Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on February 24, 2016
The Only EROEI that Matters is Energy Return on Human Labor Invested
There still needs to be consumers who can afford the output. Even if there is massive consolidation, the basic problem of workers who could not afford the output would not be fixed, because it is related to the fact that the cheap energy sources have already been taken. Even if direct extraction costs are low, governments are still very dependent on high tax revenue.
What would happen in normal circumstances is collapse. Collapse happens when wages of non-elite workers fall too low, so that they cannot afford the output of the system. This happens when (goods and services produced)/population stops rising. More and more of the goods and services produced needs to go into overhead for the system (government, manager higher pay, debt service, cost of dividends and higher stock prices). There is too little output for the non-elite worker to get an adequate share.
There is a lot of talk about EROEI. In my view, the only EROEI that matters is Energy Return on Human Labor invested. When it falls too low, there is a big problem. It falls too low, when there is too little fossil fuels and other energy leveraging human labor, and too much of the system’s output pulled off the top for overhead. This is similar to a fish being forced to migrate for food, but not getting enough food energy from the process to cover its own energy costs. The result has to be die-off of the population. – Gail Tverberg
33 Comments on "The Only EROEI that Matters is Energy Return on Human Labor Invested"
Outcast_Searcher on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 1:58 pm
Given the situation, AGW via humanity burning way too much cheap FF’s seems far more relevant than worrying about “too little fossil fuels”.
We’ll know more in a few decades when the longer term effects of hydrocarbon fracking are better known.
Look on Amazon or a typical Walmart, and tell us all about how there is insufficient output for the non-elite worker.
You may as well complain about how purple unicorns are stealing all the output, as far as a credible argument.
makati1 on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 3:57 pm
The only energy that we will have in the near future is that shown in the picture. Human labor. We are going to lose all of those ‘energy slaves’ of the last 200 years as the world collapses into the bottle neck. The world we Westerners have known was a burp in time. A wasteful splurge of a one time inheritance by a spoiled, immature species, and it is about over.
Anyone who believes different needs to open their eyes and mind to reality.
ennui2 on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 5:45 pm
“The only energy that we will have in the near future is that shown in the picture. Human labor.”
Keyword: “in the future”.
ghung on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 6:02 pm
““The only energy that we will have in the near future is that shown in the picture. Human labor.”
That statement, of course, is false; hyperbolic. We’ll have the same energy sources we’ve had for millennia, prior to the industrial age: Solar and its derivatives, water, wind, wood, draught animals, etc. Humans haven’t relied solely on their own labor since they discovered fire.
Davy on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 6:10 pm
We have decades of life in infrastructure, equipment, and available commodities that can be used along with human, animal and traditional mechanical energy of wind/solar. The coming age will be a hybrid of the modern and the premodern. This hybrid world is possible depending on the severity of the coming collapse. Not many people will be left if all we have to live by is human labor. This is not out of the question but it is not the only scenario.
makati1 on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 10:26 pm
ennui, maybe the ‘future’ will be tomorrow? After all, the whole system is collapsing fast. Maybe it has not hit your neighborhood … yet … but ask the 45,000,000+ on food stamps or the millions who would like to have a job but there are none, or the millions still losing their homes, what is happening in the ‘real world’. WW3 could take down the internet, the whole system that powers your world. THEN muscle power will be the only one left.
makati1 on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 10:34 pm
ghung, really? How many horses are plow ready? For that matter how many farms have plows that can be horse drawn? Better yet, how many ‘farmers’ would even have a clue what a horse drawn plow is, let alone how to use one? Of course, I am speaking of North America. Many on the rest of the world still use those animal muscles to do their work. But that is not America.
Ignorance and denial of reality is a form of cognitive dissonance. We don’t see what we don’t want to see. Proof of that is the war going on in the ME that the Empire started and is fueling toward the big one. Ho2w many Americans even pay attention to what is happening except the 20 second blinks of propaganda fed to them daily? How many care?
Not one American in 100 could point to a blank map and show you where each warring country is. Many would have a difficult time pointing to their own country and state on a blank map. Ignorance is bliss and denial is epidemic, especially in the FSA.
Apneaman on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 10:37 pm
1 in 100? You’re too kind.
penury on Wed, 24th Feb 2016 10:38 pm
I think Gail is correct. Too many people who refer to the future are talking about next year or ten years, It is difficult to do but try to imagine the length of time between 1907 and 2007, big changes can happen in a short time.
marmico on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 5:06 am
Tverberg’s doom porn energy chart, which is predicts the next 20 years, is already a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus laugher.
