Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

[EJ]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Bingo! EROEI is just the latest nonsense being promulgated by those that prefer we believe in the apocalyptic peak oil scenario instead of peak cheap oil. The idea that the world is "short" of energy, or that somehow the world is "running out of energy" is so utterly ludicrous that I am beyond wasting any more time debating it with people.

Crude oil as a feedstock to make refined liquid transportation fuels is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to find, produce, transport, refine and distribute. And therefore it is becoming increasingly valued over other uses for crude oil derivatives (such as generating electricity). If there was an opportunity to take a cheap and abundant (and perhaps even "renewable") source of energy and use it as an input for the exploration, development and production of crude oil who cares what the EROEI is?

We aren't running out of energy, we are just slowly running out of cheap sources of a particularly important and highly valued form of energy that currently has no single equivalent substitute.




The loss of energy into NY had nothing to do with energy source supply and everything to do with the wrecked or disrupted distribution system.

After years of debating EROEI with peak oil doomers, I've given up. I'm not sure what their agenda is but it isn't to develop an understanding of the political and economic impact of diminishing availability of cheaply produceable oil.

It makes sense at least theoretically to convert the energy in an abundant fixed energy source such as uranium into a transportation fuel like diesel by using nuclear power to heat water to produce steam to convert shale rock into crude oil (pyrolysis) that can be refined into diesel. However, mining shale rock and then converting it into liquids costs more than pumping crude from reservoirs. In fact any alternative to oil that's mined out of reservoirs of oil buried in the ground is necessarily more expensive to produce due to all of the extra capital and energy consuming steps involved. By the same token, oil mined from reservoirs at the bottom of the ocean also are more expensive to mine than shallow land-based reservoirs, and as the latter are rapidly depleting and the former are all that's left, the world's remaining oil endowment will be increasingly expensive to produce. This, as I've told the Peak Oil doomers since 2006, is why I coined the phrase Peak Cheap Oil. There will always be oil but starting in 1998 markets started to price in the reality that oil will be increasingly more expensive to produce -- forever -- albeit with periods of price declines when demand falls due to recession, some of which recessions will be triggered by oil price shocks.

While EROEI is a nonsense concept, profit is not. If E&P costs for a particular shale field including the cost of building and operating a nuclear power plant are higher than potential revenues then it will not be produced that way. I haven't done the math but I suspect that the economics of nukes-to-oil energy won't work until oil prices are two or three times current levels.

[lektrode]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

no offense moon - but whats to learn?
the luddites have so thoroughly f___d us... DOOMED us to a future of polluted air/water, declining standards of living, high unemployment for years to come - sinking us under a TSUNAMI OF DEBT - and for what?

because they are afraid of WHAT, precisely - about nuke energy?

so what - one of the damn things blows up once in awhile - so far it hasnt been that much of a problem, the world didnt end, the biosphere doesnt glow in the dark and damn few have even died?

vs thousands of miners dying periodically in coal mines, thousands and thousands more from respiratory ailments caused by smog, acid rain, acidification of the oceans - and we wont even get into what absolute bondage to oil has cost us.

but nuke power?

oh gawd NO, we cant have that - OH! no way - WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!

where oh where is mr steve when we need him???
;)

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

After years of debating EROEI with peak oil doomers, I've given up. I'm not sure what their agenda is but it isn't to develop an understanding of the political and economic impact of diminishing availability of cheaply produceable oil.

Hmm, no, I don't have an agenda, and I am not considering the political and economic impact of diminishing availability of cheaply produced oil. You have of course done that very well.
I just think it is interesting to consider the possible scenario that the fall off in oil output could happen faster than expected due to this effect. I don't know that it will definitely turn out to be important, nor am I asserting that it will happen as graphed. I just collect many scenarios and wait to see which one starts to develop and then look it up again when it starts to happen.
I don't understand why EROEI is nonsense, or else I would not have brought it up. Isn't the worsening EROEI one reason the cost is going up? The EROEI for ethanol is about 1 to 1, so I think that says something, i.e., that ethanol is useless.

[FrankL]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

After years of debating EROEI with peak oil doomers, I've given up. I'm not sure what their agenda is but it isn't to develop an understanding of the political and economic impact of diminishing availability of cheaply produceable oil.

Hmm, no, I don't have an agenda, and I am not considering the political and economic impact of diminishing availability of cheaply produced oil. You have of course done that very well.
I just think it is interesting to consider the possible scenario that the fall off in oil output could happen faster than expected due to this effect. I don't know that it will definitely turn out to be important, nor am I asserting that it will happen as graphed. I just collect many scenarios and wait to see which one starts to develop and then look it up again when it starts to happen.
I don't understand why EROEI is nonsense, or else I would not have brought it up. Isn't the worsening EROEI one reason the cost is going up? The EROEI for ethanol is about 1 to 1, so I think that says something, i.e., that ethanol is useless.

Consider a process where water is heated up until it forms steam, which is used to drive a turbine which generates electricity. The electric energy generated by the turbine is smaller than the energy required to heat up the water to power the turbine.

The EROEI in less than 1. As a result, are all turbines useless?

