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A similar scenario is likely with fossil fuels re: declining EROEI. There is always more oil, but as we use up the easy oil the harder oil takes more and more e

by api 13y ago

A similar scenario is likely with fossil fuels re: declining EROEI. There is always more oil, but as we use up the easy oil the harder oil takes more and more energy to get. This is hidden though, as the process will just scale and scale and use more and more energy to get the same amount of oil. ... until it can't do that anymore and production collapses. This will happen when overall system EROEI drops below some unknown threshold, probably 5-10X. In any iterated debate between an economist and a physicist the economist will be right N-1 times and the physicist will be right once.

dredmorbius 13y ago
There is always more oil I know what you mean by that. And yet I've got a problem with the phrase. What it suggests is "there's is always more oil ... available for useful extraction". And that isn't the case. Yes, there's more in the ground, but (as your EROEI argument says) there is a decidedly limited amount of feasibly extractable oil, and once that limit is reached, there is no more useful oil in the ground. The key being "useful". I like your "iterated debate" quip.
- api 13y ago
  That's exactly what I mean... energetically profitable oil.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    I know. It's ... trying to marshal the argument in the most effective way possible. A friend pointed me at a 1978 address Milton Friedman made on energy policy. It ... boils my blood (I'm not a Friedman fan): http://fixyt.com/watch?v=hj1974Ek4nw http://fixyt.com/watch?v=hj1974Ek4nw It starts out relatively well: Friedman is quoting W.S. Jevons. And then he repeatedly simply asserts "he's wrong". And equivocates Jevons being mistaken in other predictions (which are pretty vaguely unspecified) with being wrong on this one. Etc., etc. I've been watching and reading a bit more of Friedman recently, and what I'm realizing is that 1) his biggest tools aren't factual ones but rhetorical ones, and that 2) he really likes making his debating opponent look dumb, even when the opponent is expressing views, however poorly, that Friedman himself supports. Makes me find him all the more non-credible in general. Nailing down the language of peak oil seems somewhat useful. So I wasn't picking on you so much as trying to clarify (mostly to myself) what in the "there'll always be more oil" phrase bothers me.

by api 13y ago

dredmorbius 13y ago

There is always more oil I know what you mean by that. And yet I've got a problem with the phrase. What it suggests is "there's is always more oil ... available for useful extraction". And that isn't the case. Yes, there's more in the ground, but (as your EROEI argument says) there is a decidedly limited amount of feasibly extractable oil, and once that limit is reached, there is no more useful oil in the ground. The key being "useful". I like your "iterated debate" quip.

api 13y ago
That's exactly what I mean... energetically profitable oil.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  I know. It's ... trying to marshal the argument in the most effective way possible. A friend pointed me at a 1978 address Milton Friedman made on energy policy. It ... boils my blood (I'm not a Friedman fan): http://fixyt.com/watch?v=hj1974Ek4nw http://fixyt.com/watch?v=hj1974Ek4nw It starts out relatively well: Friedman is quoting W.S. Jevons. And then he repeatedly simply asserts "he's wrong". And equivocates Jevons being mistaken in other predictions (which are pretty vaguely unspecified) with being wrong on this one. Etc., etc. I've been watching and reading a bit more of Friedman recently, and what I'm realizing is that 1) his biggest tools aren't factual ones but rhetorical ones, and that 2) he really likes making his debating opponent look dumb, even when the opponent is expressing views, however poorly, that Friedman himself supports. Makes me find him all the more non-credible in general. Nailing down the language of peak oil seems somewhat useful. So I wasn't picking on you so much as trying to clarify (mostly to myself) what in the "there'll always be more oil" phrase bothers me.