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Page added on November 22, 2020
Tom Wayburn and Gail Tverberg discuss ERoEI
· Gail Tverberg says:
The minimum ERoEI has to be a whole lot higher than 1.0. I am not sure what the right number is. I suspect it is something close to 9.0; certainly at least 5.0. The calculation leaves out way too much. In particular, it does not properly charge for energy which is generated by front-end inputs (it does not handle timing at all). It does not consider the need to generate a high enough return to support the need for government.
The idea of moving an economy to lower and lower ERoEI does not work. This is what leads to collapse.
First of all this is meant to be an apology for my inexcusable, childish, pathological, lousy, no good, furshlugginer posts reproduced at the end of this apology so that I never forget my 15 minutes of madness. And I almost never get angry. In my defense, I shall argue briefly that I was provoked.
Just the other day I realized something I had left completely out of account: My readers may not be familiar with thought experiments and don’t know how to use them or interpret them. Therefore, many of them might find it useful to read the brief Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
· Tom Wayburn says:
Gail,
Obviously, you have not read the material I have made available. Until you do, it is unfair, misleading, and wrong to make these kinds of comments. All of that is taken care of, even the energy costs of the technology’s share of government. The Principle of Substitution covers many of your objections. Yes, absolutely, sustainability is possible for ERoEI* = 1.0. This is the case of the Autonomous Alternative Energy District supporting itself and exporting nothing. Do you think I would make a mistake about this? Of course, I did not cover every detail; but, you can see how to handle anything that comes up by how it has been done in some other category.
The above explanation just about covers it, except Gail reminds me that a little more emphasis on taxes might help not hinder the case for discarding American-style so-called capitalism. In my earlier article “On Capitalism”, I pointed out that the movie The Trouble with Harry reminded me of capitalism. If you remember, the trouble with Harry was that he was dead.
But, the thing that set me off, was Gail missed completely what was so ingenious about my thought experiment, namely, that it constituted a constructive proof of just whose living expenses should be included in the energy-invested term and whose should not. Moreover, it showed how to make ERoEI truly useful as a tool to determine sustainability or not. I am just one old man who has spent most of his life pursuing other goals; but, during the last 30 years or so, I have served the human race without concerning myself too much with the extent to which it will be appreciated or even accepted. But, this thought experiment is the real deal. I know it; and, you will know it too if you just let it tell you what it can. By the way, check out the figure that indicates ERoEI decreasing toward collapse:
 |
· Gail Tverberg says:
I told Charlie Hall (in my talk at the Biophysical Economic conference at the University of Vermont this week) that the current average EReEI of society is too low–it is leading to collapse in the near term. If we are to prevent collapse (which I don’t really think is possible), we need to be raising the average ERoEI. The current average ERoEI of society is clearly a lot higher than 1.0, no matter how it is defined.
I don’t know where you are coming from, but it doesn’t make sense to me. As society becomes more complex (what Tainter talks about) the cost of government becomes greater both absolutely and relative to other costs. This strongly suggests that after a certain point, average ERoEI needs to be increasing to prevent collapse.
Gail doesn’t understand that the thought experiment is contrived so that the cost of government and other business costs (including interest on debt and private profit – and the energy budgets of the profiteers) go in the Energy-Invested term. So, yes, the ERoEI can be precisely equal to 1.0 under the strange circumstance where the stakeholders know all of the other relevant numbers and, therefore, how much to take for themselves. They are entitled to live from the work they do even if it is not very much. People know better than to quibble about who did what.
Suppose none of the proceeds are exported and all the energy investment data is known and sums to EI’. If the Energy Recovered is known for the entire life cycle, then ER- EI’ can be distributed to the stakeholders leaving ERoEI = 1.0 exactly and everything paid for.
Of course the Energy Recovered is used by the community where it was generated. Is there a problem with that? One notices that in this exercise everything of value is measured in emergy units, which in my system are electricity-like units such as emjoules or emkilowatt-hours. This is not a personal practice. I’ll tell you when I am doing something that only I do.
· thomaslwayburn says:
Charlie doesn’t understand either. It seems that many people have trouble getting their heads around this idea. I think, if you read this very short piece a couple of times, you will get it. I am not that much smarter than the rest of you. Part of the problem is that I put a number of items in the energy-invested term that are not strictly investments. In fact, normally, analysts do not debit the process for inconveniences of time and space, or the necessity to convert some portion of the energy produced to another form with a low efficiency process. They do not charge the process for environmental degradation or resource depletion.
[from http://dematerialism.net/eroeistar.htm ]
Let us suppose that a group of people representing all of the trades and professions wishes to support itself completely by relying on a single alternative, renewable energy technology for all of its energy needs. Let us suppose further that all of the natural resources necessary to do this are available within the Autonomous Alternative Energy District (AAED) [and the repositories of such natural resources can be retained at steady state from the detritus of the AAED including superannuated installations of the technology].
Nothing is imported from outside the District whereas energy and only energy is exported. If a man needs a car to drive from his home (in the District) to his job (in the District), the car is built, maintained, and fueled in the District. If his wife is sick the doctor in the District will treat her with medicine made in the District from chemicals produced there from raw materials mined there and subsequently recycled agressively. The ERoEI of the new energy technology is the total energy produced, ER, divided by the quantity ER minus the quantity EX, where EX is the energy exported; i. e., EX = ER – EI. If the District is able to export any energy at all the ERoEI ratio exceeds one and the technology is feasible – at least.
In the case of a single energy technology, the energy produced by each technology can be assigned a transformity of unity and the value of emergy is quantitatively the same as the Gibbs availability, which, at room temperature, is the Gibbs free energy. I prefer to report emergy values in units of emquads rather than quads, emjoules rather than joules, etc. Thus, the units of transformity are emquads per quad, for example. [snip]
If this doesn’t make sense to you, think harder. I mean it. This is important. If you don’t understand it, you don’t understand sustainability. There are a lot of people addressing the multitudes who don’t know what they are talking about. Don’t be one of them. I heard a lot of silly stuff in Austin at the ASPO conference. I couldn’t begin to speak as there is too much they don’t know. The finiteness of the world is just the beginning. You must close the energy balance in terms of consumption as well as production. If the AAED does not export energy, ERoEI* is at most equal to 1.0. If the District needs to import energy to keep going, ERoEI* is less than 1.0. Thus, if all of society is in the collapse phase, it is because the composite ERoEI* for all energy technologies properly matched is less than 1.0.
