The Oil Drum

This is the final piece of a series on Energy Return on Investment from Professor Charles Hall's EROI Workshop at SUNY. Today's papers outline the energy technologies of wave and geothermal power, concluding a 5 part series that has looked at Why EROI Matters, Natural Gas and Imported Oil, Tar Sands and Shale Oil, Nuclear Power, and Passive Solar, Photovoltaic, Wind, and Hydro-electric. Previously, Professor Hall also wrote the thought provoking, At $100 Oil, What Can the Scientist Say to the Investor. Forget not about the simple 'balloon graph' below of EROI x Scale for fossil and renewable energy sources that this project is attempting to update with the help of theoildrum.com readership.

This is 4th in a continuing series of articles by Professor Charles Hall of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and his students, describing the energy statistic, "EROI" for various fuels.

The concept of an energy theory of value has been around since (at least) the 1930s and net energy actually became part of law after Mark Hatfield petitioned Congress in 1970 regarding the importance of EROI. His efforts resulted in the passing of (now defunct) Public Law 93.577 which stipulated that all prospective energy supply technologies considered for commercial application must be assessed and evaluated in terms of their ‘potential for production of net energy”. However, insurmountable theoretical and practical difficulties arose when using the energy unit to understand, a) the conversion among disparate fuel types (energy quality), b) the contribution of the environment, and c) the boundaries of analysis. Despite these problems, energy analysis is grounded (largely) in physical principles, which gives it an important long term edge over financial analysis which may proximately be related to real things, but ultimately is related to the political will to print money.

Nuclear power is the logical step up in energy density from dung, wood, coal, oil..., but its scaling has been controversial and uncertain. Below is an overview of both the nuclear fuel cycle and its energy return. Please add your comments, links and expertise in a manner that Prof Goose is fond of saying, 'that would improve the silence'...;-)

This is third in a series of six guest posts by Professor Charles Hall of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry describing the energy statistic, "EROI" for various fuels. As has been discussed often on this site, net energy analysis is a vitally important concept - just as we primarily care about our take home pay which is our salary minus the taxes, we should care about our 'take home' energy, which is what is left after energy costs have been accounted for. As important as it is, this measure is not easy to quantify, as: a)data is almost always measured in $ as opposed to energy terms, b) parsing non-energy inputs (and outputs) into energy terms is difficult, and c) analysis boundaries (including environmental impacts) are very disparate. As such, there is not (has not yet been) a consistent formula for EROI applied to all energy studies that has led to policymakers and analysts speaking the same language in useful ways. The lead paper in this months Royal Academy of Sweden's journal AMBIO will be about such an EROI framework, and we will link to it when it comes online.

Professor Hall has been working in this area for over 30 years. Below are net energy analysis from Hall's group on the unconventional oil sources from tar sands and oil shaletwo resources that theoretically are enormous in energy scale, but practically are limited by flow rates, costs, and externalities. Just how limited is the subject of todays two-part informative post is below the fold. Remember, any specific numerical help via referenced literature, personal experience or knowledge to better inform Dr. Hall and his students would be appreciated.

This is the second of a six part series on net energy research resulting from Professor Charles Hall of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and his students during last semesters "EROI Sweatshop". While it is still in draft form, it is hoped (with some help from TOD readers) to be refined and directed into the formal peer review literature. But Professor Hall (and I) believe this type of thinking also needs to be considered outside the academy, and increasing the level of energy discourse in our nation is one reason for him choosing to display his draft essays on theoildrum.com.

This installment highlights 3 individual sections of the larger compilation: 1) a provisional summary table of updated (or as updated as we have) EROI figures for various fuels, 2) an insightful (but counterintuitive - I had to read it twice) analysis on the EROI of imported oil from the perspective of the importing country (USA), and 3) an analysis on the EROI of natural gas. If you would like to 'improve on the silence' in the comment section to help Dr. Hall and his students advance the biophysical Rubik's cube that is EROEI analysis, please share your wisdom /expertise/ links, etc. Next Tuesday will be the Appendix on the EROI of Nuclear.

On Tuesday we ran Part 1 of a 6 part series of EROI posts by Professor Charles Hall and his energy students. Professor Hall (to my surprise) read through all theoildrum comments and sent me an email with his responses and some summary comments, which I have posted below.

This is the first of a six part series of guest posts by Professor Charles Hall of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and his students and collaborative researchers. Professor Hall previously posted on TOD, "At $100 Oil, What Can the Scientist Say to the Investor?"Professor Hall has endeavored to update and improve the state of net energy analysis as he believes (as do I), that future energy policy decisions should at least be guided, if not directly steered using biophysical principles. The opinions on the importance of net energy analysis as a tool for addressing our looming energy crisis are quite disparate, but without some science grounded in physical principles, we are left to rely on the market. The unfolding international credit crisis highlights the dangers of relying on strictly fiat monetary measures for biophysical planning – credit and debt can be created with no underlying physical foundation.

This first post is composed of 2 pieces. First is an introduction and an explanation by Dr Hall why EROI analysis is important. The second part lays out a request to theoildrum.com readership for helping contribute to this net energy data effort. This post will be followed every Tuesday in April with Dr. Halls students preliminary analysis on four energy sectors: 1)conventional fossil fuels, 2) Nuclear fuels 3) solar fuels and 4)geologic sources. Please try and help Dr. Hall with this meta-analysis with suggestions, criticism, and sourced comments. This first post has no data, so there will be an opportunity for readers to discuss any theoretical issues regarding EROI and net energy analysis before starting into the actual numbers next week.

This is a guest post by TOD reader Jon Friese. Jon is a software engineer living in Minneapolis and a volunteer with the Twin Cities Energy Transition working group, seeking a path to a low carbon future. Under his own initiative Jon tracked down literature on EROI methodology, contacted the Canadian Government and an energy consulting company for data, and came up with the following analysis on declining energy return on Canadian Gas. This draft analysis is provocative (backing into an EROI estimate using $/GJ suggesting possible energy break even for natural gas within a decade). However, in addition to the new info, I was inspired that a smart, engaged citizen chose to volunteer his time on the pressing issue of fossil fuel decline, and then shared it with others in the TOD forum for feedback. Thanks for your initiative here Jon.) (Editors Note: Jon is working on an update to this analysis incorporating feedback from the TOD community -please treat the information in this post as a work in progress.)

Figure 1 Canadian Natural Gas Energy Return on Investment, actual + trend line (Click to enlarge)

The following post is my cut and paste review of a new paper by Charles Hall, Robert Powers, and William Schoenberg titled "Peak Oil, Investments, and the Economy in an Uncertain Future". This paper, along with 16 others (including 2 by theoildrum.com contributors), will be part of an upcoming book edited by Professor David Pimentel, "Renewable Energy Systems: Environmental and Energetic Issues". (I'll provide links when published). The paper by Professor Hall et al. is a thoughtful preliminary treatise on the impact that projected lower net energy for petroleum might have on the economy and investments.

We have a new set of commenting and site guidelines on the FAQ. I hope that you will read them and cite them often.

Here's a link to a video of Representatives Bartlett and Udall (aka "the Peak Oil Caucus") reacting to the NPC Report. (Description under the fold.)

Finally here's a link to Friend of TOD Charlie Hall's new book, Making World Development Work: Scientific Alternatives to Neoclassical Economic Theory. (Book blurb and information under the fold.)