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Your Saudi example is especially unconvincing. Of course they get their electricity from oil now; why wouldn't they, when oil is so cheap and abundant there? Du

by jsn 15y ago

Your Saudi example is especially unconvincing. Of course they get their electricity from oil now; why wouldn't they, when oil is so cheap and abundant there? Duh. Oil costs them, what, $10 to extract a barrel now? They would be fools to use anything more expensive to produce electricity. That doesn't mean they won't get their electricity elsewhere when it's economically unfeasible to use oil for that. More or less the same applies to other examples, actually. > Ask Transocean when they'll start selling coal-powered semi-subs Whoa, where did that come from? Shelf drilling is a capital expense, it's not recurring costs. Whatever logic is there in EROEI argument, it doesn't apply here. Ask Transocean what share of their operating costs is fuel, and if they give a damn about fuel costs rising ten-fold.

nate_meurer 15y ago
>"That doesn't mean they won't get their electricity elsewhere when it's economically infeasible to use oil for that." Again, possibility vs. feasibility. You talk about capital costs... what do you imagine it will cost to convert a significant share of Saudi Arabia's generating capacity to nuclear, for example. How likely is that to happen politically? And if the day comes that oil is so expensive that an Arab nation is actually considering going nuclear, how financially feasible will a nuclear program be? Remember, big construction projects drink a lot of diesel. >"Shelf drilling is a capital expense, it's not recurring costs." It's more accurate to say that platform drilling incurs massive up-front capital investment, as well as intense ongoing maintenance. Remember, we're not just talking about running the platform; we're talking about operating pipelines, refineries, etc. The large capital cost is part of the problem -- see my earlier comment about large integrated projects. But really, for EROEI purposes it doesn't matter when the money is spent; over its lifetime, an oil extraction project will consume a given amount of energy. That energy input comes overwhelmingly from oil and nat gas, and will continue to do so until the day we start seeing solar/nuclear/coal-powered rigs appear.
- nate_meurer 15y ago
  Turns out, Saudi Arabia actually is considering going nuclear, so we'll see my thoughts about feasibility tested for real.

by jsn 15y ago

nate_meurer 15y ago

>"That doesn't mean they won't get their electricity elsewhere when it's economically infeasible to use oil for that." Again, possibility vs. feasibility. You talk about capital costs... what do you imagine it will cost to convert a significant share of Saudi Arabia's generating capacity to nuclear, for example. How likely is that to happen politically? And if the day comes that oil is so expensive that an Arab nation is actually considering going nuclear, how financially feasible will a nuclear program be? Remember, big construction projects drink a lot of diesel. >"Shelf drilling is a capital expense, it's not recurring costs." It's more accurate to say that platform drilling incurs massive up-front capital investment, as well as intense ongoing maintenance. Remember, we're not just talking about running the platform; we're talking about operating pipelines, refineries, etc. The large capital cost is part of the problem -- see my earlier comment about large integrated projects. But really, for EROEI purposes it doesn't matter when the money is spent; over its lifetime, an oil extraction project will consume a given amount of energy. That energy input comes overwhelmingly from oil and nat gas, and will continue to do so until the day we start seeing solar/nuclear/coal-powered rigs appear.

nate_meurer 15y ago
Turns out, Saudi Arabia actually is considering going nuclear, so we'll see my thoughts about feasibility tested for real.