· John Christian says:
Its possible to make a lot of nice calculations around utopia like distribution of energy and resources, but I do believe Gail is more rooted in our current predicament for the finiteness we encounter in the industrial civilization. That the current set of living arrangements will hit a steep decline curve soon due to our misuse of resources. I also think she is sober in the way that she knows you can’t really turn enough people to believe in this utopia when so many of us cant even embrace simple ideas within socialism and sharing of wealth. I do believe many of us here knows whats wrong with the system and have all kinds of ideas how to improve it – but there is no chance we will be able to implement a fraction of these before a complete and utter collapse. Small pockets within society might find a better lifestyle more in pact with the limits of nature and approach some sort of equilibrium with how much you take out of it and how much you give back.
From a mathematical point of view there is also the unavoidable concept of entropy which cannot be left out in any processing of resources. Stuff rust and decay, and take a form that is very hard to recycle unless you have a fantastic device that gathers atoms and reassemble them in a clean form. The best engine for recycling today is the organic one with how soil, plants, animals interact with water and air. Any single species impact on his planet has been fine tuned over millions of years shaping synergies where the nature is somewhat self sustainable as long as no single species “take over”. Homo Sapiens (a name we don’t deserve) has basically been raping and pillaging this natural world for resources in a way that is just insanely destructive on a planetary scale. We have also bred our species completely out of proportions so no matter how much you plan to conserve, recycle and aim for renewables – continued breeding will require a substantial number of us to become part of the soil again. No doubt for us to have any chance at all to find some sort of equilibrium with the planet again we need to cut our numbers dramatically. The question is whether we do it willingly or not – realistically I cant see any other option besides the finiteness of the planet forcing the population down. That might start with an oil or energy shock or it might be because of major climate change incidents as the Arctic is thawing and releasing massive amounts of methane and CO2 to the atmosphere.
John Christian probably believes a good deal of the same things I do (or visa versa), but this is not about some utopia. It’s a very good way to understand what should go into the energy-invested term.
Suppose I started with Houston, Texas, and made a list of all the full-time workers and other stakeholders who get 100% of their livelihoods from Energy Plant X (not forgetting the wives and children). I might compile a list of energy either of the type produced or transformed into the type produced. But, many of their fellow citizens spend a small part of their time (energy) serving these Plant X workers, like the dentist and the man at H & R Block. But, that’s a hell of a tangle. How will I ever compile a list of energy expended on behalf of Plant X much less list the pro-rata portion of the energy budget of the man who cuts the hair of the man who shines the shoes of the man who does the taxes for the Plant X worker.
Suppose, however, that energy is the only product of District A in Houston. Everyone either works for Energy Plant X or depends upon it for a livelihood. Everything other than energy that is produced in District A must be part of the cost of producing energy. We know exactly what to do. Let’s consider additional products and districts.
We don’t need to know exactly who belongs to each district. We need to know how much of each product including energy is produced and we need to have a number that describes the labor density for each product. Finally, we need the total production for the city. We may need some further description of the economy; but the result we seek can be a rough approximation and still be good enough to determine sustainability or not.
· Tom Wayburn says:
Gail,
Please do not assume that you know what I am going to say and that, therefore, you don’t have to read it. What I have said is very different from what you seem to expect. You made an unfair criticism of ERoEI* replete with numerous incorrect statements. An ERoEI* = 1 corresponds to the Autonomous Alternative Energy District of http://dematerialism.net/eroistar.htm supplying all of its own needs and exporting nothing. In my blog at http://eroei.blogspot.com/ I indicated how each of your objections can be handled. I didn’t specifically mention that the costs of government appear in the energy-invested term; but, you should realize how that would be done by analogy with the specifics of other details I offered as examples. I thought I answered your objections previously, but I can’t find my answer on your blog. Sorry if this is a repetition.
Gail’s next comment is what set me off. You cannot imagine how enraged I became. She thought I was describing how things work. My definitions are not different from the standard definitions except in the more technical aspects of the problem to which I did not expose her. The only possibility that Gail failed to consider was that perhaps I am right and, perforce, everyone else is wrong.
In any case, Gail, I apologize for my outburst. It is not likely to happen again. The world will eventually adopt my definition of ERoEI* or one that is even more like my definition than mine is. It doesn’t matter that someone else will take credit for it or simply say they always did it that way. I agree with nearly everything you say. But, they also say that you always hurt the one you love.
· Gail Tverberg says:
I am sorry but I do not have time to figure out your personal view of how things work, with definitions different from the standard ones. It is difficult enough dealing with standard definitions.
· Tom Wayburn says:
Gail,
You are hopeless. You don’t want to learn anything you don’t already know and most of that is irrelevant or wrong. The rest of you know where to find me.
· Jan Steinman says:
Tom, if you need to have a superior attitude, at least you can be civil!
Gail does a lot of good. Calling someone “hopeless” because they are unwilling to cater to your whims is hardly a way to make friends and influence people.
Jan, you are right. I am ashamed of my outburst. The Autonomous Alternative Energy District is one of the best ideas I ever had. Naturally, I expected a much different reception for it. It’s a good thing there’s no crying in chemical engineering.
· Scott says:
Jan, I think Tom sees something that he is having trouble communicating to the group and perhaps he is frustrated by that. I wish I could understand all the things he has written, I get some of it but much of it hard for most of us to grasp. I noticed we do have several doctors of science writing on the site and I hope they stay with us so I can try to understand their thesis. Sometimes scientist fail to understand the human aspect of things since they are hung up on math and facts. I would like to understand Tom’s ideas and I hope he stays with us but try to post in a way that we can understand as I have very little college.
I am trying to write so as to be more easily understood. A lot of my difficulties come from years of writing only for myself.
· Thomas L Wayburn, PhD in chemical engineering says:
My definition of ERoEI* corrects all the defects of the standard definition which is what the critics of ERoEI usually complain about. But, you already know everything that you need to know. You don’t need no stinking scientific progress. I have been ahead of all you Peak Oil superstars no matter how late you jumped on the bandwagon. They tell me that I am hard to understand. What did you expect? It is always thus with true genius. I am afraid I shall have to give up on Gail Tverberg, the entertainer, who has no business addressing public policy. The rest of you know where to find me.
This is one of the worst things I ever wrote. Perhaps it’s because I like and admire Gail so much. Sorry Gail. I don’t suppose you would let me take you to dinner.
[snip]
And, that’s the way it ends. I suppose I should contact Jan Steinman whom I know from The Solution Magazine and its ancillary activities; but, I see a catering to “notability” there too and I am reasonably certain no good will come from that quarter. They are not sincere. I appreciate Scott’s defense of me. I am afraid I am writing for a rather select audience. As time goes on, it seems that fewer and fewer understand me until, I suppose, I shall be writing for no one. By the way, I am not sure I am a “true genius”. But, I’m not sure I’m not. As I said to Albert Bartlett, average intelligence is decreasing; but, the single highest intelligence, corresponding to the right-most point under the bell curve, is getting higher. There must be many people much more intelligent than me.
