[shortonoil]

dohboi said:

OK, sorry, you lost me again.

I assume your decline rate of .47 does not mean that we lose forty seven percent of ERoEI every year, but I can't figure out what it does mean then.

The 0.47 refers to the yearly decline in the ERoEI of oil. As an example, if the ERoEI at the well head is 20:1 this year, it will be 19.53:1 next year. Why this is important is because 0.47 is a larger percentage of 19.53 than it is 20. As the ERoEI declines to single digits, the yearly change becomes huge.

[Mesuge]

Thanks for the links, but watching this clip it's more like a comedy, two discredited clowns suddenly playing drama queens, Birol (peakoil) & Monbiot (9/11) ..

In fact that gives credit to the early critics/researchers even more and we should applaud them.

[dohboi]

Thanks, short.

That is worrying.

I hadn't heard that approach to depletion rates before.

But shouldn't that--subtracting a fixed amount every year--yield not a depletion curve but a straight line to zero?

Sorry to be so hopelessly and permanently confused. Should have taken more math, I guess. (I did make it through intro calc in college, but I've forgotten most of that.)

[shortonoil]

dohboi said:

Thanks, short.

That is worrying.

I hadn't heard that approach to depletion rates before.

But shouldn't that--subtracting a fixed amount every year--yield not a depletion curve but a straight line to zero?

Sorry to be so hopelessly and permanently confused. Should have taken more math, I guess. (I did make it through intro calc in college, but I've forgotten most of that.)

Sorry dohboi, but because of the actions of a very self serving, self centered, very ignorant person who has now managed to shoot their own foot off, along with a lot of other people's, I have been forced to move my writing studio and my office equipment. The machine and its software that I used to construct graphs is now in storage. So I can't put a graph up for you right now; so I'll try to explain this in simpler terms and hope that you can visualize it.


As an example: let's say that the ERoEI of crude at the well head is 100:1. Each year the ERoEI drops (theoretically) by one unit, so that the following year the ERoEI is 99:1, the year after that 98:1, and etc.

Now, the first year when the drop was from 100:1 to 99:1 the loss was 1 unit, or 1%. If you plot this as Energy Lost on the vertical side of a graph, and Time on the horizontal side of the graph, from year 1 to year 90 you will have a very slowly sloping upward line. On year 90, when the ERoEI has reached 10:1, the line of the graph will begin to move upward very rapidly. The slope of the line at any point past year 90 will be rapidly approaching infinity. That is, your losses are increasing as a proportion of the total energy as time moves forward.

This is what we are presently experiencing with the energy that is available to do work in the general economy from oil (and, also, probably other fossil fuels). If the ERoEI was 22:1 at peak (like it was for the Continental US in 1971) and we subtract 12 units from that ERoEI (to adjust for getting that oil from the well head to the consumer) and we peaked in 2005, the ERoEI at the consumer, assuming a 0.5% decline per year in ERoEI, it is now about 8:1. That is, we lost 6.25% of our energy to run the general economy in 2008. In 2009 we will lose 6.7%.

By 2012 we will be losing 8.3% per year, and from 2008 to 2012 the accumulated loss will be of 36.1%. Neoclassical economics does not incorporate this into their model. Energy is priced in flat dollar terms, which does not properly look at its increasing scarcity. To the neoclassical economist the world is linear, and price has to be the controlling factor. Simple physical laws, like thermodynamics, are not even a consideration.

This bodes very badly for the future. The ongoing stimulus packages require growth to be affective. Growth we are not going to get regardless of how much currency the governments of the world dump into their economies. You can not get growth without a commensurate amount of additional energy to power it. The Keynesian economist, who is determined to have perpetual growth at any expense, is now shoveling the rest of the world's wealth down the preverbal rathole.

We will seen a slight leveling off in the decline rate of economic activity over the next few months. This will occur as energy companies decimate their E&D operations to bring profitability back, and that will temporary re-inject energy back into the general economy. Its effect will, however, be short lived. By the end of 2010, (when most new development for oil has ceased) we can expect to start seeing foreign central banks collapse and brick economies follow them.

By 2013, with shortages of everything appearing and governments collapsing around the world, it will become generally apparent that these purveyors of knowledge and shepherds of our well being couldn't find their asses with both hands and a full length mirror. We will then begin the decades long project of rebuilding a sustainable world.

The road to get there will be littered with the carcasses of those who strove to insure that the day would never come about!




Available Energy

[Graeme]

International Energy Agency 'blocking global switch to renewables'

The experts, from the Energy Watch group, say the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes misleading data on renewables, and that it has consistently underestimated the amount of electricity generated by wind power in its advice to governments. They say the IEA shows "ignorance and contempt" towards wind energy, while promoting oil, coal and nuclear as "irreplaceable" technologies.

guardian

[dohboi]

This is his speech recently to the Council on Foreign Relations. He seems to be increasingly dire in public, in spite of the rather tepid tone of the recent IEA report, though even that was light years ahead of what they had been saying.

