SilentE,

I don't think you really understand eroei. It is quite likely that a solar energy panel constructed of semiconductors and various mined and refined metals may cost more energy than it produces. It is possible that the only reason the technology exists today is that its manufacturing infrastructure was developed, built, and is maintained by very cheap petroleum.

I own and power my house with solar panels. I am intimately aware of their limitations. An entire day of solar gain generates hardly enough electricity to turn a refrigerator on, much less power a garage door. I suggest that you study Pimentel on this single most important issue before you lecture us "doomers" about perpetual motion. Then you will understand that every energy source you assume may in fact be an energy drain.

peter

Odd that you would cite Pimentel. Here's his 1994 paper:
http://www.dieoff.com/page84.htm



There's more on passive systems and solar generating stations. Pimentel is a big critic of ethanol fuels and subsidies, and he's very skeptical of hydrogen-based systems, neither of which are net-energy positive. I think he's actually pretty fond of solar.

Another source:
Cleveland and Costanza, 1984, give the following:

Solar Power tower 4.2 (12.6)
Photovoltaics 1.7 (5.1) to 10.0 (30.0)

Table Notes: Estimates of energy return on investment (EROI) ratios for some existing and proposed fuel supply technologies. Numbers in parentheses for electricity generation include a quality factor based on a heat rate of 2646 kcal/kWh.

see: http://eroei.com/eval/net_energy_list.html


A big problem is that the estimates for EROEI are generally quite old. Here's a nice article on wind power EROEI: http://www.energypulse.net/centers/arti ... m?a_id=981 which argues that several widely-reposted wind estimates on the Web are based on information that is 20 years old. More recent Danish estimates put wind at an EROEI of over 20! Danish authorities (who use a very large amount of wind power) estimate that a new wind power unit will earn its value back in just six months of operation. That's pretty good if it has an operational life of 20-30 years.

Wind at least is commercially widespread and growing rapidly so the cost-repayment studies are easier to find. Solar is almost there - probably 2-5 years, depending on the big project in LA. It will take a bit longer for the cost studies to come out on repayment times, but I think that Solar will be quite competitive in some locations (e.g., Arizona, not Minnesota). And efficiencies will improve as production ramps up - that's what happened to wind, after all.

And note that "solar" is more than just PV. I think the proposed 500 MW Stirling project is all reflected-energy, not PV.

SilentE,

I only mentioned Pimentel because in his recent paper (march 2005) he measures (I believe for the first time) the explicit manufacturing cost (in kcal) of bio fuels. He measured the energy costs of the concrete pad, the stainless steel tanks, the steam and water used in processing the dry corn. This allowed him to compare to energy derived from the process. It was unfavorable.

I do not believe that such rigorous life-cycle analysis has been performed on any alternative energy systems. Until such time that solar and unconventional fossil fuels undergo this analysis then assertions that these processes will replace cheap petroleum is premature.

peter

SilentE:
I’ve been studying PV solar power both in my “institutional” research (in the university in which I teach) and as a potential investor.
Let me assure you, PV solar is far away into the future.
At the very least we need to divide the present cost of PV cells/modules by 10…

SilentE,

I hope you don't mind, but I do think you've taken over Lynch's role on this forum.

Two things:

(1) It may be incorrect to say the pessimist like ASPO have been wrong. ASPO says that "conventional oil" peaked in 2004, that may be right;

(2) Refinery peak - you seem to agree that we are now, in 2005, working at 100% refinery capacity; however, you seem to dismiss the implications which are pointed out in the conclusions of the ICF report. Those conclusions basically say volatile prices and competition for resources.

If I understand your position, you seem to agree that the refinery constraints will mean demand destruction in the short term. This is never good for the average man. The only question, then, is how long will this demand destruction go on? You seem to believe that the refinery issue will work itself out. There is no evidence in the IICF report to support this optimistic position. In fact, despite higher refinery margins, they point out no one is building or planning to build anymore refineries. ICF concludes this lack of refinery capacity will be a problem until at least 2010 and could easily pose a problem all the way through the 2020 IEA projections. So, I don't know how you can be optimistic based on the data that so painstakenly analyze.

You end by stating we have to stay focused on the big picture, however, the devil is in the details, and the refinery issue is not like one of the windshield wipers or a blinker going out on my car, it is like an axle breaking.

One of the other ICF conclusions, which does not bode well, is that as 2010 approaches, there will be competition between the U.S. and others for what refined product there is. This is a dark warning. You may have noticed in one of the forums today that the U.S. State Department says "China must address its intentions" and one of those points of clarification is explaining why China is attempting to "lock up" world energy supplies and building up its military (article on WashingtonPost.com). ICF and Michael Klare have both warned of the potential for resource wars, this is a serious risk, and can all be premised on lack of refinery capacity, which as you point out, was maxed out before Katrina and Rita, and now, we are not able to even sustain what we had. This can not be good.

He'll be back in a week, and I'm interested in his opinions when he returns. I'm just here for the discussion.



Yes, he was a geologist. In 1956 he made *three* oil predictions:

1. If US reserves were 150 BBl, production would peak in 1965.
2. If US reserves were 200 BBl, production would peak in 1970.
3. Global URR of 1250 Bbl, peak in 2000.

