[onlooker]

Sorry
What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable
Society Must Have?
www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1/25/pdf

[dcoyne78]

dcoyne78, all electricity generation depends on the extraction and conversion of minerals at a great cost in energy. That is the essential condition of the eroei equation. It is a life-cycle accounting that considers the embodied energy to make the energy available. So lithium batteries depend on mining equipment. Solar panels depend on heating quartz to over 2,000 degree F. All energy burns up energy. It has little to do with money. Money is only an IOU on future energy expenditures.

Yes I understand that. One needs to look at all energy sources, not just oil. The money and trading is just a useful method for allocating scarce resources, a high price is a signal to producers (make more of that thing) and the incentive to produce is higher profits at higher prices. What happens as a resource becomes scarce is the price goes up and people use that resource more efficiently and they are willing to try substitutes. Entrepreneurs see an opportunity to provide those substitutes and they do so and as the production increases in scale costs go down which increases the demand for the substitute.

When it really comes down to it, it is simply a matter that you think this cannot happen and I think you are wrong.

Its a simple story resource gets scarce, price goes up, people use less and find substitutes for the scarce resource. For oil it's a matter of hybrids, plugin hybrids, EVs, arail, light rail, and other types of public transportation along with ride sharing, working from home, etc. Oil output is not going to disappear overnight, the process will be a gradual one over 2 to 3 decades as output gradually declines in line with declining demand as people move away from oil (due to high prices relative to alternatives).

[dcoyne78]

Sorry
What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable
Society Must Have?
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1/25/pdf

The extended EROEI is quite difficult to calculate accurately. I don't think a paper from 2009 captures the progress made in the Wind and Solar industry in the past 8 years. I think it is significantly better today than it was in 2009 and there are other analyses that give very different results.

High prices for energy will be the signal to consumers that they should become more efficient in their use of energy. There is a ton of fat in the system.

Eliminating fossil fuels cuts energy needs in many cases by 60% because we are no longer wasting 60% of the energy in the conversion of heat to work.

[onlooker]

And a prominent point is we are tasked with maintaining the integrity of our Economies even while attempting a full scale transition to alternative/Renewable energy which itself requires huge amounts of Energy. We are also dealing with much greater population levels and thus needing to account for the extra energy to provide for each additional person

[Cog]

375 days is all you need to worry about onlooker.

[dcoyne78]

If oil were the only source of energy you might be correct, it isn't, so you are incorrect.

His paper is available online for free, check it out. Assuming you don't just start laughing and give up because, well, he does have 2+2 MUST = 5 as a conditional for his scheme to work. And no, if oil was the only source of energy, he still wouldn't be correct.

Hi AdamB,

The paper was critiqued at the link below

http://peakoilbarrel.com/on-the-thermod ... lls-group/

I agree there are problems with the paper.

[shortonoil]

What is the Minimum EROI that a Sustainable Society Must Have?

Charles Hall (Cutler Cleveland's protege) put it a 7:0. The Etp Model places the dead state for petroleum at an ERoEI of 6.9 : 1. Six of one, half a dozen of another.

"There are problems with the model"

The Etp Model is an equation of state derived from a Second Law statement. There may be problems but they are isolated to the critics that have not read, or can not interpret the equation. Your criticism is like what one could expect to hear from some turkeys criticizing a chicken.



There is a definite sinusoidal relationship between the the total cost of oil, and GDP. The ups and downs of the function probably correlate reasonably well with the industry's investment history. With E&D having crashed to almost nothing, and reserves not being replaced, an argument could be made that the price will go up as existing reserves are depleted out. That argument would be ignoring the impact on the economy from the energy delivered from petroleum. The economic response, and thus the price is driven by those energy flows. The Etp vs Price curve supports that assertion with a 0.96 correlation coefficient.

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_007.htm

Under $40/ barrel the industry is very likely to collapse as the Middle Eastern producers become too susceptible to social disintegration. The Maximum Affordability function places that in 2019; the Total Crude Cost vs. GDP curve places it in 2018.

The question of how long the present system can continue is one of geopolitical issue. Will the developed world step in to save its oil sources?

http://www.thehillsgroup.org

[vtsnowedin]

One must rely on Etp's assumptions, math, and conclusions and the integrity of its methods.[/qoute]
Why would anyone ever rely on someone else's assumptions?

None has been called into question.

Actually all of them have have been called into question and found to be false.

Etp continues, within its own legitimate parameters (that it and it alone gets to define) to be predictive.

If the Etp haters have a better methods they are free to share it and even take bets on it.

What a crock of $hiit!

