The other thing to consider is the most effective usage of your BTUs. This is not investing, where a 20% return is fantastic. The BTU inputs could be directed toward other areas where the EROEI is much higher. A return of 20% means that you consumed 1 BTU just to net out 0.2. Just using gasoline as an example, directing that BTU toward gasoline would net out 4 BTUs.

Cheers,

RR

But there is no water shortage, right?

Don't mention tar sands...gads.   Can you say rivers running dry?

===========
It's all about population!

But it's not a question of 'IF' 2nd generation production paths make it out of the lab but rather 'WHEN' they do.

For further details, Drummers are invited to www.syntecbiofuel.com

http://gog2g.com/2006/07/27/looking-into-the-eroei-of-ethanol.aspx

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.

"There is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel," says David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell. "These strategies are not sustainable."

Pimentel and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn, switch grass and wood biomass as well as for producing biodiesel from soybean and sunflower plants. Their report is published in Natural Resources Research (Vol. 14:1, 65-76).

In terms of energy output compared with energy input for ethanol production, the study found that:

corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced;
switch grass requires 45 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced; wood biomass requires 57 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

In terms of energy output compared with the energy input for biodiesel production, the study found that:

soybean plants requires 27 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced, and
sunflower plants requires 118 percent more fossil energy than the fuel produced.

This should put to rest the pipedream known as biofuels.

Now, an explanation:

The point should not be to rush around trying to figure out how we can continue the ridiculous automobile insanity, but how we can stop the paradigm of the murderous suburban nightmare as quickly as possible.

The Nutters of the world will pooh pooh the idea that peak is NOW or even a few years away, using that as an excuse for business as usual. They are the paid hacks of the science world, the same bought-and-paid-for "scientists" who tried to confuse the science that said cigarettes cause health problems, the same weasels who now try to insert themselves into the global warming science in order to confuse the hoi polloi.

Ignore the Nutters. We will run out. We will. That is simply a fact. If you look at the Limits to Growth study and its followup projections you can see that we are in deep trouble, even if we were to somehow develop easy cheap fusion, we would still be in overshoot. Why? Because we need other things besides energy to survive as an ever-growing species. We need arable land which is disappearing under the ravages of the so-called "green revolution;" we need fresh water and that is disappearing as well; we need unpolluted resources and that is disapearing as well; we need plankton and that is disappearing; we need the Amazonian rainforest and some scientists fear that a third year of drought will cause it to die, yes, die in a couple of years becoming desert in a few more.

Step out of your niche specialties people and see that while peak oil is important, it becomes even more important when put into holistic context. We need what is left of the cheap fossil fuel to de-industrialize.

I am a doomer not only because of the obvious dislocation that a sudden stoppage in oil flow would cause, but because I know this era for what it is a ruinous experiment known as the industrial period. This devastating and obscene bacchanal is resulting in a monstrous dieoff that is greater in scope than the last massive dieoff marked by the KT boundary.

With that in mind, perhaps people can see why I become angry, rude and often vicious when dealing with people who are only concerned with how to best keep our cancerous industrial society humming. In my view these people are Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mengele, Satan, Mohammed Atta, Custer, and any other life-hating thug you can think of, combined. The industrial apologists are advocating for nothing less than the extinction of the human race. The most frustrating problem is they are incapable of seeing this as they are too enamored of human "genius."

The science behind all of this is out there readily available to any who would take the time to research.

I know that many will pooh-pooh the Limits to Growth even though the scientists behind the book are recognized around the world for their credentials, acumen, careful methodologies, and painstaking research.
For those of you who insist on not reading the book, I suggest you check out Matthew Simmons take on the book:

http://www.greatchange.org/ov-simmons,club_of_rome_revisted.html

For a couple of extinction sites, I suggest these:

http://www.well.com/~davidu/sixthextinction.html
http://www.euractiv.com/en/sustainability/major-species-extinction-looming-scientists-warn/article-1 56865

For arable land problems:

http://www.tranquileye.com/clock/
http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/english/topics/desertification/statistics.htm

For fresh water problems:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/96/960209aaasdaily.html

For the population problem:

http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/issues.html

For the collapse of the oceans:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/03/the_fate_of_the_ocean.html?welcome=true

They do not take into consideration thermo-chemical conversion of renewable waste feedstocks, new technologies or cogen facilitation.