As if energy consumption is going to decline 85% by 2035.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:18 am
Thats why I like my center post winch idea for plowing ect. Small pv with a couple of deep cycle batterys and a winch. No need to feed an animal a shitload of hay.
makati1 on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:26 am
Peractical….LMAO
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:29 am
They did it in the past just with fossil fuel powered winches when tractors were to expensive for a farm.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:37 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fowler_%28agricultural_engineer%29
Are the locals going to continue to do your labor for you when the social security checks stop?
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:49 am
No one like the idea that we could produce food more efficiently without extensive fossil fuels? We waste 40% of all food in this country, most corn and soy is used as feed for an animal instead of being directly consumed by humans, pesticides hurt soil microbes and make the soil require more fertilizer. No 150,000 dollar tractor compacting the soil. We could fix unemployment in this country, plant husbandry and town farms. CSA is a logical first step, but more is needed to be done by local governments.
ghung on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 8:09 am
@PracticalMaina; I’m already doing most of my tilling with an electric tiller hooked to a small PV/inverter system (one 240 watt panel, two cycle 27DC batteries, 1500 watt inverter). I can till about 500-600 row-feet on a good sunny day. That’s about half a mile of tilling in a good week. Of course, I’m not going to plow a huge field with that, but great for a large garden or my 72′ X 30′ hightunnel.
I’m actually thinking about acquiring an old Allis-Chalmers ‘G’ for an electric conversion to do bigger chores. I’ve found one for under $3000, and conversion will be about another $2500 to do it right. I already have extra PV panels. Of course, we aren’t going to feed an industrial age population this way, but who cares? We do what we can, eh?
Cloud9 on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 9:01 am
Ghung why not use woodgas?
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 9:07 am
Ghung, that’s awesome. I want to make a solid frame on a sled or wagon type rig to mount a small pv system to, as well as my winch and batterys. I would like to use this to winch out wood and maybe power a small dc chainsaw. It will be slower than my gas powered chainsaw but finding non ethanol fuel, the cost of that fuel, noise and not being able to run it in a garage are all incentives for me to get an electric as well.
As far as farming goes, I usually till but I want to try double digging this year.
JuanP on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 9:49 am
Ghung, That G is amazing. I didn’t know they existed. I have seen small JD tractors with PV roofs on YT. What an awesome piece of equipment. http://youtu.be/6dx7jzVKQ2A
ghung on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:21 am
@Cloud9; I know a couple of old guys fooling with wood gas. I went to watch one guy who converted an old Ford 2000 to wood gas. He choked on smoke the whole time, and it took a while to get the smoke up. He also said that wood smoke is corrosive and abrasive to an ICE engine, requiring frequent oil changes and maintenance. Other than that….
My feeling is that, in a collapse of wide-scale industrialism, producing and recycling lead-acid batteries will become a cottage industry because they have so many uses and can be charged in so many ways. Their weight, and the torque provided by electric motors, make battery/electric power quite suitable for smaller-scale agriculture.
A couple of my friends/family laughed and scoffed that I was planning to use an solar/electric tiller for my gardens and greenhouse work,, until they saw how well my little (and relatively inexpensive) system works, especially on previously-worked beds and rows. I use a 70 foot heavy-duty extension cord hooked to some outlets strategically located. This isn’t industrial-scale growing, but that’s the point.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:23 am
Ghung, I do not necessarily agree that we can not feed the current world population with permaculture. On an acre to acre basis I would put intensive square foot gardening output far beyond that of an industrial sized mono culture. The odds are constantly being stacked against us. How much farmland do we waste on eroei- negative or neutral ethanol.
http://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/how-much-land-is-needed-to-be-self-sufficient
This source says .44 acres per person for a vegetarian diet. I have read other sources that there was over 1.6 acre per person of currently in production farmland per person in the world, this was from 2 years ago. This is with many of those people not getting 2000 calorie intakes.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:25 am
Ghung, yeah I have read a little about wood gas and getting the gas filtered and cooled seems to be a good part of the complexity of the system. Biogas might be easier, and a natural by-product made without having to chip and dry wood.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:27 am
Biogas may be easier, but probably a pain to compress and store, you would have to replace that extension cord with a gas hose 🙂
ghung on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:35 am
PracticalMaina and Juan; There’s actually a company reproducing a new version of the ‘G’, in South Carolina I think. They hope to market it in places like Cuba and the third world because of its simplicity and ease of repair. My only problem is that they are “upgrading” the drive to hydrostatic, which can be problematic to repair (pumps, valves, hoses, fluids) compared to a strictly mechanical system.
The original ‘G’ has quite a following among collectors and smaller-scale farmers. Electric conversions are very simple (kits available), and reports are that folks easily get 4-5 hours of hard work from a full charge, depending on motor size and battery configuration. Adding a solar roof could extend that a bit. There’s also quite a collector’s trade in implements, and some folks are reproducing them new.