[onlooker]

Actually Pstarr, they have questioned everything about the Etp. The problem is they are incapable of critizing the Etp on its methodology as they lack the expertise. The best they have done is link to a few who have done so. But mostly they ramble on about how Etp methods are bogus, its assumptions stupid and its conclusions pure doomer fantasy. Well, perhaps they will be vindicated until then they are just loud mouths. The debate I do find interesting is Short with Rockdoc. Short claims certain things about the Oil Industry and Rockdoc counters with supposedly posts and links that contradict that. The problem is that Rockdoc is intimately associated with the Oil Industry and his references are all mainstream from the Oil Industry or its associated orgainizations. And that must be called into question in that the Oil Industry does NOT want it known that its downfall is impending for they will not hasten to cut the umbilical cord to profits .

[onlooker]

Yes, Rockman is a smart guy who seems impartial and quite knowledgable. Yes, while he is not a fan of Etp, he does see Oil's better days behind it. I hope is health conditions gets better given that he has described a very painful malady afflicting him.

[GHung]

Rockman is the opposite. The guy is hard at work making a crapload of money, staying in touch and and obviously having a wonderful time. I trust his comments and have learned so much from him. It is not a coincidence that he doesn't take the doomer position, and I forgive him.

I'm not so sure. His whole POD (peak oil dynamic) thingy is sort of doomy.

[rockdoc123]

all tight shale is costly to produce, so much so that the consumer can not support the industry without suffocating industry/private/public debt.

Wrong. The breakeven for many of the shales is much lower than some conventional plays. Parts of the Bakken and Permian have wellhead breakeven costs in the $30/bbl region.

Enhanced Oil Recovery: ALL major oil fields (old and new) are now produced under expensive EOR methods whether secondary, tertiary or fracting. 

Complete horseshit. KMZ field in Mexico is not on EOR, secondary, tertiary or “fracting”. Neither is Tengiz, Kashagan, Kirkuk, Majnoon, Lula, Shaikan Sheikh Adi, Agbami, Sarir and many, many others. And your sentence suggests Enhanced Oil Recovery is the same as secondary recovery or fracking. It’s not, not even close.

Bottle brush, horizontal drilling, CO2/gas injection, SAGH/THAI, multi drill pads, injection of fracting liquids and chemicals under high pressure) are employed because the natural drives (water and gravity) no longer push the oil to the surface. Each of these methods are costly, energy intensive and are used . . . because the fields are nearing depletion.

No, hardly. Fracting (WTF is that? the word is fracking or fracing), horizontal drilling and MRC wells have nothing whatsoever to do with the presence or absence of a natural drive. And water and gravity are hardly the main drivers, generally it is gas depletion and gas cap expansion. There are many, many examples of wells which have been fracked or have horizontal sections or multi laterals that flow on their own without an assist. And CO2/gas injection and SAGH have nothing to do with overcoming lack of a drive mechanism it is all about changing the chemical or physical properties of the oil.

Virtually every well now of significant size undergoes enhanced methods and are in the process of being sucked dry at great expense in energy. 

Complete and utter horseshit. Where do you get this BS from?

[shortonoil]

Not to mention zombies.

Obviously, they haven't been to WalMart recently. We are not at Peak Zombie!

[Subjectivist]

Actually Pstarr, they have questioned everything about the Etp. The problem is they are incapable of critizing the Etp on its methodology as they lack the expertise. The best they have done is link to a few who have done so. But mostly they ramble on about how Etp methods are bogus, its assumptions stupid and its conclusions pure doomer fantasy. Well, perhaps they will be vindicated until then they are just loud mouths. The debate I do find interesting is Short with Rockdoc. Short claims certain things about the Oil Industry and Rockdoc counters with supposedly posts and links that contradict that. The problem is that Rockdoc is intimately associated with the Oil Industry and his references are all mainstream from the Oil Industry or its associated orgainizations. And that must be called into question in that the Oil Industry does NOT want it known that its downfall is impending for they will not hasten to cut the umbilical cord to profits .

Actually Onlooker it was pointed out repeatedly starting over hree years ago that the ETP assumptions about the EROEI of oil being produced now are faulty and do not resemble, let alone closely match reality. Any model is like a building, the more significant it is the stronger the foundation must be. ETP has no foundation that will support the conclusions drawn. The oft repeated aphorism correlation does not equel confirmation is fully in effect wrt ETP equation output.

[vtsnowedin]

Actually Pstarr, they have questioned everything about the Etp. The problem is they are incapable of critizing the Etp on its methodology as they lack the expertise. The best they have done is link to a few who have done so. But mostly they ramble on about how Etp methods are bogus, its assumptions stupid and its conclusions pure doomer fantasy. Well, perhaps they will be vindicated until then they are just loud mouths. The debate I do find interesting is Short with Rockdoc. Short claims certain things about the Oil Industry and Rockdoc counters with supposedly posts and links that contradict that. The problem is that Rockdoc is intimately associated with the Oil Industry and his references are all mainstream from the Oil Industry or its associated orgainizations. And that must be called into question in that the Oil Industry does NOT want it known that its downfall is impending for they will not hasten to cut the umbilical cord to profits .

