NABC19_5Plenary2_Ramey.pdf http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/nabc_19/NABC19_5Plenary2_R... For the long-term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_in_materials_and_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_...
jsn 15y ago
We use petroleum to fuel our cars not because it's a good source of energy, but because it's a good means to store energy (it has high specific energy, by volume and by mass), which is very important for cars. It will still be important even when producing a gallon of petroleum takes more energy than the said gallon contains. EROEI of less than 1 doesn't mean that oil extraction is unfeasible, not at all. For example, every accumulator currently produced has EROEI of 0 (it has 0 energy before charging and it takes non-zero energy to produce it), and each charging of it has EROEI of less than 1. And it's still economically feasible.
- nate_meurer 15y ago
  I think you misunderstand the concept of EROEI. Oil extraction requires large energy inputs. This energy is currently supplied entirely by fossil fuels, and is probably not substitutable in the near future. Given this constraint, aggregate EROEI even approaching 1 means insufficient oil to fuel exploration/extraction activities and power infrastructure, and that's just fundamental economics. Add to that the fact that large-scale integrated projects, such as oil field development, require enormous capital and human resources, which in turn rely on economic and political stability, which in turn rely on stable and plentiful energy inputs... I'm sure you can see the problem here. Accumulators (e.g. batteries) are not primary energy sources like fossil fuels are; EROEI does not apply to them like it does to energy production.
  - jsn 15y ago
    > This energy is currently supplied entirely by fossil fuels, and is probably not substitutable in the near future [citation needed], and [citation needed]. There are electric drilling rigs out there, pumping the oil out is often performed by electric pumps, and pumping water / gas in doesn't, AFAICS, require specifically fossil fuel power. I don't see anything than couldn't be done with electricity, coal, natural gas or whatever else.
    - nate_meurer 15y ago
      So where do you think an oil platform gets its electric power? Solar panels? Or do you think they string a power line from the shore? Where do you think Saudi Arabia gets the gigawatts needed to run its oil fields? How much of their electricity comes from oil and nat gas? I'll give you a hint; it rhymes with "all of it". How do you think Suncor extracts oil from oil sands? Lots of squeezing? Where do you think Pemex gets the electricity for the giant pumps that pressurize their gulf fields (and the nitrogen that they pump)? Observe that natural gas is subject to the same economics as oil. Where the two are substitutable, low project EROEI can be flirted with. However, also observe that extraction of nat gas is largely coincident with that of oil, both geographically and industrially. They usually come from the same fields, often the same wells. >"I don't see anything than couldn't be done with electricity, coal, natural gas or whatever else." There is a difference between possibility and feasibility. Ask Transocean when they'll start selling coal-powered semi-subs.
pjscott 15y ago
I'm disappointed that you dismiss uranium extraction from seawater as absurd without any argument. There's a recently-tested process which uses a treated polyethylene mesh to absorb uranium from seawater at a cost that would be more expensive than current uranium costs, but still well within the reasonable price range, and its energy inputs are small compared to the amount of energy you can get out of uranium, as it is an exceptionally energy-dense material. (By the way, regarding the capital costs of building nuclear plants, it's possible to build current-generation nuclear plants in bulk for capital costs comparable to those of coal plants, and there are designs for fourth-generation plants that would have significantly lower capital costs. The issue here is not insurmountable.)

by dmm 15y ago

viggity 15y ago

why does it take so much capital to build a nuke plant? Sounds like a regulatory problem.

brudgers 15y ago
It's more of a public health issue - analogous to building sewer systems and clean water supplies.
grammaton 15y ago
I really hope this was sarcasm. Plutonium is not cheap. Uranium is not cheap. Redundant safety systems are not cheap. Pressure proof concrete vessels are not cheap. Industrial grade power turbines, also not cheap. The list goes on and on.
- btilly 15y ago
  A lot of that expense is redundant safety systems, inspections, etc. Which cost is born because of regulation. Whether regulations like that are a problem or a solution is a source of endless debate depending on your political position. But given recent events in Japan, it is clear that we are headed for more regulation, not less.
  - mkr-hn 15y ago
    I would hope they'd do most of that stuff in the absence of regulation.
    - shadowfox 15y ago
      Is there a reason to believe they would?
    - JackDanger 15y ago
      Chernobyl proves that that's not a guarantee.
    - btilly 15y ago
      A lot of people would hope that. However all available evidence suggests that people will and do cut corners until they get burned. And companies that refuse to do so will find themselves becoming less profitable than their less scrupulous competitors. The result is public pressure for regulation. Unfortunately economic theory and practice show that once an industry has come under regulation it becomes their priority to get control of that regulation. This process is called "regulatory capture" and inevitably succeeds. Once it has succeeded, the protections erode and the regulatory scheme is used to create barriers to entry for competitors. See the recent financial crisis for an example of this. Depending on your politics you are likely to think that one of these failure modes is a bigger deal than the other.
      - mkr-hn 15y ago
        The choice is often between a shaky regulatory structure and a melee between profit and common good. I usually prefer to take a chance on regulation unless someone comes up with a better option. Sometimes the third option of going to an industry and asking them to do something does work, but not always. I'd always try it first, but it's not always going to work, and the consequences of inaction can be pretty bad.
olifante 15y ago
ah, the joy of libertarian thought. Let a thousand meltdowns bloom.
pjscott 15y ago
I'm not sure why you were downvoted, as your guess was exactly right. The regulatory system for nuclear power (in the US, anyway) is incredibly screwed up, in ways too numerous to list. Just the delays from the bottlenecked building approval process can cause plant construction to run up billions of dollars in loan interest while they're waiting for the red tape to clear. China is currently building CPR1000 plants cheaper than coal plants of the same capacity. These are not meltdown-prone clunkers; they are upgraded versions of French designs with a good safety record. They're also starting a buildup of Westinghouse AP1000 plants, built to the usual western standards of safety and redundancy, and they're doing it a lot cheaper than the US and Europe. We see similar things in South Korea, which gets a large portion of its energy from nuclear plants, and is now beginning to export them. Considering how much safer nuclear power is than coal, paranoid regulations are actually making us quite a bit less safe by crippling our ability to build nuclear plants.

