tom_s2 wrote:ralfy:
That may be true, but this level of ERoEI is obviously compatible with maintaining industrial civilization, because civilization has not collapsed despite the lower ERoEI. In fact, China continues to grow at 8% per year despite an ERoEI of fossil fuels which is no better than the ERoEI for renewables.
Industrial civilization in a global capitalist system requires both increasing energy returns and increasing energy quantity due to the need for a growing middle class. Both also mean increasing material resource availability.
These are not possible because in terms of biocapacity, the planet is already in overshoot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... _footprintAve. ecological footprint per capita is expected to rise due to a growing global middle class while biocapacity is expected to drop given pollution and growing population.
A growing population doesn't require increasing ERoEI. It's possible to increase net energy by increasing the number of power plants even if ERoEI remains constant. In fact, net energy has been increasing by leaps and bounds over the last 80 years despite declining ERoEI, for that reason. Furthermore, the decline in ERoEI is almost over because of vast amounts of energy available (like from solar PV) at these lower ERoEIs.
-Tom S
A growing population in a global capitalist system does. The IEA and others show that we will need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every seven years to maintain economic growth, equivalent to around 1-2 pct increase in oil demand per annum. In order to meet a growing global middle class plus deal with low energy returns for U.S. shale oil, etc., even more Saudi Arabias will be needed.
It is theoretically possible to transition to renewable energy, but one study argues that it will take more than a century. In its 2010 report, the IEA states that in order to deal with both peak oil and global warming, we will have to replace at least 70 pct of oil demand increase per annum with renewable energy while governments implement strong regulatory policies to conserve oil and oil producers operate at maximum depletion rates.
I don't think these are possible in a global capitalist system.