Adam –

You wrote under item “5/. Environmental Impact, “
“An EROEI analysis would not normally incorporate this factor,
unless the energy costs of correcting the environmental impact was incorporated under energy invested
but this would not be a very useful analytical approach.”

I’d have to differ over the utility of such an analysis (IF it could be provided) –
since in accounting for the directly counterproductive energy costs of a destabilized climate's impacts –
such as the growing worldwide disruption of Hydro-electric outputs,
or the intensifying disruption of normal food production
(with some African nations forecast by the IPCC to lose 50% of their yields by 2020),
the importance of such a usage-outcomes analysis for discriminating between energy supply options
would surely be supreme ?

Yet the fact is that such consequences cannot be traced in specific quantifiable linkages,
nor can a rational price differential be put on one nation’s casualties as compared to another’s.
Thus the analysis is not achievable in practice, regardless of its theoretical utility,
but the aggregated energy costs are still very real.
Thus to propose that what I'd call “production-EROEI” is the paramount criterion for energy options’ selection,
in the absence of usage-consequences’ evaluation, is plainly mistaken.

In this light the necessary sequence of supply-options’ criteria is surely more like:

1/. Those which entail the sequestration of carbon as a requisite part of the energy production
(e.g. sustainable reforestation for Multi-output Wood Refineries)

2/. Those which do not add to excess airborne greenhouse gasses apart from minor construction outputs
and which also offer both Global Replicability (low tech) and Local Legitimacy (social benefit) for accelerated uptake
(e.g. village-scale micro-hydro, wind-pumps, etc.)

3/. Those with minimal GHG output and the highest production EROEI. (e.g. Geothermal Heat & Power).

I would of course agree that “production-EROEI” should be a deciding factor
between two otherwise equal options within any of these 3 proposed criteria,
but I hope that you may agree that a prime part of why we are in this global mess
is that energy policy has slavishly followed quantifiable profit,
at the expense of consideration of the diverse options’ qualitative benefits.

To elevate quantifiable “production-EROEI” to the same status as being “the most important criteria”
would IMHO be a repeat of this fundamental error, and one which we cannot afford.

Regards,

Backstop