scythe 15y ago

>And it doesn't matter if we have tons of electric if all of our transportation infrastructure requires oil products. Converting all of that infrastructure is going to take lots of capital and energy. I don't think biofuel represents a viable long-term solution, but butanol is practically ideal when it comes to the search for a short-term transition fuel. It runs in ordinary modern engines without modification, and vehicles from the '90s have been successfully run on 100% butanol without issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butanol_fuel http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/nabc_19/NABC19_5Plenary2_Ramey.pdf http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/nabc_19/NABC19_5Plenary2_R... For the long-term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_in_materials_and_construction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Variations_...

jsn 15y ago

We use petroleum to fuel our cars not because it's a good source of energy, but because it's a good means to store energy (it has high specific energy, by volume and by mass), which is very important for cars. It will still be important even when producing a gallon of petroleum takes more energy than the said gallon contains. EROEI of less than 1 doesn't mean that oil extraction is unfeasible, not at all. For example, every accumulator currently produced has EROEI of 0 (it has 0 energy before charging and it takes non-zero energy to produce it), and each charging of it has EROEI of less than 1. And it's still economically feasible.

nate_meurer 15y ago
I think you misunderstand the concept of EROEI. Oil extraction requires large energy inputs. This energy is currently supplied entirely by fossil fuels, and is probably not substitutable in the near future. Given this constraint, aggregate EROEI even approaching 1 means insufficient oil to fuel exploration/extraction activities and power infrastructure, and that's just fundamental economics. Add to that the fact that large-scale integrated projects, such as oil field development, require enormous capital and human resources, which in turn rely on economic and political stability, which in turn rely on stable and plentiful energy inputs... I'm sure you can see the problem here. Accumulators (e.g. batteries) are not primary energy sources like fossil fuels are; EROEI does not apply to them like it does to energy production.
- jsn 15y ago
  > This energy is currently supplied entirely by fossil fuels, and is probably not substitutable in the near future [citation needed], and [citation needed]. There are electric drilling rigs out there, pumping the oil out is often performed by electric pumps, and pumping water / gas in doesn't, AFAICS, require specifically fossil fuel power. I don't see anything than couldn't be done with electricity, coal, natural gas or whatever else.
  - nate_meurer 15y ago
    So where do you think an oil platform gets its electric power? Solar panels? Or do you think they string a power line from the shore? Where do you think Saudi Arabia gets the gigawatts needed to run its oil fields? How much of their electricity comes from oil and nat gas? I'll give you a hint; it rhymes with "all of it". How do you think Suncor extracts oil from oil sands? Lots of squeezing? Where do you think Pemex gets the electricity for the giant pumps that pressurize their gulf fields (and the nitrogen that they pump)? Observe that natural gas is subject to the same economics as oil. Where the two are substitutable, low project EROEI can be flirted with. However, also observe that extraction of nat gas is largely coincident with that of oil, both geographically and industrially. They usually come from the same fields, often the same wells. >"I don't see anything than couldn't be done with electricity, coal, natural gas or whatever else." There is a difference between possibility and feasibility. Ask Transocean when they'll start selling coal-powered semi-subs.

pjscott 15y ago

I'm disappointed that you dismiss uranium extraction from seawater as absurd without any argument. There's a recently-tested process which uses a treated polyethylene mesh to absorb uranium from seawater at a cost that would be more expensive than current uranium costs, but still well within the reasonable price range, and its energy inputs are small compared to the amount of energy you can get out of uranium, as it is an exceptionally energy-dense material. (By the way, regarding the capital costs of building nuclear plants, it's possible to build current-generation nuclear plants in bulk for capital costs comparable to those of coal plants, and there are designs for fourth-generation plants that would have significantly lower capital costs. The issue here is not insurmountable.)