58 Comments on "Tom Wayburn and Gail Tverberg discuss ERoEI"
TomWayburn on Sun, 22nd Nov 2020 7:40 pm
When I wrote the above, I distinguished what I wrote yesterday from the older writing by writing it with blue type. This didn’t make it into this copy of the piece; so, it’s sometimes a little hard to tell who is writing. Can someone please tell me how to edit this post so that I can date the new comments.
FamousDrScanlon on Sun, 22nd Nov 2020 10:45 pm
You can use the number of Bull Shit jobs to loosely track available energy.
White’s law
“White’s law, named after Leslie White and published in 1943, states that, other factors remaining constant, “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased”.
“White spoke of culture as a general human phenomenon and claimed not to speak of ‘cultures’ in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists. He believed that culture – meaning the sum total of all human cultural activity on the planet – was evolving.
White differentiated between three components of culture:
Technological,
Sociological and
Ideological, and argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution”
“”Argument Synopsis
White’s materialist approach is evident in the following quote: “man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment”.[1] This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White’s argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:[2]
Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival.
This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs.
Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies.
Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense.
For White “the primary function of culture” and the one that determines its level of advancement is its ability to “harness and control energy.” White’s law states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption). White differentiates between five stages of human development. In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution here). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness nuclear energy.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%27s_law
It’s no coincidence that NASCAR, Monster Trucks, Drive in movies, Singing Bass on a plaque & a whole bunch of other obscene energy wasting pastimes came out of American culture. It’s the oil what dun it. Culture à la Guns, Germs & Steel. We did it because we could. The MPP rules.
On a happier note many ‘gender & multicultural studies’ professors will soon be unemployed due to declining net energy.
TomWayburn on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 12:28 am
Dr. Scanlon,
I have been searching for a proof of the Maximum Power Principle for some time. I had more or less given up. Do you know where one can be found?
Tom
zero juan on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 3:38 am
Ppee juan, you are not famous, you are a fuck and low IQ high school drop out. Please leave this place for rational adults and go get therepy
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Alain Le Gargasson on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 7:30 am
Endless recycling is not possible for several reasons:
Even if you had infinite energy this does not guarantee you infinite raw materials, the circular economy is also a large consumer of energy and an impossibility in the medium term for several reasons:
· We still have a loss on melting metal, example: recycling case of aluminum beer cans, of the recovered quantity only 95% is available again.
There are thousands of steel alloys with noble metals: niobium, vanadium, tungsten, chromium, etc., only two classifications when it comes to recycling, carbon steel which will be used in construction as medium steel and l ‘stainless steel. Which never go back to the original use,
· Automotive industry, on average 10 years of life. For recycling, draining liquids and melting in an electric furnace, mixes up to 10 alloys of steel, copper from the electrical circuit, aluminum engine casing and combustion plastics.
· Disperse use, metal oxides used as colorants in paints (walls, prints, plastics, cosmetics, fireworks, etc.). The most emblematic case is titanium oxide, a universal white dye (paints, resins, cosmetics, toothpaste, etc.) 95% terminated in landfills, rivers and seas. Nanotechnology prevents recycling like the silver used in socks to prevent odors. Mobile phone with more than 40 different mendeleiev table elements (nano elements).
· Natural wear: Today, for example, in the streets, asphalt contains a higher concentration of palladium or platinum than certain mines, due to the exhaust of cars, copper and zinc from tires.
• No substitute for copper for electrical conductors, nickel for stainless steel, tin for soldering, tungsten for cutting tools, silver or platinum for the chemical and electronic industry, phosphorus for agriculture etc …
Agriculture: totally disperse, diesel from 100 to 150 liters per cultivated hectare, limestone in the correction of agricultural land, fertilizers (NPK- nitrogen, potash, phosphorus) phytosanitary products (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides …) which will end up in rivers and sea, as well as arable land due to erosion.
Renewable energies, wind turbine of 5 MW 1000t of steel and concrete at the base, 250t of the steel mast, the 50t of the 3 blades of fiberglass, carbon fiber and plastic resin, permanent magnet motor, in steel alloy with neodymium. Photovoltaic panel, with gallium, indium, selenium, cadmium or tellurium. Today not recyclable.
· Everything that spins needs lubricant. 50 million tonnes / year.
The improved return to life in 1800 is therefore assured around 2050 with a maximum of 1 or 2 billion inhabitants. In a constrained world, you can forget about democracy and going back to slavery.
Davy on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 7:54 am
How many times we got to tell you your not famous FamousDrScanlon.
lunatic
Antius on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 2:57 pm
EROEI of nuclear fission with light water reactors is 43-81. EROEI for wind (without storage) = 6-80; Solar PV = 2.1-12.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/energy-and-the-environment/energy-return-on-investment.aspx
In Europe, we could run a minimalist civilisation on wind power, provided we could adapt to intermittency and use it without wasting energy on poorly designed storage solutions. We would need a lot of installed capacity. In terms of EROEI, onshore wind is likely to be superior (and cheaper). Infrastructure will have longer lifespan, less material invested in foundations and easier logistics overall. Solar PV is far more problematic, due to low EROEI. It seems doubtful that solar would have been more than a niche technology without zero interest rates and QE. Wind power, especially onshore, would have fared better.
Antius on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 3:45 pm
Some thoughts on wind power.
(1) Traditional windmill towers were built from brick or stone and blades were made of wood. These are materials with low embodied energy. There are practical size limitations for wooden blades. For medium sized onshore wind turbines, wood can be used for blades and masonry for towers. The only steel needed is the hub and the shafts.
(2) Rare earth elements are used in high strength permanent magnets. They are an advantage in the design of compact autonomous generators, but are hardly an essential component. Iron based electromagnets with copper or aluminium coils could be used. They would be a little bulkier.
(3) In fact, wind turbines could be designed to pump hydraulic fluid or compressed air to a central generator plant, with dozens of turbines providing hydraulic power to a single electrical generator station. In this case, the turbines themselves would contain hydraulic pumps or air compressors, but would not need generators. No special materials needed, just carbon steel and some polymers, with masonry towers and wooden blades.
Just because something is done in a certain way, doesn’t always mean that it has to be done that way.
Cloggie on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 4:29 pm
“Traditional windmill towers were built from brick or stone and blades were made of wood. These are materials with low embodied energy.”
