In addition we have to look at the health consequences of using different energy technologies. For example an estimated 500,000 Chinese die every year from coal smoke related health problems. 4000 to 6000 Chinese coal miners die ever year in accidents. In the United States people who live near coal fired power plants are significantly more likely to have serious health problems, than people who don't live near them. Cooking and heating with natural gas potentially can expose home residents to radiation exposure from radon gas that is present in natural gas. Radon exposures through natural gas have been estimated to kill as many as 20,000 Americans every year. These are significant costs not captured by EROEI analysis.

Quantifying EROEI is highly problematic, For example empirical studies may be reflect a biase to older and less efficient technologies. If technological changes are underway in an energy segment that dramatically alter EROEI, then a data set reflecting the old technology may be obsolete. Take for example the switch in Uranium enrichment technologies from gaseous diffusion to centrifuges. The Centrifuges are 50 times more energy efficient, but many empirical studies of nuclear EROEI continue to use data sets from the gasious diffusion era. In terms of nuclear EROEI the use of empirical data sets may lead to highly misleading conclusions about present or future nuclear EROEI.

A further problem in determining nuclear EROEI is the failure to assess te effect of alternative technologies on nuclear EROEI. For example, CANDU reactors may use natural rather than enriched uranium, The absence of the energy input into the Uranium enrichment process makes a significant diference in CANDU EROEI.

Lastly, so called "deep burn" reactors extract much greater ammounts of energy from nuclear fuel. The typical Light Water Reactor only extracts 0.6% of the potential energy from Uranium. In contrast the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is capable of directly extracting 98% of the energy in Thorium, and wasted thorium found in mining tailings is so abundant that all of the worlds energy needs can be supplied from thorium extracted from mine tailings for several thousand years. The amount of energy required to build the LFTR is trivial compared to the energy input in Light Water Reactor construction. The EROEI of a LFTR could easily run to the four figures, but exactly how would we establish this?

"I think you have captured the essence of the issue. When an economy must give the energy producer back more energy than that energy producer can provide, then the economy contracts. Thus we have a mechanism that explains volatile pricing behavior."

Do you think we have to wait until net energy is negative? I think not. Instead, it seems to me that within an economy for which growth is a sina qua non just the shift of an increasing amount of economic output to the provision of energy is likely to wreak havoc on the financial system.

I disagree RE will not come in time. It has already beat every gov goal set for it and if not for the subsidies to oil, coal for their real costs, many AE/RE.

This will cause many jobs because RE costs are mostly labor, some material that stays locally.

Nor shipped off to some oil dictator, terrorist. Just more oil costs we bare in our income taxes instead of in the price of oil. So on the EROI you need to include oil wars, military costs as they use a lot of energy.

Energy costs will be capped at RE costs which is around $.15kwhr or less with wind, solar thermal engines/heat with back up pellet burners, tidal/river generators without dams, future cheaper PV like First Solar all coming in under the prevailing electric rates in most of the US.

Another EROI not included is how eff the fuel can be used. For instance in a car is only around 7% of the fuel's energy actually moves the car. Vs an EV which gets about 20-40% of a thermal powerplant's fuel to move it. If one considers RE 100% eff then it's more like 65% eff. Since electricity is a much higher level/eff fuel then it should be accounted so.

I can, have built EV's and the RE means to power them, homes for under $25k/set not including a very eff home and make good money at it. While costly you get lifetime energy for home, EV including the EV only maintaining costs caps ones cost equal to about $1000-1500/yr for 2 people. That's cost effective now. Many drive EV's every day and many are online or in EV clubs close to you.

Because of this even as oil supplies dwindle they won't have the pricing power to go above that.

While Jon may be right we won't do enough RE in time, it can be done in 5 yrs for the US to be energy independent.

And the time to start is now, actually it should have been done 15 yrs ago top avoid this mess. But thinking world growth will greatly slow because fossil fuels are depleted misunderstands Americans. While we rode the oil ride up, we'll jump to the next best energy thing which is RE faster than one would think. There is no lack of energy, just a lack of equipment needed.

And the money spent now for oil, coal will go to paychecks, consumers pockets instead of big oil, oil dictators, terrorists, increasing our economy while cutting theirs.

I believe oil production peaked in July and probably will never reach that level again. Especially if Obama, congress does a good energy policy which would be much less expensive in the short and long run by getting us quickly off oil, coal.

"Alternative energy sources are going to have a hard time gaining momentum until it is far to late to adapt because they are the marginal energy producers and the fossil sources must fall to similar low EROEI. "

You seem to be thinking of bio-fuels. They are a misleading distraction. Instead, think wind and solar, which have an E-ROI which is higher than new oil, and as a practical matter as high as old oil (around 50 for wind, 20+ for solar).