The ‘G’ was very much a “less-is-more” system, perhaps produced ahead of its time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allis-Chalmers_Model_G
ghung on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 10:55 am
PM said; “Ghung, I do not necessarily agree that we can not feed the current world population with permaculture.”
I’ve decided that debate is pointless at this point; the future will tell. Best to spend one’s time figuring out how, rather than arguing over whether we can or not, eh?
I’ve been exploring the “Survivors Library”, seeing how folks fed the masses prior to the “green revolution”. Lots of books available for free. The farming section can be found here:
http://www.survivorlibrary.com/?page_id=1315
The entire library can be downloaded free-of-charge, but it’s over 130 GB so I ordered the DVDs for about $35. Absolutely intriguing and useful stuff in there on just about every topic. I’m currently enjoying:
“Cottage Economy – Making Beer and Bread and Raising Livestock – 1833”.
BTW: Biogas is one of those things I’m excited about, but have so far avoided the distraction. My main goal would be gas for cooking/canning.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 11:33 am
Ghung, I agree, and me thinking it could be done is far from the reality of what probably will happen. It is helpful for to think about this though to remind myself I do not need that much land for a homestead.
Biogas kind of fascinates me, I wonder how low maintenance and hands free a system could be made to replace a septic system and leach field and instead have a biogas reactor.
ghung on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 12:08 pm
PM; the main problem with biogas reactors in cooler climates is keeping the reactor warm enough to make it productive.
http://akvopedia.org/wiki/Biogas_Reactor
As for permaculture and organic production, some areas have succeeded at doing these things at scale:
Why India’s first 100% organic state matters for the future of organic food
“In a mountainous region in eastern India, Sikkim is now a 100% organic state, with no chemical pesticides or fertilizers and no GMOs.
This matters because it shows that organic food in an entire region is possible. Now, other people in India and throughout the world are learning from Sikkim’s success, and beginning to ask, “Could organic food succeed in other areas, too?”….”
Our local armchair organic/’clean energy’ promoter (who doesn’t practice anything he preaches much) asks why we, in the US, can’t do this if they can do it in India. He ignores the dozen or so answers I shoot back to him (totally entrenched corporate industrial agriculture, etc.). He doesn’t want to consider that a large percentage of the folks in this small Indian state were already employed in small-scale local agriculture using many permaculture methods.
In the US, IIRC, about 2% of the population is directly involved in farming, and most of those are all in for industrial ag. Scale and previous investments matter a lot, and I don’t see 25% of the US population returning to the land to produce food using permacultural methods; not voluntarily. After the big, messy reset of industrial civilization, perhaps, but that’s a different story altogether.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 12:48 pm
Ghung, I unfortunately also fall largely under the armchair organic promoter at this point. I do a small garden plot, which is run primarily organic in the summer but unfortunately it is not at my residence so the amount of time I get over there and production is not nearly what it should be. This is an interesting predicament that I am in, I need the conventional job to gain financing for land to farm, but I feel I could do at least slightly better financially intensively farming a small area, and maybe working part time. I wonder how common this issue is, I know there are some alternative financing options for farmers, but I am still in the hobbyist category. I can see people returning to this work in good numbers as long as the money is there. I recently read a mother earth article about a Canadian family making 150G before expenses off 1.5 acres with about a 1/4 of that greenhouses.
Greenhouse for a biogas setup makes sense, it will heat the greenhouse at night and vice versa.
Thank you for the info on the Indian state, very interesting.
makati1 on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:19 pm
Practical, my situation is secure. Is yours?
Practicalmaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 8:12 pm
Yup
karle on Fri, 26th Feb 2016 10:14 am
Hi, would you mind giving a few details?
Thanks
PracticalMaina on Thu, 25th Feb 2016 7:18 am
Thats why I like my center post winch idea for plowing ect. Small pv with a couple of deep cycle batterys and a winch. No need to feed an animal a shitload of hay.
PracticalMaina on Fri, 26th Feb 2016 10:23 am
I do not have the system fully ironed out, but I was thinking of having a center mounting post or boulder or anything I can mount a winch to. I will have a solar panel, charge controller and battery circuit hooked to the winch. I will use the winch to drag a plow towards the post threw the soil. With this system I will need to manually pull the plow, with backward facing skids, and cable backwards between runs, so it would be important to have a winch that can feed out easily. This will result in circulate plowing patterns. This could also be done with a movable cart on the outside of the field so that you could move the cart end to end and continue to winch the plow once you have moved. Or a car on one side with the winch and batterys and some sort of solid mounting place for a pulley on the opposite side of the field so that you would only need to manually move the cable.
Back in the day they had a slightly more complicated heavier bulkier way of doing it with steam power. Pioneered by this guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fowler_%28agricultural_engineer%29
PracticalMaina on Fri, 26th Feb 2016 10:24 am
*or a cart on the opposite side