[John_A]

* Why do you think the second law is so important to the discussion (you mention it in almost every post - nobody else does)? I can see that it highlights the inherent thermodynamic inefficiency of any process, but as far as I can see this is a second order effect and not really significant in the context of a discussion about the overall energy balance. Can you elaborate?

To answer that question, I would need to know what you mean by "overall energy balance"? What balance? The planet's balance in relation to the sun and what is contained within it? Human balance, in terms of what we expend in terms of an effort metric or another, or something else?

The 2nd Law is the one that primarily governs how engineering systems work when dealing with energy inputs and outputs, and is therefore the closest to the proper means of dealing with this topic (EROEI), versus the near random way those not schooled in energy systems tend to use EROEI.

* The thrust of your argument seems to be that it doesn't matter if it takes more energy than is in a barrel of diesel to create another barrel of diesel, because we can always get more energy to make more diesel. Where do you propose this input energy comes from?

Now THAT is a good question. It DOES take more energy to convert a gallon of crude into a gallon of diesel, and as with many things in the oil and gas business, the energy to run many of the systems comes directly from the item being moved/refined/worked on. Pipelines for example, run their compressors on the natural gas they are moving, pumpjacks run their engines off casing head gas. To be honest, I know refineries use plenty of electricity, probably natural gas and related liquids for blending the various products they make, but that means they, like the average household, would use whatever the energy form is that makes the electricity they need.

So depending on where the refinery is located, we are talking natural gas, nuke, wind, solar, coal and hydro electricity. And I am not PROPOSING any of this, it is ALREADY being done, every day for decades, and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.

Certainly it isn't as though we are running out of ANY of the previously mentioned items.

[Keith_McClary]

John_A: I have read your posts about EROEI and I am a bit baffled by your logic, which I find rather contorted. In the hope of untangling it, I have a couple of questions:

He has simply concocted his own silly definition of EROEI which includes the energy embodied in buried FF in the 'investment" part, so according to his definition EROEI is always <1.

[John_A]

So, going by your own logic, solar energy has a hopelessly low EROEI, approaching zero?

Absolutely. The sun puts out what...65 million watts/m^2. For some 4 or 6 hours a day, about what, 1000 watts/m^2 hits Earth?

So the EROEI of just the transportation scheme to get the planet solar energy is like 65,000,000 in and 1000 out? Horrifying low. But much like dipping farther into the resource pyramid, as time passes and we get better at harnessing the energy from the local nuclear furnace...well....fossil fuels look like a drop in the bucket compared to the local nuclear furnace.

Because you need to include all the energy that went into the formation of the Sun into the calculation, right?

Depends on what you want to consider a closed system. The entire universe? Some smaller part of it, like the solar system? Or just a single planet? You see, if you examine the earth as a closed system (such as peakers might do when it comes to fossil fuels) then many things are a zero sum game. There are only so many molecules of carbon tied to hyrogen atoms in the combination we really like. But the instant, for example, you open up the possibility of utilizing resources outside that system...say..by prospecting for minerals and resources on other planets in the solar system (as we are doing right now), you change the scope of the "system" you are talking about.

[John_A]

John_A: I have read your posts about EROEI and I am a bit baffled by your logic, which I find rather contorted. In the hope of untangling it, I have a couple of questions:

He has simply concocted his own silly definition of EROEI which includes the energy embodied in buried FF in the 'investment" part, so according to his definition EROEI is always <1.

The definition of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Certainly people fair more clever than I came up with it, I am just doing my best to explain it to those who apparently haven't bothered to take the engineering course load requiring it.

Start with wiki perhaps? Won't get you a passing grade on the EIT, but seriously, who needs to do THAT just to understand why peak oil hasn't worked out so well, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law ... modynamics

[Keith_McClary]

John_A: I have read your posts about EROEI and I am a bit baffled by your logic, which I find rather contorted. In the hope of untangling it, I have a couple of questions:

He has simply concocted his own silly definition of EROEI which includes the energy embodied in buried FF in the 'investment" part, so according to his definition EROEI is always <1.

The definition of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Certainly people fair more clever than I came up with it, I am just doing my best to explain it to those who apparently haven't bothered to take the engineering course load requiring it.

I have taken Physics courses far beyond your engineering textbook rote formulas.

The point is, you use the term EROEI with your own concocted meaning.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Through the Looking Glass.

PS: Today's Dilbert features the monetary ROI version of John's concocted notion of EROEI:

[Gordianus]

The definition of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Certainly people fair more clever than I came up with it, I am just doing my best to explain it to those who apparently haven't bothered to take the engineering course load requiring it.

Start with wiki perhaps? Won't get you a passing grade on the EIT, but seriously, who needs to do THAT just to understand why peak oil hasn't worked out so well, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law ... modynamics

Stop being patronising - I didn't ask for an introduction to thermodynamics. I have a degree in engineering and I fully understand the 2nd law and its implications. What I am asking is why it is relevant to the discussion about EREOI.

[John_A]

The definition of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Certainly people fair more clever than I came up with it, I am just doing my best to explain it to those who apparently haven't bothered to take the engineering course load requiring it.

Start with wiki perhaps? Won't get you a passing grade on the EIT, but seriously, who needs to do THAT just to understand why peak oil hasn't worked out so well, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law ... modynamics

Stop being patronising - I didn't ask for an introduction to thermodynamics. I have a degree in engineering and I fully understand the 2nd law and its implications. What I am asking is why it is relevant to the discussion about EREOI.