I was surprised myself how low the cost of the steel tower is: 1.9% !!!
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/08/22/breakdown-costs-offshore-windfarm/
“Breakdown Costs Offshore Windfarm”
And again my hobbyhorse: making a new wind turbine tower from an old one takes 4 times less energy than making a new one from iron ore. So, once you have constructed a steel wind tower from iron ore, the next wind tower, recycled from the first generation, will require a fraction of the energy cost, vastly increasing EROI.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=16211
Primary production, in which steel is made from iron ore and aluminum from bauxite ore, is energy intensive. However, secondary production, which involves the use of recycling scrap to make steel and aluminum, is much more energy efficient. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that secondary steel production uses about 74% less energy than the production of steel from iron ore, while the U.S. Department of Energy reports that secondary aluminum production requires 90% less energy than primary production.
Gaia on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 4:35 pm
All men should go their own way. The
mainstream media rarely mentions about violence against men. Marriage is a scam and divorce is the same.
TomWayburn on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 6:20 pm
I do not agree with Antius and I believe what I have written about ERoEI* is sufficient to reject ERoEI* of 43 for anything. My computations and lucubrations are all over the internet and depend upon all of you to review because I have no desire to deal with the corporate-controlled journals and the peer-review system I have been very much a part of and which I investigated to my own satisfaction and found unsatisfactory.
However,Alain Le Gargasson has raised a serious and very real concern. I agree with him except for a few mitigating facts, which you can bet are going to save my thesis if I have anything to do with it. I have already thanked Denis Frith for pushing me closer and closer to a complete solution. Let’s face it: Denis had a better grip on the difficulty of solving the recycle problem than I did. There I said it and Denis is OK in my book.
BUT, I don’t have to solve the recycle problem for everything – only the renewable energy candidate under investigation. Lately, I have decided to investigate the case of tellurium. Begin by establishing a rule: No one gets a new panel without returning the old panel or the pieces of it. I’ll report myself unless Alain wants to do it and report on https://eroei.blogspot.com/ .
Remember too that we may have any number of years before we have to come up with a workable plan for recycling most things. As for structural metals, I would argue that the heat of fusion is an upper limit for the cost of recycling. If you recall, I expect that most of the structural and delivery components are amenable to do-it-yourself and decentralization. But, if not, they are going to sink a whole lot of systems whose purveyors don’t even take the trouble to compute ERoEI* they are so over-confident.
I guess https://www.dematerialism.net/CwC.html was not so far ahead of its time that I couldn’t take another look at it after fifteen years. But this is not merely another opportunity to complain about how shabbily I have been treated by the scientific community. I don’t suppose my socialist,communist,syndicalist, and dechrematisticalist sympathies had anything to do with it.
Tom Wayburn
“Any society that permits private profit is doomed.”
Antius on Tue, 24th Nov 2020 2:43 am
“I do not agree with Antius and I believe what I have written about ERoEI* is sufficient to reject ERoEI* of 43 for anything. My computations and lucubrations are all over the internet and depend upon all of you to review because I have no desire to deal with the corporate-controlled journals and the peer-review system I have been very much a part of and which I investigated to my own satisfaction and found unsatisfactory.”
Can you provide a link to the ERoEI analysis that you have carried out for nuclear reactors and wind turbines? I have read some of your work and find it interesting.
I would posit that the minimal functional EROI needed to sustain a civilisation is unlikely to be a constant. Tim Morgan of the Surplus Energy Economics blog has shown that Japanese GDP started shrinking when Energy Cost of Energy rose above 5%. However, the Chinese economy was able to continue growing rapidly at this point and real GDP has only recently started to plateau. This indicates that minimum sustainable EROI for an economy has a lot to do with complexity.
I would agree that a hydrogen economy does not appear to be a practical proposition beyond certain niche applications. The energy cost of liquefaction and all of the logistical problems of distributing a deep cryogen, mean that liquid hydrogen will not be affordable as a mass produced diesel and gasoline substitute. Gaseous hydrogen is too diffuse in my opinion to be suitable for long distance piping as is foreseen under the plans for a Europe-wide hydrogen network. Whikst it isn’t technically impossible to make it work, it is not a desirable option, due to the low energy density of the gas and the low pressure drop achievable in the (inevitably) low pressure pipelines.
But gaseous hydrogen may have niche applications in short term electricity storage in gasometer tanks (remember Town Gas?) and as a reducing agent in metal production and feedstock for biomass refining and ammonia production. All of this applications would involve storing hydrogen as gas at roughly atmospheric pressure and using it close to where it is made, shortly after it is made. So there could be a hydrogen economy of sorts.
Antius on Tue, 24th Nov 2020 4:24 am
A summary of Weisbach’s EROI study, which is generally considered to be the most reliable.
https://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
EROI of onshore wind power in northern Germany is ~16. It is worth noting that EROI will be different depending upon turbine design, where it is situated (I.e. wind speed) and its effective lifetime.
An EROI of 16 implies an ECoE of 6.25% – which is marginal but still workable. The ability of wind power to support industrial civilisation depends largely on our ability to harness it without wasting exergy. That means minimising energy transitions, energy lost in storage and transmission, etc.
That implies in my mind that we should avoid wasteful solutions like the hydrogen economy or battery electric cars and concentrate instead on direct use of the electrical and mechanical energy as it is produced. That means grid connected electric transport like trains and trams and industrial manufacturing powered by grid electric wind power. We need to adapt to intermittent energy, by having some functions that are capable of responding to supply. For example, heating and cooling can be switched off when electricity supply is low, if thermal inertia is built into the system. Transport can run more slowly if energy levels are lower. Manufacturing can postpone some functions when energy levels are low. This is how it will need to work. Labour productivity will be lower.
EROI of light water nuclear reactors is estimated to be 75. This is superior to any fossil fuel power generation, with the possible exception of natural gas. But there is institutional inertia to the use of nuclear energy that may prove difficult to overcome. In China, where fewer such limitations exist, nuclear power is expanding rapidly.
Cloggie on Thu, 26th Nov 2020 4:18 am
Massive hydrogen push underway in Europe:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/23/business/hydrogen-train-siemens/index.html
– in Italy they produce pasta with hydrogen
– in Germany 1300 diesel locomotives could be replaced by hydrogen
– the EU contemplates to ban new diesel and gasoline cars as early as 2025:
https://thedriven.io/2020/11/16/uk-and-europe-to-declare-war-on-new-petrol-and-diesel-car-sales/
Things are moving with breakneck speed.