Actually Onlooker it was pointed out repeatedly starting over hree years ago that the ETP assumptions about the EROEI of oil being produced now are faulty and do not resemble, let alone closely match reality. Any model is like a building, the more significant it is the stronger the foundation must be. ETP has no foundation that will support the conclusions drawn. The oft repeated aphorism correlation does not equel confirmation is fully in effect wrt ETP equation output.

Well said.!!

[marmico]

The problem is they are incapable of critizing the Etp on its methodology as they lack the expertise.

More bull shit from the innumerate brigade.

The ETP is an EROI cake from the oil well to the gasoline tank dressed up with ETP icing. Strip away the refining component of the ETP icing and voila, the emperor has no clothes. The ETP icing is 70% refining, 15% extraction and 15% oil transportation/product distribution.

Firstly, the ETP did not study refining, other than one off handed undocumented sentence in a 67 page report.

Secondly, the empirical evidence indicates that it takes 14000 BTUs not 58000 BTUs to refine a 140000 BTU gallon of oil.

[shortonoil]

Secondly, the empirical evidence indicates that it takes 14000 BTUs not 58000 BTUs to refine a 140000 BTU gallon of oil.

71% of the cost of producing a gallon of gasoline is the cost of the crude according to the RCT. How does that jive with your ridiculous 14,000 BTU number. If everyone is paying the same price for crude that would require 40,600 BTU per gallon. Your mastery of the Etp equation doesn't appear to be coming very well. Once you conquer the 1+1 = 2 problem things will improve. Ignorance is bliss, until it isn't.

[vtsnowedin]

Secondly, the empirical evidence indicates that it takes 14000 BTUs not 58000 BTUs to refine a 140000 BTU gallon of oil.

71% of the cost of producing a gallon of gasoline is the cost of the crude according to the RCT. How does that jive with your ridiculous 14,000 BTU number. If everyone is paying the same price for crude that would require 40,600 BTU per gallon. Your mastery of the Etp equation doesn't appear to be coming very well. Once you conquer the 1+1 = 2 problem things will improve. Ignorance is bliss, until it isn't.

Who might the RCT be?
And why would not the cost of raw material be 71% of a finished product? 29% for refining,transportation, storage, marketing,overhead , and profit sounds about right and then there are gas taxes on top of that.
Crude at $58.36/42 gallons=$1.39 divided by 0.71 would give you $1.96 and gas in NY harbor is $1.70 FOB (before tax is added). So perhaps your 71% number is a little off or that gas was made from cheaper crude in storage and the price will be going up when today's crude gets through the refinery.

[onlooker]

https://ac.els-cdn.com/S030142151300385 ... ee224b0ca5

4.1. Global oil and gas (petroleum)
The EROI for petroleum production appears to be declining over time for every place we have data. Gagnon et al. (2009) were able to generate an approximate “global” EROI for private oil and gas companies using the “upstream” financial database maintained and provided by John H. Herold Company. These results indicate that the EROI for publicly-traded global oil and gas was approximately 23:1 in 1992, 33:1 in 1999 and 18:1 in 2005 (Fig. 4). This “dome shaped” pattern seems to occur wherever there is a long enough data set, perhaps as a result of initial technical improvements being trumped in time by depletion.

Fig. 4. Gagnon et al. (2009) estimated the EROI for global publicly traded oil and gas. Their analysis found that EROI had declined by nearly 50% in the last decade and a half. New technology and production methods (deep water and horizontal drilling) are maintaining production but appear insufficient to counter the decline in EROI of conventional oil and gas.

[shortonoil]

Who might the RCT be?

Abbreviation for Railroad Commission of Texas, usually RRC or TRC. Just thought that it was obvious; but apparently it wasn't. If you plot EIA data from 1960 forward using wholesale gasoline prices vs WTI it has actually averaged 68%. But the RCT, RRC, TRC is a little more authoritative.

If one calculates the heat required to boil a gallon of crude (7.19 lbs) including the latent heat of evaporation (113 BTU/ lb, decane), and a 30% loss (distillation towers operate at 850°F) it requires over 10,000 BTU per gallon just at the refinery to boil the stuff. 14,000 total is an absurd figure. That is how these stupid ideas are sold; they are accepted by people with no knowledge of physics or basic mathematical skills. Unfortunately that constitutes the bulk of the population.