Excuse me, someone asking the kind of questions you were about the 2nd Law, it would be reasonable to believe you had zero experience with it.

The problem with EROEI is that it WANTS to pretend to have the power of the 2nd Law behind it, but it DOESN'T. Ultimately, that is the issue. EROEI was wheeled out as a TOD favorite, without anyone even stopping to THINK first about how it isn't about energy return on energy invested, that problem has already been SOLVED, and any engineer knows this. EROEI is a random collection of inputs, usually not even related to ENERGY but dollars and capital and steel and effort...and then someone pretends to add up some oil and gas product, assumes that this is ENERGY, and makes the calculation.

Did you notice how step back didn't want to allow this calculation, that considers gasoline and diesel and jet fuel as "energy", to have the crude oil "energy" input on the other side of the equation?

Cherry picking is what it is, and by doing it, the people doing the calculating can make the answer anything they'd like. Tell me, as an engineer, if I have a metric that will deliver any answer, uniquely, based on nothing more than which person is doing the calculating, of what value is the result?

[John_A]

EROEI is a ratio that employs measurements useful in reality-based science.

If it actually based on the components contained within the acronym, I might find this statement reasonable. But it doesn't, so I won't. And it isn't being used in the "science" sense, it is being used as though the oil and gas industry lives or dies by the result, when we know that the industry not only cares less, but has never, in 150 years, tens of thousands of oil fields, hundreds of thousands of projects, MILLIONS of wells, not ONCE used this metric to make a decision.

So please define "useful" for the oil and gas "science" folks, seeing as how they don't appear to need it for anything?

$RO$I is a ratio that employs measurements used in a fantasy-based "dismal" excuse for science.

Have you EVER done project economics, because the last time I did, the result wasn't fantasy-land based. Or is "classical" science training just about academic exercises having nothing to do with the world of designing, supervising the construction of, and handing over a multi-billion dollar effort to the new owners?

There is no debate.

In this regard, I am forced to agree. But just TRY and get the EROEI fans to figure that out for themselves, most of them apparently having missed out on a classical science education.

[Quinny]

Still no answer

[Strummer]

it is being used as though the oil and gas industry lives or dies by the result

Not true, and NOBODY except you claims that it does.

It is being used because every living organism, and the human civilization in particular, lives or dies by the result. If a plant can't get enough energy returned from the energy it invested into its growth, it withers and dies... the same goes for any animal. If a hunting animal consistently eats less energy from its prey than it expended in a hunt, it will get weaker and die. If human civilization expends more energy than it gets in return from the extraction processes from its envirnoment, it will decline.

[Gordianus]

John_A: I have tried hard to understand your position and arguments and your response is to tell me how ignorant I am and then ramble on about some other topic you think you know about, without any attempt to set out its relevance to the discussion. You made no attempt to answer the questions I put, so I haven't been able to make any sense of what you wrote.

My conclusion is the same as pstarr, that you are a troll. I had been hoping that by engaging in the debate, I might learn something new but I realise I am wasting my time.

By the way, I have just noticed that you capitalise random words, just like the headlines in the Daily Mail.

[Pops]

My conclusion is the same as pstarr, that you are a troll. I had been hoping that by engaging in the debate, I might learn something new but I realise I am wasting my time.

It isn't a waste of time Gord, 99% of folks won't post, only read and your engagement is what we want them to read.

John_A (and his many predecessors) perform the function of voicing the BAU POV, without which there would not be much to say and so no chance to educate the passing surfer. I think the demise of many boards is related to the extent to which the opposing view is moderated and the talk becomes inbred to the point of irrelevance.

He isn't a shill for PO.com but if we didn't have a foil to come up with nonsensical arguments, we'd need to invent one to encourage conversation. He's our very own autonomous-touch-typing-strawman.

Please continue to debate if you can stand it. If not, simply click his name then click "Add Foe" and he will be banished from your sight.

[ROCKMAN]

Pop - Very well put. Reminds me of a comment a college prof made long ago: "This class has an average IQ of X. Which means half of you are smarter than that and the other half isn't. Your job this semester is to show me which half you belong to."

As frustrating as it might be to deal with some personalities here the ultimate reward is showing which "half" you belong to.

[Strummer]

Reminds me of a comment a college prof made long ago: "This class has an average IQ of X. Which means half of you are smarter than that and the other half isn't. Your job this semester is to show me which half you belong to."

I'd have shown him by reminding him that he meant to say median, not average

[MD]

Leave for a couple days and I am a couple pages behind.

What started the flood?

[ROCKMAN]

MD - John has been kind enough to offer himself as a practice target drone. He's quit good at it. We owe him big time for his service to the PO community.

[John_A]

it is being used as though the oil and gas industry lives or dies by the result

Not true, and NOBODY except you claims that it does.

Hall, C.A., Cleveland, C.J., 1981, Petroleum Drilling in the United States: Yield per effort and net energy analysis, Science, Feb 6, 1981 p. 576-579

May I recommend some learning on the topic?

The same people selling TOD a pig in a poke have done it before, and decided that drilling in the US would stop because of it. Turn of the century, if I recall the appropriate figures in their paper.

[John_A]

Reminds me of a comment a college prof made long ago: "This class has an average IQ of X. Which means half of you are smarter than that and the other half isn't. Your job this semester is to show me which half you belong to."

I'd have shown him by reminding him that he meant to say median, not average

Depends on which side of the human intelligence probability density function debate he stands on. If, like many, he assumed that human intelligence is normally distributed, then mean equals median and either, or both, answers are correct.