Cloggie on Thu, 26th Nov 2020 5:19 am
“Massive Hydrogen Push Underway in Europe”
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/11/26/massive-hydrogen-push-underway-in-europe/
Antius on Thu, 26th Nov 2020 6:56 am
“Massive Hydrogen Push Underway in Europe”
Trains, buses and short range trucks are workable using hydrogen, because you can get good range using hydrogen stored at low pressure. What’s more, they are big enough to make use of solid oxide fuel cells.
Where hydrogen is less likely to be workable is in powering cars. Electric cars will not be affordable for most people and hydrogen offers poor range. Cars are too inefficient to be valuable in a renewable energy economy. It turns out that car culture was the road to nowhere. Kunstler certainly got that right. Long live the tram, the train, the bicycle, the velomobile, the bus.
TomWayburn on Sun, 29th Nov 2020 7:24 pm
There are lots of answers that I must look into, which gives me a great deal to do. I can cite https://www.dematerialism.net/NuclearOption.htm which is old and should be updated. I am trying to keep up. I appreciate everyone.
TomWayburn on Sun, 29th Nov 2020 7:27 pm
Make that https://www.dematerialism.net/NuclearOption.html
Antius on Sun, 29th Nov 2020 9:27 pm
There are in fact several options that would allow supplies of fissile fuel for nuclear power to be extended for at least several millennia. The most famous being the sodium cooled fast breeder reactor. Less well known are the gas cooled fast reactor, the reduced moderation boiling water reactor, the molten salt reactor, and perhaps most ambitious of all, the fusion-fission hybrid reactor.
Using any one of these technologies, the supply of uranium in seawater would be sufficient to power human civilisation indefinitely.
Antius on Sun, 29th Nov 2020 10:09 pm
Interesting study.
https://www.dematerialism.net/NuclearOption.html
There are certainly things I would question.
‘Using cost data from the Shultz et al. study, the University of Chicago Study, and the MIT study, I computed an ER/EI ratio of 4.63.’
I would be interested to see your workings. An EROI of 4.63 does not ring true to me. Looking purely at the material inputs into 1970s era nuclear power plants (steel and concrete), they are 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than those of wind and solar based energy systems with storage and smaller than those of a typicalcoal burning power plant.
http://fhr.nuc.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/05-001-A_Material_input.pdf
‘Quite obviously, while operating as designed, nuclear power plants do not contribute directly to Global Climate Change nor air and water pollution regardless of the effect of their ancillary facilities, e.g., mining, etc. When nuclear facilities are operated properly, the dangers are rather minimal; nevertheless, nuclear radiation is extremely dangerous. In addition to radiation poisoning, nuclear plants have a non-zero, but very small, probability of exploding; but, if there are many of them, the probability of explosion increases accordingly. Admittedly, there is no physical reason why the problems associated with pollution, radiation, explosions, waste, and decommissioning cannot be solved, however they must be solved; and, to the extent that they have not yet been solved, they represent impediments to the introduction of nuclear power and the hydrogen economy, which brings us to the next topic.’
The world would need to suffer a great many nuclear accidents before radioactive pollution resulted in as many health effects as fossil fuels do today (see link below). The world health organisation estimates that the worst nuclear accident to have occurred to date resulted in 4000 excess deaths. Compare that to the several million deaths that occur every year due to air pollution. Even if every nuclear reactor in the world melted down today, public health consequences would not approach even a single year of air pollution. Now consider that the core melt frequency of a new generation LWR is somewhere in the region of 1 in 1million reactor years. I really don’t think there is much to worry about.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
As for land requirements, nuclear power plants are compact compared to other means of energy production. But no energy source whatever will allow humanity to sustain even modest economic growth on a finite planet.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 3:51 am
From Antius’ link:
“Regardless of the finiteness of uranium resources, nuclear energy must be considered renewable because of the existence of fast breeder reactors and the likelihood that their technological limitations will disappear over the coming decades. Therefore, nuclear power should be admitted to the competition with wind, solar, biomass, and other sustainable technologies. If there is some reason why nuclear energy is not sustainable, it has yet to be demonstrated.”
Regardless of the technological merits of this proposal, it will simply come too late. Europe (+UK) aims at completion of the transition by 2050, 3 decades from now. Britain just ordered a nuclear power station (in France, where else?) to the tune of 3.2 GW for the staggering amount of 22.2 billion.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/10/31/uk-opts-for-new-nuclear-power-station/
Nuclear power stations have historically a capacity factor of 80% at best:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Worldwide_Nuclear_Power_Capacity_Factors.png
So we are are going to reduce the output of the to be built nuclear power station to 0.8 * 3.2 = 2.6 GW.
The all-in cost of a 14 MW offshore wind turbine is 16.6 million:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/the-cost-of-an-offshore-wind-turbine/
For these huge turbines a capacity factor of 0.60 applies. So you get 8.4 MW for 16.6 million.
You need 310 of these turbines to match the nuclear power station above or 5.15 billion, which is 4 times cheaper (excl. cabling).
Note that the cost of nuclear fuel is not included in this calculation, let alone the cost of getting rid of the spent fuel, let alone the staggering cost of a reprocessing plant (many billions).
That price advantage of a factor of 4 needs to be reduced to factor in intermittency and the partial need for storage. Not everything needs to be converted into hydrogen. Excess supply can be used to charge seasonal storage of heat in large water volumes via heat pumps or to charge car batteries, via the price mechanism (electricity cheap if there is excess supply).
Nuclear energy will continue to play a role in Europe, as Paris-Berlin-Moscow will need nuclear weapons, but only a marginal one. Renewable energy has won the PR- and price-and environmental-battle and that is what counts.
Attempts to push nuclear energy is like flogging a dead horse.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 3:55 am
That factor of 4 in cost comparison offshore wind-nuclear is roughly confirmed here:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/11/19/lazard-renewable-energy-cheapest-by-far/
“Lazard – Renewable Energy Cheapest by Far”
Wind: 26-54 (39)
Nuclear: 129-198 (165)
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 4:27 am
Borssele offshore wind park near the Dutch coast has been delivered on time and within budget:
https://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/25623/energie-opwekken/wind/bouw-offshore-windparken-bij-borssele-ondanks-corona-op-schema/
Despite Corona, 752 MW were delivered within 9 months. No fossil or nuclear power station can compete with that excessive short time frame.
We’re talking 5% of Dutch electricity consumption here.
https://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/30752/energie-besparen/transport/veerboot-op-waterstof-tussen-kopenhagen-en-oslo/
Hydrogen ferry Kopenhagen-Oslo operational in 2027. 1800 passengers, 380 cars.
Fuel cell 23 MW.