The core of the message is in the first 15 minutes or so, the rest is question and answer stuff. link

[mos6507]

He still won't say the dreaded words "peak oil".

[dohboi]

As someone over at TOD put it, he is not yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater. He is mumbling something about a heat-and-light generating oxidation reaction initiating in the far corner of the current establishment.

Only for those with ears to hear...

[sameu]

it's from 2006...

[dohboi]

Oops. Sorry. Here's the link to the current, much more dire (but still coded) speech:

link

[dohboi]

Thanks, short. Well put. And good luck with that equipment problem.

"The Keynesian economist, who is determined to have perpetual growth at any expense, is now shoveling the rest of the world's wealth down the proverbal rat hole."

This reminds me of a comparison going around the net--we are Easter Islanders desperately trying to stimulate our economies by throwing money at the logging and monument building industries.

[dohboi]

yeah, it would be nice to see Birol eat some serious crow after the years of inane projections and the tons of ridicule heaped on those pointing out the obvious--that po is upon us.

He seems a tad bit more forthcoming here, even though he's still not admitting gargantuan errors in previous years.

link

[Graeme]

Exclusive: IEA refutes bias accusations

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has hit back at accusations that it is guilty of "deliberately" undermining the development of the renewables industry and favouring traditional energy industries such as fossil fuels and nuclear, arguing that it has been unequivocal in its calls for a huge increase in renewables capacity.

A report from the Energy Watch Group released last week accused the IEA of systematically under-estimating the potential of the renewables industry to provide energy capacity, noting that last year net additions of wind power globally were four times greater than the average IEA estimate from its 1995-2004 predictions.

But speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Dr Fatih Birol chief author of the IEA's Annual World Energy Outlook report said there was a logical explanation for the IEA's apparent underestimating of renewables capacity.

"Each year the IEA publishes a reference scenario looking at projections based on legally enacted policies to show policy makers what will happen without any change in policy," he explained. "If in following years new policies are put in place to promote renewables this would definitely mean that our reference scenario projections do not hold anymore."

He added that even based on its reference scenario the IEA is now predicting that renewables will overtake natural gas as the second largest source of electricity generation after coal soon after 2010.

businessgreen

[Ayoob]

dohboi said:

nate over at tod just made a claim that all new oil in aggregate has an EROEI of one--that is no net energy is being produced. Does anyone have a way to confirm or refute such a claim? shortonoil?

dohboi I didn't pick up that comment by nate. Could you post a link so I can take a look at it. 1:1 at the well head doesn't make any sense. You couldn't even get the product to the refinery with that kind of return!

It makes sense if you can make money from it.

[copious.abundance]

>>> LINK <<<

IEA again cuts 2009 oil demand forecast
By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Feb. 11 -- In its latest monthly Oil Market Report, the International Energy Agency has revised downward its outlook for 2009 worldwide oil demand.

The Paris-based agency now sees worldwide demand averaging 84.7 million b/d, down 570,000 b/d from its previous projection. The new forecast would mean that demand will decline 1 million b/d from 2008.

The revised outlook puts average 2009 oil demand in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at 46 million b/d, which is 340,000 b/d lower than in IEA's previous forecast. Meanwhile, non-OECD demand is cut 230,000 b/d to 38.7 million b/d.

[...]

[TheDude]

But...but...


CNN

LONDON (Reuters) -- The International Energy Agency said on Monday there could be an oil supply crunch from 2010 once global demand recovers and the impact of delayed investment crimps future supplies. The agency, which advises 28 industrialized countries, is concerned that some oil producers are deferring projects to expand supply. It expects oil demand growth to resume next year after its first drop in a generation.

"Currently the demand is very low due to the very bad economic situation," the IEA's executive director, Nobuo Tanaka, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in London. "But when the economy starts growing, recovery comes again in 2010 and then onward, we may have another serious supply crunch if capital investment is not coming," Tanaka said.

And I submit to you: "Der hey!" 'Course you can always pin your hopes on the global economy being on permanent kaput.

[FireJack]

Before he gets started can we all just ignore oilfinders comments about how trillions of barrels are being found right and left and how deluded we are for thinking we are every going to be short bla bla. You have the power.

[copious.abundance]

Now isn't this the same IEA that doomers were scoffing at just a few months ago?.

Silly doomers!

[eastbay]

Nice catch Dude.

When IEA says, 'could be' we need to think, 'absolutely WILL be'. This combined with the recent ASPO USA Hirsch article means we have serious trouble right around the bend.

Hirsch article here:

http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2009/0 ... we-do-now/