Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Dear Soft Landing, thanks for your long and wide-ranging response.
I'd say first that I'm not looking for a measure of society's global sustainability or child welfare, any more than I'm looking to predict weather in 200 yrs.
What I think is needed is a formula that incorporates a term reflecting the inevitable damage costs of fossil fuels, not only to distinguish them numerically from non-fossil energies but also to help identify the relative sustainability of the various non-fossil options.
The use of a fuel's potential output of 'Tonnes-of-CO2-equivalent' for this purpose (as a decrement on the fuel's net energy potential) may provide that necessary term. This would not by any means incorporate the full range or scale of fossil fuels' externalites, but it would reflect global recognition of their pollution effects, it is becoming a formal international metric of that potential, and it is easily listed for any fossil resource.
Without such a term, beside the various shortcoming of EROEI you mention, in comparing fossil with sustainable energy resources we attempt to compare bananas with next Wednesday, as one option is both finite and resource-destructive while the other is, potentially, infinite.
Therefore I would hope that you'll put the same effort not into further defence of EROI but into considering how the term TCO2Eq might be incorporated into a more effective formula for use in our present predicament.
PS I would respectfully differ with you over the subsidies issue. The options you overlook include their transfer to the sustainable options, (predictably attracting massively increased private investment) and those options' potential scale given that investment. It's now about 15 years since EU-funded research identified that the Offshore Wave Energy option has the potential to supply 80% of Europe's electricity needs. . . . .
Would you care to open a thread on public finance for energy, or shall I ?
Last edited by backstop on Sun Nov 14, 2004 9:27 pm; edited 1 time in total
Therefore I would hope that you'll put the same effort not into further defence of EROI but into considering how the term TCO2Eq might be incorporated into a more effective formula for use in our present predicament.
Personally, I'm a fan of emissions trading. If energy projects had to pay for the privilege of emitting carbon waste, then a standard ROI calculation would end up adding a cost which appears to be in proportion to the TCO2Eq metric.
Even under an emissions trading regime, the relative ROI of different energy projects would vary depending upon the cost of emissions credits (and in turn, upon the world-wide quota for emissions).
Thus, using a metric that was a contigient ROI - the ROI of a project given a certain emissions trading regime - would be one way to evaluate the relative cost of an energy project.
To satisfy the requirment of sustainability in the metric, you should choose a level of global emissions that you believe would be sustainable. Then, that ROI, adding in costs associated with that emissions trading schedule, might be the metric you are looking for.
I'm not really sure if this gets at the problem you are trying to target... Let me know if you think this suggestion misses something you are looking for...
It's worth keeping in mind that all this method does is penalise energy projects according to carbon emissions. This will, for example, make dirty coal look more attractive than is appropriate, because it will not take into account things like sulfur emissions. It will also unfairly advantage nuclear, because we don't account for risks like nuclear arms proliferation. This is the reservation I have about this kind of approach... even if we can reliably factor in one cost (carbon), it must be to the exclusion of others.
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:43 pm Post subject: Re: Positive EROEI from Electrolysis?
MarkL wrote:
What the inventor claimed to have created was a non-conventional electrolysis method that could crack the hydrogen from the water molecule using milliamps. He used a high voltage, low amperage, frequency modulated power source combined with specially designed electrodes that would accomplish the task.
Freq. modulated -> to exploit the magical resonance freq. Ok fine, such can be computed.
The 'magic' is the 'specially designed electrodes'. If you design a circuit that has the resonance freq. and you it costs more power than you get out, you lacked the 'magic' electrode. How nice. Yet the patent says 'water as electrolyte' in a capacitor.
Hint to future "re-discoverer" of such technology: Publish in full all over the internet. Make more than one demonstration set of your technology and depoly them in a few locations in the back of trucks so that the 'unveiling' can happen in more than one place. Like MIT and Berkeley. (the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a vengful goddess) Why? Because it seems you would be a 'dead man' by 'the powers that be' and you might as well 'stick it to the man'.