500 km, 19 hours.
44 ton hydrogen, sufficient for return journey.
Economically this ferry makes little sense. The road trip Kopenhagen-Oslo is merely 6.5 hours, but interesting is the innovation push, that can be applied to international shipping.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 4:32 am
The Lithuanian government subsidizes you for 1000 euro if you trash your old car and replace it with an e-bike:
https://www.wattisduurzaam.nl/30235/energie-besparen/transport/letland-ruilt-duizenden-oude-autos-in-voor-elektrische-fiets/
Good idea for the Netherlands as well.
Wind Rocks on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 5:00 am
“Despite Corona, 752 MW were delivered within 9 months. No fossil or nuclear power station can compete with that excessive short time frame.
We’re talking 5% of Dutch electricity consumption here.”
There is hope!
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 5:09 am
New video of Borssele wind farm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2IxkwOdFFo
8 MW turbines Siemens-Gamesa.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 5:36 am
All data concerning Borssele offshore wind farm in a single post:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/borssele-1-2-752-mw-wind-farm-operational/
Borssele 3-4 are still under construction and will be delivered early 2021 and be (briefly) the largest offshore wind farm in the world (1.5 GW), superseding Hornsea UK (1.2 GW).
After that, many giant multi-GW projects will be rolled out by the UK, Holland, Denmark, Germany and others.
The Netherlands will achieve the renewable electricity transition by 2030, the renewable primary energy transition by 2050.
The global energy markets of the 21st century will be dominated by continental European companies, just like the 20th century was dominated by Anglo oil & gas companies.
“He who comes too late is punished by life”
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 6:12 am
“Zaanse Schans”, near Amsterdam was the world’s first industrial area in the 17th century, powered by wind mills, each producing ca. 30 kW. A future 15 MW wind turbine will produce 500 times as much. You get the picture. Wind energy is primed for a huge come-back in the Netherlands:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o80QGc0YTL0
[0:49]
Location: https://tinyurl.com/y4zbjrx9
Stupid bastard of Sacramento on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 6:27 am
Is this the website to complain about liquid farts?
I hope so as my arse has exploded.
Board moderator on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 6:28 am
No it’s not so why don’t you jog on you filthy diseased covid sharting prick!.
zero juan on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 6:39 am
Good morning lunatic. Ppeee juan is up and giving us a cold stale morning of his insanity. FUCK YOU TROLL. LOL
Board moderator said No it’s not so why don’t you jog on yo…
Stupid bastard of Sacramento said Is this the website to complain about liquid farts…
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SeanQI said Her brother Richard was a year older as well as in…
Antius on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 6:45 am
‘Regardless of the technological merits of this proposal, it will simply come too late. Europe (+UK) aims at completion of the transition by 2050, 3 decades from now. Britain just ordered a nuclear power station (in France, where else?) to the tune of 3.2 GW for the staggering amount of 22.2 billion.’
I was quoting Tom Wayburn’s article.
Wind and solar electricity systems have entered mass production. They are also benefiting from zero interest rates and QE which make capital costs artificially cheap. So on the face of things they look like an affordable option. And renewable energy is being pushed by the EU regardless of cost, for purely political ideological reasons.
The problem is that wind and solar power are essentially a dead end if we are interestedin any kind of prosperous future. A unit of wind power requires 1-2 orders of magnitude more embodied energy and materials than the equivalent unit of nuclear energy. This problem is essentially unsolvable, because it is a function of the limited power density of the resource. Which is why EROI is fixed at a quite marginal value of 16. This is barely adequate for technological society, but it will not, in the absence of fossil fuels support a wealthy society.
Nuclear power has very high power density and high EROI. But it has not yet entered mass production and it faces institutional obstacles which have delayed its development. None the less, it is the only energy source with sufficient EROI to sustain high living standards. It is therefore inevitable that nuclear power will have largely displaced renewable energy by the middle of this century. But this will need to wait for the commercialisation of small modular reactors capable of mass production. This is not technically difficult. What has been lacking up to now is political will.
Antius on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 7:21 am
Here is a copy of Weisbach’s EROI document.
https://festkoerper-kernphysik.de/Weissbach_EROI_preprint.pdf
One thing that is clear from the document is the importance of siting location on the effective energy return (and EROI) of wind turbines. It suggests to me that what may work on the North Sea coasts of Britain and Holland, may not be workable in other less breezy locations, like most of Eastern Europe and Asia. The EROI of a wind turbine is going to be proportional to integrated cube of wind speed.
North West Europe has the world’s best wind environment.
Wind Rocks on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 7:43 am
This came off the moderated side Antius:
REAL Green wrote:
This is a great look at EROI of various sources with an excellent explanation of EROI. I got this off the news section. I highly recommend reading the PDF with its well rounded analysis of a deeper EROI viewpoint.
“A summary of Weisbach’s EROI study, which is generally considered to be the most reliable.”
Antius wrote:
“EROI of onshore wind power in northern Germany is ~16. It is worth noting that EROI will be different depending upon turbine design, where it is situated (I.e. wind speed) and its effective lifetime. An EROI of 16 implies an ECoE of 6.25% – which is marginal but still workable. The ability of wind power to support industrial civilisation depends largely on our ability to harness it without wasting exergy. That means minimising energy transitions, energy lost in storage and transmission, etc. That implies in my mind that we should avoid wasteful solutions like the hydrogen economy or battery electric cars and concentrate instead on direct use of the electrical and mechanical energy as it is produced. That means grid connected electric transport like trains and trams and industrial manufacturing powered by grid electric wind power. We need to adapt to intermittent energy, by having some functions that are capable of responding to supply. For example, heating and cooling can be switched off when electricity supply is low, if thermal inertia is built into the system. Transport can run more slowly if energy levels are lower. Manufacturing can postpone some functions when energy levels are low. This is how it will need to work. Labour productivity will be lower. EROI of light water nuclear reactors is estimated to be 75. This is superior to any fossil fuel power generation, with the possible exception of natural gas. But there is institutional inertia to the use of nuclear energy that may prove difficult to overcome. In China, where fewer such limitations exist, nuclear power is expanding rapidly.”
Kublikhan wrote:
Actually that paper is written by nuclear engineers who tweaked every value they could to make renewables look bad and nuclear look good. It is not a very good source for EROI values. Other studies put the EROI of nuclear around 14 or 15, not 75.
“Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI or EROEI) is an expression of energy payback – how much energy we get out of the energy we put into a system. Now, a new scientific paper by nuclear researchers in Germany is making the rounds. In general, the authors seem keen on tweaking the calculation in order to make nuclear look better – and renewables worse.”