Was he right? Jean Laherre has a discussion of Hubbert, available here (May 2005):
http://www.mnforsustain.org/oil_forecas ... ere505.htm

You might like this part:


Laherrere is saying clearly that Hubbert KNEW about Alaska. Of course he did: it was a US posession for more almost 90 years when he wrote. The Naval Petro. Reserve was created in 1923. Oil had been *produced* for 10 years already. (Laherrere also reviews Hubbert's misses for gas and coal.)

And Laherrere identifies one of the flaws in Hubbert's theory: there is no place for political or economic factors. That seems important to me, given that the big difference between the partial success of prediction #2 and the total failure of prediction #3 were the intervening political and economic shocks and trends between the two projected peak dates of 1970 and 2000 (contrasted with the total lack of major shocks or price increases between 1956 and 1970).

Also check out the last bit in the article: While he predicts conventional oil URR of 2 Tb, Laherrere says that "total liquids" will be 3 TBl. His peak for "total liquids" looks (based on a fuzzy graphic) to be around 2015.

Parsing the definition of peak, huh? It peaked before Alaska really got going. After the lower-48 started going down, it clearly would not peak any higher than the previous maximum (via the influx of Alaskan oil).

QED. Hubbert was right and no amount of historical revionism will change that fact.

So parse this one: We have likely hit the peak for the extraction of the petroleum known as light, sweet crude. We will never again produce it at this rate ever again. What economist predicted that would happen? Not Mr.Lynch, I'm afraid.

I tend to agree, people change habbits due to high prices - example is the massive burst of bicycle sales after the previous oil shocks of the 70s.

LA and the Midwest will need to take long hard looks at themselves and their habbits in light of prices. I do know for a fact they are practically giving SUVs away at a local dealership, and I'd wager if you put a "take me I'm free" sign on them, the only takers would probably be homeless people who wanted a place to sleep.

As to my comments about hurricanes, you are right I know nothing about climate, I am just parroting sound bytes and googled sources - but that's what 99% of the people on this forum do. I will say with confidance that up and saying "Rita and Katrina were the fault of global warming" is oversimplifying matters, even most global warming awareness websites have stayed away from flatly blaming bad weather on global warming.

I would like to add I consider global warming a more serious problem than peak oil (because I have a feeling rather than suffer tremendous catestrophic shortages we will result to less and less environmentally friendly means of meeting oil quotas)

That is very true, and the other side of the "simmons" superstraw equation. If you look at the North Sea, for nearly two decades, drilling declined while production rose, for example. But it is hard to get detailed data on types of wells, rigs, etc., which makes it hard to estimate the impact of changes in drilling, investment, and so forth.

Clearly, advances have meant less drilling is needed, offsetting the impact of depletion. If you could estimate the impact quantitatively, you would get a lot of attention.
Mike Lynch

But the point is that most parts of the world are not very explored, certainly much less than the US was in 1970, the peak year.

The argument of resource economists that recoverable oil will grow over time seems to fit real world behavior much better than the argument of Hubbert modelers/peak oil theorists that the amount is now known with a fair degree of precision and won't grow over time. Especially since over half the countries have more discovered oil now than the Campbell 1997 estimate of their URR.
Mike Lynch

Why does luck not count? Part of the peak was Nixon's decision to end import controls, which I don't think was a part of Hubbert's model.
You might argue that the theory works sort of in areas with open drilling (his Texas prediction was pretty good, too) but there's few such around the world.
Giant discoveries fell off when exploration nearly ended in the Middle East in the 1970s. We're seeing more now, although nothing like the supergiants of the past. The point is that we're seeing enough to offset production.
Mike Lynch

Spike,

I think you would agree that there is a very large discrepancy amongst the various experts as to what URR is. Given this and the fact that the market is what we are relying on to serve as our indicator to transition away from oil, do you think we have a fundamental problem? In other words, the market only works properly when all factors are known. With URR unknown, the market will only signal it is time to transition away from oil when the peak date is behind us.

Do you see our reliance on the market with unknown URR as a fundamental problem? Do you agree with Simmons that we must have more disclosure of data in order to really nail down URR?

Edit:
As the Hirsch report states:

14. Market Signals in Advance of Peaking
Increases in oil prices and oil price volatility have been identified as two
precursors of world oil peaking, but both are likely short-term signals. The
identification and character of longer-term signals, if they exist, could be of significant value.

[gee that's an understatement]

Spike ,

Any comments on this months ASPO newsletter?

Peak oil has been put back three years from 2007 to 2010.

Some other questions, when do you see production summing to zero in the British north sea?

The DTI implies 2020 (but still shows 300,000 bpd), but I have seen comments by other industry analysts suggesting as late as 2036.

Meanwhile, decline rates are very rapid at the moment in the NS, why do you think this will not apply to other areas of the world? What are the British doing wrong?

BTW, many thanks for your contributions. It great to have both sides of the debate well represented on this site !

All the best

This is a cross post to boost interest in Massachusetts Initiatives, meeting Friday Oct 7th.

Hubbert was lucky. He could not predict the actions of the Texas Railroad Commission or of the Nixon Administration's price controls policy. He did not account for prices or demand.

He could not predict OPEC policies - its formation i 1960, possibly, but the Arab plan for the 1973 war? Not a chance. Had the Arabs used an oil embargo as part of their plans for the 1968 war instead, thus triggering the oil shocks five years earlier, Hubbert's prediction would have been completely screwed!


I'll let him answer that one, now that he's back.