Other similar references is the "joe cell" Be aware however that the 'joe cell' features "Orgone Energy"- a power so great that the 'energy' will assemble itself into ameoba.
Hmm. It is the first law conservation of energy that prohibits such an invention. _________________ IMHO great war will happen soon.
Start preparing now.
Joined: Jul 18, 2004 Posts: 198 Location: S. Yorkshire, UK
Posted: Wed Oct 20, 2004 5:28 pm Post subject:
MarkL wrote:
The second law states that "in all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state". How does this apply? Electrolysis is not converting from one energy form to another. It's a method of seperating one molecule(atom?) from another. The inventor claims he created a device that is more efficient than the current electrolysis technology.
Electrolysis is absolutely all about converting one form of energy into another. It converts electrical energy into chemical potential energy. It lifts the hydrogen out of an energy pit (water), up to its 'ground' level.
Electrolysis is subject to the same laws of thermodynamics as any other process. That means that the Hydrogen must contain less energy than was put in.
Quote:
It's not like it's a perpetual motion machine. The energy is not being created out of nothingness. The energy is stored in the hydrogen atom and electrolysis makes this hydrogen atom available for use.
Yup, it is a perpetual motion machine. Energy is not stored in the hydrogen atom. If you allow hydrogen and oxygen to bond together, energy is released. In order to break the bond, and release the hydrogen, you have to give the energy back.
There have been, over the years, a number of 'over-unity' electrolysis scams. In many cases the inventors genuinely believed that the equipment worked as stated. Interestingly, 'high frequency' or 'high voltage' operation was an interesting feature of a number of these.
In fact, conventional science tells us that the higher the voltage, the lower the efficiency, and that the higher the frequency the lower the efficiency.
A lot of the problems were difficulties in measurement - accurately measuring the quantity of gas produced is difficult - the gas has to be dried, and the temperature and pressure corrected for. This is potentially difficult for an amateur. The apparent energy gain of these devices could easily be explained, by low efficiency electrolysis, by the presence of large quantities of water vapour (due to heating of the water) in the gas giving the appearance of large volumes of gas.
As for the Meyers device, development costs of well over $1 million obtained from private investors failed to produce anything concrete, other than a fraud conviction for Meyers. Indeed, despite claims of numerous demonstrations - no cell was ever demonstrated in a way which would allow its claims to be verified.
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1647 Location: Davis, California
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:56 am Post subject:
EROEI is not the only thing to determine for an alternative fuel. A better look is infrastructure needed.
For oil/gas/coal, only a relatively small amount of area is needed to power the world. For example, 6-7 concentrated areas in NA, ME, Russia, Europe and SA power the entire world. For the same level of energy needed by solar/wind, you would need to utilize the land to a much higher degree. For example, with solar panels, one would need an inordinate amount of land.
"Producing 37 quads with solar technologies would require approximately 173 million ha, or nearly 20% of US land area." David Pimentel et al, “Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues,” BioScience 44:8:536-547, p. 545"
For biological based transportation fuels (IE ethanol)
o If all the automobiles in the United States were fueled with 100 percent ethanol, a total of about 97 percent of U.S. land area would be needed to grow the corn feedstock. Corn would cover nearly the total land area of the United States.
Simply put, this society is unsustainable. I think we all have to accept that we won't be living like we do in 10 years and our kids will have myths about our decadence. There are too many people living and too few resources available. However, the power structure won't allow anyone to make this point. Anything contary to growth is condemned as socialist/communist and everyone simply continues consuming.
Joined: Aug 14, 2004 Posts: 2068 Location: San Diego, Ca.
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 4:31 am Post subject:
Quote:
Simply put, this society is unsustainable. I think we all have to accept that we won't be living like we do in 10 years and our kids will have myths about our decadence. There are too many people living and too few resources available. However, the power structure won't allow anyone to make this point. Anything contary to growth is condemned as socialist/communist and everyone simply continues consuming.