Renewables K.O.-ed by EROI?
Meta-analysis of EROI values for nuclear energy suggests a mean EROI of about 14:1 (n of 33 from 15 publications)
Benjamin Goldstein the hook nosed yid on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 9:05 am
The best wind environment was near my rear end 20 minutes ago.
A constant stream of liquid farts and wind power!
Sure the bedding is ruined and the missus is in another room but just think of the energy unleashed!
Stupid bastard of Sacramento on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 9:07 am
You got the covid sharts too big nose?
Benjamin Goldstein the hook nosed yid on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 9:13 am
You bet your left nut I have!
Whilst suffering this morning I wrote a song and I’ll put the link up soon.
It’s called ‘Ive been flushed from the bathroom of my heart’ to the tune of the Johnny Cash song
Cloggiec on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 9:32 am
“North West Europe has the world’s best wind environment.”
Absolutely, not only the best wind, but on top of that also shallow water:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/gold-mine-north-sea/
“Gold Mine North Sea”
Unfortunately, this excellent spot is pretty unique:
https://globalwindatlas.info/
Fortunately, the situation is entirely different for solar, that currently can be produced for 1.2 cent/kWh, “too cheap to meter”:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/more-solar-price-erosion-abu-dhabi-2-gw-1-24-eurocent-kwh/
“More Solar Price Erosion – Abu Dhabi 2 GW, 1.24 Eurocent/kWh”
Arabia, Africa, Australia, SW-America and best of all the Andes are perfect for PV-solar + hydrogen. Finally, poor people have a good selling item:
https://globalsolaratlas.info/map?c=11.523088,8.173828,3
Antius on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:06 am
“Actually that paper is written by nuclear engineers who tweaked every value they could to make renewables look bad and nuclear look good. It is not a very good source for EROI values. Other studies put the EROI of nuclear around 14 or 15, not 75.”
I would say its more likely the other way around. Renewable energy people presenting misleading or false data to make nuclear power look less feasible than it is. One example being the continued assumption of diffusion enrichment even though no one uses it anymore. Meta-analysis of EROI studies is irrelevant if most of the studies are biased or poorly executed. People that are obsessed with renewable energy usually have a strong ideological belief in it and are not beyond distorting data to give them the result that they want. A good example being Cloggie’s assumption that concrete piles for offshore wind turbines will last indefinitely, even though vibration and cyclic loading tends to result in cracking. He ignores that reality because he wants to.
I know from my own analysis that an EROI of 15 for nuclear power isn’t true. Look at the difference in steel and concrete inputs between different power plants.
http://fhr.nuc.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/05-001-A_Material_input.pdf
You are looking at an order of magnitude more steel for an average MW of wind power compared to an LWR. And that is before storage is taken into consideration (which results in losses) and requires even more embodied energy in the storage system. And an LWR can have a lifetime 60-80 years. Wind turbines will be 20 years. This isn’t a matter of opinion. These are hard facts that aren’t negotiable. You can ignore it if you want, but it doesn’t cease to be true.
The EROI of wind turbines will vary greatly depending upon wind speeds and operating environment. Weisbach does acknowledge this. The EROI of 16 is for a coastal environment in northern Germany. Some might say that this is not representative of North Sea conditions and they would be correct. But how much of the world has wind conditions as good as the north Sea?
The Prodigy on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:16 am
I am the sharter! The covid fire sharter!
Antius on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:33 am
“Actually that paper is written by nuclear engineers who tweaked every value they could to make renewables look bad and nuclear look good. It is not a very good source for EROI values. Other studies put the EROI of nuclear around 14 or 15, not 75.”
Renewables do look bad, because there is no escaping the problem of low power density of the resource that they exploit. For both onshore and offshore wind farms in the British Isles, there is a hard limit to power density of 2-3W/m2. This assumes optimal spacing of wind turbines with gaps of 3 blade diameters between turbines facing the wind and 5 diameters between rows. Trying to pack more in results in wind shadowing. Using larger wind turbines makes no difference, because the required spacing to avoid wind shadowing increases.
To produce 1GWe average power, requires about 600x 5MWe turbines, each one 150m tall, with a rotor diameter of 130m. Compare this to a 1000MWe nuclear reactor. Core power density is 60-100MW per cubic metre. A 1000MWe power reactor would have a volume of about 40 cubic metres. This is why wind and solar power can never approach the EROI of a nuclear reactor. System power density for renewable will always be orders of magnitude lower.
Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 12:58 pm
“Renewables do look bad, because there is no escaping the problem of low power density of the resource that they exploit. For both onshore and offshore wind farms in the British Isles, there is a hard limit to power density of 2-3W/m2.”
Your trying to create a “problem” where there isn’t any. Please explain why “energy density” is relevant for the question whether a society can run on renewable energy or not. It isn’t. Proof: Scotland: 100% renewable electricity from mostly onshore wind. This couldn’t have happened if your theory about “low energy density” was remotely true.
And where did you get that absurd 2-3W/m2 number?
Take the Haliade-X 13 MW turbine, with a rotor of 107 m. Surface area 3.14 * 107 * 107 = 35000 m2.
13,000,000 / 35,000 = 370 W/m2, not “2-3”.
“To produce 1GWe average power, requires about 600x 5MWe turbines, each one 150 m tall, with a rotor diameter of 130 m. Compare this to a 1000MWe nuclear reactor. Core power density is 60-100MW per cubic metre. A 1000MWe power reactor would have a volume of about 40 cubic meters. This is why wind and solar power can never approach the EROI of a nuclear reactor.”
Give me a standard terrain of a few km2 for a 1 GW nuclear power station. I can easily put 600 wind turbines on that terrain as well. No, I can’t operate them as they would decapitate each other, but the point is: I don’t need to put them in these few km2. Instead I can put them further away from each other and still harvest my 1 GW of wind power. The 1.5 GW Borssele wind park will have a surface area of 250 km2. So what? The Netherlands has ca. 55,000 km2 North Sea, enough for 250 more 1.5 GW Borssele wind parks [*]. The herrings won’t complain as they have no anti-wind lobby.
[*] that would be 375 GW, which is a little too much. But Shell has calculated that the Netherlands has enough North Sea for at least 70 GW, where the average Dutch electricity consumption is merely 13 GW. We’re going to be a huge exporter of North Sea electricity and hydrogen. Tringgg! says the cash register!
“A good example being Cloggie’s assumption that concrete piles for offshore wind turbines will last indefinitely, even though vibration and cyclic loading tends to result in cracking. He ignores that reality because he wants to.”
