274 comments on Ten Fundamental Principles of Net Energy
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Actually, Prof. Goose, he has a point. I found the IROWI (Information Return on Word Investment) of this article very low. It contained nothing new and very little substance. Since I expected more, I was very dissapointed. Maybe I should have expected less to spare me the feeling that I wasted twenty minutes of time reading it?
Practical also brought it to the point: unless we decide to go hardcore nuclear (breeders and ultimately fusion), our only choice to tap into an energy flow that will last for as long as human civilization will (and a lot longer) is solar energy. Alternatively you can slow the planet's rotation down, de-orbit the moon, drill geothermal to the core, capture asteroids or do a bunch of other wild stuff. Those SciFi solutions will work too... they are just a lot harder technically and more costly by orders of magnitude.
Feel free to discuss the physical details with me.
IP - I am posting Professor Clevelands response to "Practical" up here, because Practicals prominent post merits a prominent response- sorry for the gauche blog behavior
"At the moment no business decisions are made on the basis of net energy or EROEI."
Who ever said day-day business decisions are or should be made according to net energy criteria? No one I know of. EROI is a long run force that has shaped every major technological, economic, social, and environmental transformation we have gone through, and most certainly will drive the next one. It sets broad but immutable constraints on what is and is not possible. Investment undoubtedly will be driven to sources with the higher net energy gain, unless non-market forces interfere, because free market systems probaly try to mazimize power see (H.T. Odum).
"If they were, we would have to shut down the electric utility industry for sure and probably most of the industrial economy"
Did you read and understand the section on enegy quality? We trade 3 BTUs of low quality (coal) for 1 BTU of high quality energy (electricity) because that 1 BTU can do more economic work-produce more GDP-than those 3 BTUS of input fuel. An appropriately done EROI of a utlity reflects this reality.