[lektrode]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

... Isn't the worsening EROEI one reason the cost is going up? The EROEI for ethanol is about 1 to 1, so I think that says something, i.e., that ethanol is useless.

well... its not completely useless - i mean just look what its done to/for certain congressional delegations
and the price of farmland...

too bad it doesnt do much to help food prices and that we get to pay thru the nose for table veggies, so we can subsidize the junkfood junkies habit with cheap corn snax - while the profit margins of agribiz skyrockets as they continue to water-down/cut/stretch the ingredients with highfructose whatevahs

so - hey - mights well keep pumping ethanol into our cars too - it only makes MPG go down, so whats not to like?

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Oh, I totally agree that nuclear has so far produced less damage than for example burning coal to make electricity... all that mercury, all that air pollution...
You should see all the people like at Fairwinds who are still screaming everybody in Japan and the whole world gonna die. The people that report nonsense radiation readings... when I go to the same place and take readings, I find nothing...
This is the problem like where no one cares that 30,000 people are killed in car accidents in the US every year, but if a plane crashes and 200 people are killed once in five years, everyone panics and doesnt want to fly. Still, their fear is real and I understand why it is scary for them. But I worry most about getting in a car. My uncle and three friends have been killed in car accidents over the years.
On the other hand, if we had more nuclear, I don't think that would solve all our problems either.

[bill]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Calculation has been done and Hal (North America) and others have decided to expand where cost to produce is cheapest.
http://www.lynessconstructionlp.com/plans/plans.php


http://oil-sands-deals-another-blow-...y-independence

11-5-2012
Rising costs and increased competition from hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. is taking its toll on investments in Canadian oil sands. The slowdown is limited so far, but it shows how quickly energy markets can change and how tenuous the idea of North American energy independence actually is.
Suncor Energy, the biggest oil sands producer, said Thursday it’s reconsidering a plan to invest billions in upgrades as it cuts spending by 11 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported. At the same time, construction and labor costs have been rising in northern Alberta, the site of most oil sands activity. In some cases, crude from oil sands has a break even price approaching $100 a barrel, and today’s prices make those projects uneconomic.
Like Shell Oil’s project to drill in Arctic waters, oil sands are among the most expensive sources of conventional energy in the world. Set against a global market of fluctuating prices, the high-cost production makes the dream of energy independence elusive. As oil prices fall — they’re just under $86 a barrel today — imports simply become the cheaper alternative.
Canadian oil sand production is a key piece of most discussion about North American independence, including a plan favored by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. We are unlikely to drill our way to independence by relying on domestic production alone, but we can’t count on Canadian production, either. Canada remains our biggest oil supplier, but these are expensive reserves. Counting on them as the driver of energy independence could mean the U.S. winds up paying billions more for energy when cheaper alternatives are available elsewhere.
Achieving and maintaining energy independence sounds great, but it flies in the face of economic reality.

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

hmm, no, that is efficiency, not EROEI. The turbines are not useless, but they require continuous feeding of energy to heat up the water. Where is that from?

[FrankL]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

hmm, no, that is efficiency, not EROEI. The turbines are not useless, but they require continuous feeding of energy to heat up the water. Where is that from?

how is EROEI different from efficiency? Is ethanol mined (has it been converted in the past)? Or is it converted on demand from other forms of energy?

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Also, how come when people complain that photovoltaics are nonsense because they have an EROEI of 5, no one says anything about that?
Of course that is changing as the designs get better.
I have no idea how much embodied energy there is in my solar hot water heater, but it has produced endless free hot water for 30 years. It is thermosiphon so does not use any energy to circulate water.
How exactly are the tar sands etc being produced? If they are burning fossil fuels to do it, then EROEI applies. If they use nuclear and we take into account all the fossil fuels used to produce the nuclear power in reactor construction, mining, etc., EROEI still applies. If the Saudis use solar energy to produce oil, then the EROIE would be better, much better?

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

It takes about the same amount of oil in the form of fertilizer, pumping water, harvesting, processing, etc., to produce a gallon of ethanol with the same amount of energy, so you might as well have just used the oil to begin with.

[touchring]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

It takes about the same amount of oil in the form of fertilizer, pumping water, harvesting, processing, etc., to produce a gallon of ethanol with the same amount of energy, so you might as well have just used the oil to begin with.

Biodiesel from Palm Oil tree is the worst. Before you start putting any fertilizer, you have to burn down the entire jungle.




http://time2transcend.wordpress.com/...onesia/page/2/

[lektrode]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

same with sugar cane - brazil being the poster child for this - and we wont even get into what it did out here, a century ago.

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Yep, that is not helpful at all.

[mooncliff]

Re: Reporting gross oil production to hide the collapse of net oil production

Out where? Hawaii?
The damage and poisoning of the aquifer, etc?
Since by the Constitution, Congress can control the price of sugar, the lobbyists kept foreign sugar out of the US and the price high, and then the corn growers sold their corn syrup at just under that price, which is why we have an explosion of health problems in the US. High fructose corn syrup may taste good, but I avoid it whenever possible.