I have NEVER said “indefinitely”. I did suggest however that the real technical life span of wind parks could significantly exceed that calculation base of 202-25 years, which is merely a guarantee period. So far two offshore wind farm have been dismantled after 25 years, in Holland and in Denmark. None of the monopiles had “cracked”. They were taken down because these 500kW turbines had become a technological embarrassment and nuisance to maintain, in a time when 5 MW had become the norm. Once the turbine technology will have matured and touched the upper limit of 20 MW, lifetime will become an issue. At sea, you have the luxury to let them produce until real cracks will appear. Wouldn’t be surprised if that would happen after 50 rather than 25 years, doubling the calculated EROI.
Abraham van Helsing on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 1:49 pm
I did not make the previous comment.
FamousDrScanlon on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 2:15 pm
clog totally made the previous comment.
Abraham van Cloggie on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 2:20 pm
Anybody can steal a nick.
Nobody can hijack my style, not even a notorius, dna-level deceiver like you, sheeny.
FamousDrScanlon on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 7:08 pm
TomWayburn on Mon, 23rd Nov 2020 12:28 am
Dr. Scanlon,
I have been searching for a proof of the Maximum Power Principle for some time. I had more or less given up. Do you know where one can be found?
Tom
Yes Tom, first look in the mirror. Next look at your obese countrymen & the other 8 billion fire apes & the wanton destruction they’ve unleashed on this planet including runaway climate change which by it self IS going to kill billions & has the potential to extinct the humans.
Why Tom? 90% of the high energy material crap & entertainment is totally unnecessary to live healthy comfortable lives.
Why can’t y’all slow down Tom?
Because humans are nothing but insatiable cancers.
The MPP predicts the humans will not slow their energy consumption for any reason, damn the torpedoes, & that’s exactly what the humans have done.
None of you are satisfied & never will be because you are slaves to The MPP via evolution.
Your purpose is to degrade energy, so get on a plane & jet around the world then go stuff your face on a 10 day decadent cruise then get a new lift kit installed in your 4X4 so yours can be 1″ taller than the one Jimmy down the block installed. Then go watch the latest action film that cost $700,000,000 to make (how much CO2 is that?). Tom, then MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR MOAR……Cancer apes. Only death & extinction will end humans insane insatiable planet consuming gluttony & it’s not anyone’s fault because were all hardwired for MOAR via evolution which is subservient to the MPP.
Thermodynamics pulls all the strings.
Neuroscience confirms that to be truly happy, you will always need something more
https://qz.com/684940/neuroscience-confirms-that-to-be-truly-happy-you-will-always-need-something-more/
..
The purpose of life is to disperse energy
The truly dangerous ideas in science tend to be those that threaten the collective ego of humanity and knock us further off our pedestal of centrality.
Virtually all organisms, including humans, are, in a real sense, sunlight transmogrified, temporary waypoints in the flow of energy. Ecological succession, viewed from a thermodynamic perspective, is a process that maximizes the capture and degradation of energy. Similarly, the tendency for life to become more complex over the past 3.5 billion years (as well as the overall increase in biomass and organismal diversity through time) is not due simply to natural selection, as most evolutionists still argue, but also to nature’s “efforts” to grab more and more of the sun’s flow. The slow burn that characterizes life enables ecological systems to persist over deep time, changing in response to external and internal perturbations.
Ecology has been summarized by the pithy statement, “energy flows, matter cycles. ” Yet this maxim applies equally to complex systems in the non-living world; indeed it literally unites the biosphere with the physical realm. More and more, it appears that complex, cycling, swirling systems of matter have a natural tendency to emerge in the face of energy gradients. This recurrent phenomenon may even have been the driving force behind life’s origins.
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10674
If you’re a Cancer & you know it clap your hands CLAP! CLAP!!……
TomWayburn on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:02 pm
Dr Scanlon,
You are guilty of a version of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” This is by no means the proof I seek, although we are very much as you describe us. I would like to know how difficult it’s going to be to overcome this mal-adaptive behavior.
TomWayburn on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:23 pm
I agree that nuclear has a chance to serve as a stop-gap measure assuming the breeder reactors are working, whereas the inflated ERoEIs mentioned above are probably subsidized by fossil fuel. They will have ERoEI* < 1.0. In the case of a renewable energy project of sufficiently broad scope, we can approximate energy E by E = E/GDP(monetary cost. I am fairly comfortable with the 4.63 I obtained for nuclear; and, I am fairly suspicious of anything much higher. Of course, it's disgraceful that an accurate value has not been obtained by direct measurement, computation, and reasonable estimates for inaccessible items like landscaping.
TomWayburn on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 10:25 pm
Don’t use EROI; use ERoEI*.
FamousDrScanlon on Mon, 30th Nov 2020 11:33 pm
Tom, we’ve only lived about 3% of our existence as agriculturalists & townsfolk (civilized). 97% as hunter gathers. That makes for a shit ton of mal-adaptions to overcome & we only have 12 minutes left to evolve, devolve or revolve – whatever works
Some of our ancestors evolved the ability to digest milk sugar (lactose) beyond infancy. That provided great survival advantage – more energy. I know of no adaptions to use less.
Perhaps the biology mad scientists can tweak our DNA & dial down that insatiable drive for more? I do not think it will happen naturally.
Why humans have evolved to drink milk
Humans didn’t start out being able to digest animal milk – but now many populations do. Why has evolution favoured tolerating dairy?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-when-did-humans-start-drinking-cows-milk
This is the most useful book I’ve ever read. It has great explanatory power.
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
“The title derives from Sapolsky’s idea that for animals such as zebras, stress is generally episodic (e.g., running away from a lion), while for humans, stress is often chronic (e.g., worrying about losing your job). Therefore, many wild animals are less susceptible than humans to chronic stress-related disorders such as ulcers, hypertension, decreased neurogenesis and increased hippocampal neuronal atrophy. However, chronic stress occurs in some social primates (Sapolsky studies baboons) for individuals on the lower side of the social dominance hierarchy.
Sapolsky focuses on the effects of glucocorticoids on the human body, stating that such hormones may be useful to animals in the wild escaping their predators, (see Fight-or-flight response) but the effects on humans, when secreted at high quantities or over long periods of time, are much less desirable. Sapolsky relates the history of endocrinology, how the field reacted at times of discovery, and how it has changed through the years. While most of the book focuses on the biological machinery of the body, the last chapter of the book focuses on self-help.
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers explains how social phenomena such as child abuse and the chronic stress of poverty affect biological stress, leading to increased risk of disease and disability.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Zebras_Don%27t_Get_Ulcers
“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. — E. O. Wilson