We (the USA) will not realize what is happening to us until too late. I think it is already too late.
I spent most of the day on Jay Hanson's http://www.dieoff.org I also read an interesting interview of Jay Hanson. He says there is nothing anyone can do to stop the crash. I agree with him.
Q: But does this imply that you still believe in a crash, but with a longer horizon? So it might not affect your personally?
A: Well, you can get stuff in and out of the market really fast. You work through mutual funds, with a short window – a day, a week, a month. You can do it without being one of those really intense stock-pickers. I don’t want to be like that, it’s so boring. I don’t care about that. You go through one of the tools, like Morningstar, and you see which fund has done the best, and you put some money in. Then when it starts going down, you take it out. That’s not too difficult to do. I’ve done really well in the last six months, made a lot of money. Now I’m kind of bailing out, because I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few months. But I’ll probably be back in around November, because we usually get a rally towards the end of the year.
But you asked, how do you prepare for the end. Money. That’s how you prepare for the end. Because the rich people always do better than the poor people. In the Irish potato famine, they had warehouses full of potatoes, and the army was shooting the poor people. So the rich people could get the potatoes. Money.
Q: Ok, but by hypothesis, if you push things far enough, even money …
A: Yes, but I’ll be dead by then.
Q: So in the beginning its money, and in the long run…
A: We’re all dead, yes.
_________________ "Peak oil isn't more than an interesting industry factoid and doesn't have anything to do with the hysterics speculated on ad nauseum around here!" ReserveGrowthRulz
Joined: Jun 02, 2004 Posts: 1078 Location: Bristol, UK
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 6:08 am Post subject:
Aaron wrote:
It's not that solar EROI is so crummy... it's that hydrocarbon's EROI is so great that constitutes the problem.
This is exactly the point. Not that renewable are crummy but our expectations and requirements are wholly unrealistic. I think most of us here realise that nothing is going to replace hydrocarbons like for like. Renewable’s EROI is what we're going to have to get used to, that's the reality whereas hydrocarbon EROI is a temporary spike.
0mar wrote:
"Producing 37 quads with solar technologies would require approximately 173 million ha, or nearly 20% of US land area." David Pimentel et al, “Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues,” BioScience 44:8:536-547, p. 545"
Assuming 37 quads is the total electrical demand, saying that supplying this with solar needs an impossibly large area is a meaningless argument. Any proposed solution is untenable when asked to provide a 100% solution. The target needs to be something like a 40% demand reduction. (8.7 quads are used on lighting, this could be halved by a complete switch to energy efficient light bulbs and reducing street lighting). Other reductions come from losing air-con and big screen TVs etc. Then rather than asking solar to pickup 100% electricity production you give 25% of the problem to wind, 10% to hydro, 10% nuclear (there'll be a bit left for many decade to come), 5% tidal (the UK are currently looking at a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary that would provide 5% of UK electricity alone)...
So solar could be left with 50% of a problem that is only 60% the size of today's problem, to the 20% US land area requirement drops to 6%. Doesn't sound so bad... well not as bad as 20%.
Each renewable need to be considered as only a component part of a solution that includes efficiency, conservation, other renewable and in the short-medium term a significant non-renewable contribution.
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1647 Location: Davis, California
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:10 pm Post subject:
All of that requires massive investment with fossil fuels, fossil fuels to maintain and provide nothing to alleviate our needs on fossil fuels.
The problem we have isn't electricity (not yet at least), it is that oil is so versatile in its uses. Solar, wind, nuclear, coal, natural gas can't do what oil does. Only by modifying coal can we get the same uses as out of oil.
Joined: May 31, 2004 Posts: 920 Location: Brno, Czech rep., EU
Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2004 4:36 pm Post subject:
If the EROEI of source is positive, then it does not mater it's low. It will just take longer time to develop it. And you can even exceed energy levels provided by fossils with renewables, because the potential is much bigger than total planetary reserves of oil..
