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Why doesn't ERoEI matter? And I think it's unfair so say he assumes mining requirs fossil fuels, he just highlights how dependant mining is on fossil fuels _no

Why doesn't ERoEI matter? And I think it's unfair so say he assumes mining requirs fossil fuels, he just highlights how dependant mining is on fossil fuels _now_ and for the forseeable future. Also, I had to check about how mining electrification is going, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of electric mining vehicles currently available! https://www.epiroc.com/en-in/products/loaders-and-trucks/electric-trucks https://www.epiroc.com/en-in/products/loaders-and-trucks/ele...

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I linked an intro level article on why ERoEI is silly, but this one goes into more depth. "ERoEI is Unimportant and is being used incorrectly" https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2016/06/eroei-is-unimportant-and-is-being-used.html?m=1 https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2016/06/eroei-is-unimpo... > In this article I will show that ERoEI is unimportant by itself. It usually does not matter if ERoEI is increasing or decreasing. ERoEI provides no guidance about which sources of energy we should pursue, nor does it offer any guidance about how much net energy will be available to us in the future. By itself, ERoEI is a useless figure, unless it is lower than 1, which it almost never is. Although different sources of energy (such as coal or solar PV) have different ERoEI ratios, this means nothing important. Also: Why renewables have a higher eroei https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2014/07/renewables-have-higher-eroei-than.html?m=1 https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2014/07/renewables-have... > Renewables have ERoEI ratios which are generally comparable to, or higher than, fossil fuels. Although peak oilers reach a different conclusion, that is because they are carrying out the calculation incorrectly. They are ignoring or not including massive waste heat losses (generally 60% or more) from combustion engines which drastically reduces the ERoEI of fossil fuels. Those waste heat losses provide no energy services to society, and should be counted as losses, but are wrongly counted as "energy returns" by peak oilers. Furthermore, peak oilers are ignoring or not counting other large energy losses of fossil fuels. Those omissions exaggerate the ERoEI of fossil fuels relative to renewables. When the calculation is carried out correctly, renewables have higher ERoEI ratios than fossil fuels.
adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
The basic problem with ERoEI is that the number you get depends dramatically on how rigorous your calculation is, and applying the same amount of rigor on two different sources doesn't mean that they're off by the same amount. Fossil fuels have tons of hidden externalities, so they will usually look way better at a glance, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
imtringued 4y ago
It doesn't matter because it doesn't account for the relative abundance of the inputs. Read the article. An EROI of 19 to 1 just means 5% of the total energy will be spent on extracting the energy, it doesn't tell you how much total energy there is and how fast you can extract it.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I linked an intro level article on why ERoEI is silly, but this one goes into more depth. "ERoEI is Unimportant and is being used incorrectly" https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2016/06/eroei-is-unimportant-and-is-being-used.html?m=1 https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2016/06/eroei-is-unimpo... > In this article I will show that ERoEI is unimportant by itself. It usually does not matter if ERoEI is increasing or decreasing. ERoEI provides no guidance about which sources of energy we should pursue, nor does it offer any guidance about how much net energy will be available to us in the future. By itself, ERoEI is a useless figure, unless it is lower than 1, which it almost never is. Although different sources of energy (such as coal or solar PV) have different ERoEI ratios, this means nothing important. Also: Why renewables have a higher eroei https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2014/07/renewables-have-higher-eroei-than.html?m=1 https://bountifulenergy.blogspot.com/2014/07/renewables-have... > Renewables have ERoEI ratios which are generally comparable to, or higher than, fossil fuels. Although peak oilers reach a different conclusion, that is because they are carrying out the calculation incorrectly. They are ignoring or not including massive waste heat losses (generally 60% or more) from combustion engines which drastically reduces the ERoEI of fossil fuels. Those waste heat losses provide no energy services to society, and should be counted as losses, but are wrongly counted as "energy returns" by peak oilers. Furthermore, peak oilers are ignoring or not counting other large energy losses of fossil fuels. Those omissions exaggerate the ERoEI of fossil fuels relative to renewables. When the calculation is carried out correctly, renewables have higher ERoEI ratios than fossil fuels.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago

The basic problem with ERoEI is that the number you get depends dramatically on how rigorous your calculation is, and applying the same amount of rigor on two different sources doesn't mean that they're off by the same amount. Fossil fuels have tons of hidden externalities, so they will usually look way better at a glance, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

imtringued 4y ago

It doesn't matter because it doesn't account for the relative abundance of the inputs. Read the article. An EROI of 19 to 1 just means 5% of the total energy will be spent on extracting the energy, it doesn't tell you how much total energy there is and how fast you can extract it.