<Wishful thinking The Oil Drum Sustainable Energy Forum 2006, Washington DC, 7-9 May 06>

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Robert Rapier on May 1, 2006 - 9:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, GTL and CTL are both dependent upon cheap supplies of gas or coal. As long at the price is low enough and the price of crude is high enough, the projects can be done economically even if the EROI is less than 1.

RR

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Robert Rapier on May 1, 2006 - 9:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Now that I think about it, as long as you consider the entire process, from getting the coal out of the ground, the EROI may in fact be >1. I don't know what the EROI is for a typical coal mining operation. I was specifically thinking of the POX and FT steps, both of which have EROIs less than 1.

RR

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Nate Hagens on May 1, 2006 - 9:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
But if coal itself had an EROI of 20-1 (ranges vary widely), then POX and FT steps would just multiply through. (like oil at 10:1 and refining at 10:1 make gasoline at 5:1)

I think CTL is significantly decent gross EROI but net EROI (after accounting for environmental impacts) is very low, and perhaps below unity.  We need more studies on these things before they scale, in any case.

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Robert Rapier on May 1, 2006 - 9:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, it hit me that this is what you were saying, and you are correct. The EROI from the process itself is probably decent from beginning to end, since that first step is probably pretty good.

RR

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107 comments on Open Thread

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