Even if energy investments are high, >1 eroei means investment will pay for itself and we will still get surplus for construction of new energy source..
Of course if EROEI is just 1.3 it's bad, but renewables have >5 some >20.. one wind tourbine can provide energy for manufactoring/deployment of 20 new tourbines..
Problem lies in contraints like lack of suitable sites, but given all options we have, renewables+nuclear will easilly cover oil decline..
Renewables are adequate to sustain a society at a slower pace than what we are experiencing now.
The ultimate sources of energy are fusion, as embodied in the sun, fission of radioactive elements, and gravity.
ALL fossil fuels, and ALL biofuels are a result of the sunshine striking the earth, and that energy being stored by plants over time; eons in the case of fossil fuels, months or years for biofuels. Wind and hydropower are also a result of the sun's energy warming the earth's atmosphere and oceans. Gravity and radioactive decay result in warming in the interior of the earth, and emmission of geothermal energy.
We have been lately (in the past 100 years, through ever-increasing use of fossil fuels) been using energy at a much greater rate than has been entering the system, and the peak oil people have correctly noted that this rate of consumption is unsustainable. They predict that there will be dire consequences, especially as oil production starts to decline in the next few years, resulting in shortages in many areas.
A catastrophic economic impact is very likely, and the only way of averting or mitigating it, is to immediately start investing in processes that extract the energy from the sun that is entering the earth's system. Wind, solar (passive and active), hydro power, and geothermal sources must be developed as quickly as possible. Hydrocarbon and nuclear energy should still be used, but with the recognition that they are only transitory processes, and tend to increase environmental degradation. Research on fission should be increased, because if it works, the available energy for our species would be increased tremendously. More care should be taken to protect the environment; avoid causing extinctions, reduce pollution, and revert to sustainable fishing, farming and forestry.
Can we do it? Of course we can. North American and western European lifestyles are all that would have to change significantly.
The relative EROEI of renewables, as long as it is positive, is of no consequence in the decision, because the energy is already there, in the sunshine, or in the earth's heat, and only has to be collected. _________________ Don't Worry, Be Happy
(B. McFerrin)
listen:
http://ubl.artistdirect.com/store/artist/album/0,,238303,00.html
Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 378 Location: Southern California Desert
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:05 am Post subject:
Y'all hear about that experiment done a couple years back where the scientists were able to beam one particulate across the room to the other?
Yeah, this sounds like the Star Trek transporter, but if we also put a sizeable investment into this, we could make transport into a tiny problem.
Planets too damn big, and current transport sucks ass.
We should also see how much electrical energy it would use up.
If an efficient way is found to do it, I'll be the first volunteer.
Joined: Oct 27, 2004 Posts: 674 Location: Salt Spring Island, Cascadia
Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 1:47 pm Post subject:
ERoEI is just a number. A useful number to be sure, but it is simply one model of reality, and all models are flawed by assumptions and missing data.
Fossil fuel is a wonderful "bootstrap" energy source, but it is not a requirement for producing renewables. One acre of rapeseed can produce enough fuel to cultivate many acres of food, for example. It may not have the ERoEI that a "gusher" has in the boom days of oil, but it may well have a greater ERoEI than any oil source a decade from now.
I believe it is Siemens who has a solar cell plant that is 100% powered by solar cells! (Look at the inside cover of Solar Today.) This is the direction we must take -- renewables producing renewables. And it would be nice (but not necessary) to do this while we still have a cheap "bootstrap" fuel like oil.
We've gotten too used to the cheap ERoEI ratios from oil. That will have to pass. It will even hurt -- quite likely, hurt a lot. But it is not a death-knell for renewables. _________________ :::: Jan Steinman, Communication Steward, EcoReality, a forming sustainable community. Be the change! ::::
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