Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
A Net Energy Parable: ERoEI Explained
thelastsasquatch (nate hagens), The Oil Drum
Besides water, energy is the most important substance for life on the planet. For most organisms energy is embodied in the food they eat, be it bugs, nuts or gazelles. The excess of energy consumed to energy expended (net energy) has been integral in the evolution of the structure and form of present day organisms.
Net energy is measured as how much energy is left over after the calories used to find, harvest, refine and utilize the original energy are accounted for. It is a term linked to physical principles and departs in many cases from our current market mechanism of valuing things by price.
The alternative energy debate seems to have two firmly entrenched camps – those that acknowledge the importance of energy gain to our society and those who focus on gross energy, energy quality and dollars. This post explores what net energy is, why its important and how its principles may impact the future organization of our society.
For most living things, energy is calories. Over eons, natural selection has optimized the most efficient methods for energy capture, transformation, and consumption.( Lotka) Cheetahs that repeatedly expend more energy chasing a gazelle than they receive from eating it will not incrementally survive to produce offspring.
…THE BOTTOM LINE:
1) Net energy is more important from a relative basis than absolute. A 3:1 EROI doesn’t tell us much unless we know how that compares to what an organism/society has been built on/used to. A 2:1 EROI would have made stone age villagers incredibly rich. A 5:1 EROI may not be enough to power our society.
2) Energy reserves are not as important as energy flow rates. We could have a billion mongo nut trees, but all that matters is the maximum flow that society is able to harvest in real time. (This obviously applies to oil as well)
3) Energy quality depends on the context. High BTU substances, like oil or coal, are clearly very useful to our society, but may not be to others. (the sasquatch colony valued and used Waybread, not oil)
4) Liebigs law of the minimum applies to an energy portfolio. Wind has a high EROI, but our system infrastructure relies on liquid fuels. The net energy of the weakest link matters more than the overall net energy of society. (Adding high EROI wind capacity while net energy of oil dwindles does not solve the problem, unless the energy mix changes from liquid fuels to electricity)
5) Using different boundaries in net energy analysis will lead to different conclusions. A society running at 5:1 EROI would be happy to develop a scalable technology with an 8:1 EROI, however, after environmental externalities are included, it might only be a 3:1 technology. (Coal-to-liquids and climate change comes to mind) The difficulties lie in making meaningful comparisons and valuing important life functions not priced in the market system.
6) Rather than pursuing the highest and most promising energy technologies, it might be prudent to pursue ones that are certain, and meet the net energy decline half-way by reducing energy footprints.
7) Since evolution has favored organisms that have the highest energy output energy input ratios, it will be a cognitive challenge for us (as organisms) to willingly reduce the numerator.
8) Consumption, in the sasquatch example, continued very high until late in the game, and was subsidized from borrowing from other aspects of society. Lack of energy gain was a phantom concept until the situation was much deteriorated.
Our collective task will be to improve our net (total cost) energy from renewables while changing the infrastructure of society to best match what our long term sustainable energy gain can be.
(3 Aug 2006)
Deep background, long article. A sasquatch civilization is used as a hypothetical example.
What is carbon trading, and can it save the world from global warming?
Philip Thornton, UK Independent
Why are we asking the question now?
Britain and California, the most populous American state, are to sign a new carbon trading agreement. It is particularly significant because it appears to be a snub to President George Bush’s decision to renounce the Kyoto treaty which set targets for reducing emissions of the gases that are blamed for global warming. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, is also set to announce an agreement between the United Kingdom capital and Los Angeles. The agreements would, in effect, bring a significant portion of the United States into the European carbon trading market.
What is carbon trading anyway?
In today’s globalised world, anything can be bought and sold. Companies can sell the rights to the future profits; food companies can buy up their orange juice needs a year in advance. The idea is to apply that market-based system of valuation to pollution. If countries can be persuaded to agree to limits on pollution then the right to exceed that has a price. “Good” organisations can reap the benefits of cutting their emissions while “bad” ones pay a financial penalty. Economists believe it is more efficient and more effective because, unlike a tax, it rewards and punishes particular patterns of behaviour.
…What does the future hold?
With the US resolutely standing outside the Kyoto treaty, along with Australia among the advanced nations and China in the developing world, the future looks bleak.
However the volume of anger and concern among citizens within all countries of the world is starting to change the minds of politicians – as witnessed in Los Angeles yesterday.
Is carbon trading the right way forward?
Yes…
- It provides incentives that reward people directly for changing their behaviour to help limit carbon emissions
- Europe has successfully launched a scheme at a time when there is no working alternative
- It avoids the need for blunt tools, such as taxes or physical quotas, that would increase cumbersome government intervention
No…
- It enables governments and companies to avoid implementing serious and immediate cuts in polluting activity
- It allows countries to cheat by giving their own big companies large quantities of permits
- The US and China, the largest polluters, are not taking part and show few signs of joining
(2 Aug 2006)
Related: Australia: States go cool on carbon trading
Rationing could be key to war on climate change
Sheffield Hallam University (UK)
Governments may be forced to turn to wartime-style rationing to combat climate change, or risk mass migration and more than 40 million deaths, an expert in global warming has warned.
John Grant, a lecturer in sustainable development from Sheffield Hallam University, believes that governments across the globe should consider rationing carbon to help cut down on carbon and methane emissions, which are produced from burning plants and fossil fuels, and are contributing to increasingly severe weather conditions.
“We have to tackle climate change as if we’re going to war. Global warming is a common enemy for us all and it’s a case of having to pull together. Fuel, gas and food were all successfully rationed during World War II and a similar strategy could be effectively used now with carbon. A carbon card system, whereby individuals would be given a carbon allocation and pay high prices for any extra on the market, would work. Buying petrol for example would have a high carbon rating, whereas for locally grown apples, it would be very low. Identity cards could be an ideal vehicle for such a scheme”, John Grant said.
“The permafrost peat bog in Western Siberia is already melting, and if it continues to do so, it will release 11,000 years’ worth – billion of tonnes – of carbon into the earth’s atmosphere, trapping the heat in like a blanket.
“The next 100 years will be a tipping point. By 2050, we could have an intensely hot summer like 2003, where 35,000 people died across Europe, every other year. If we don’t do anything about global warming in the next twenty years, it’s likely that by 2100, the temperature across the planet will have risen by two to five degrees Celsius. We could cope with that here in the UK, with all our money and resources, but that small rise would make living in the Sahara basin or around North Africa for example, unbearable.
“We could be looking at 100 million people moving north to escape the heat, and around 40 million deaths.”
(27 July 2006)
The inconvenient truth about “An Inconvenient Truth”:
Why Al Gore is part dangerous politician
Jan Lundberg, Culture Change
This year’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is a most persuasive appeal to recognize global warming as a crisis literally off the charts. The film’s star Al Gore and his team have also done a good job of debunking the “confusionist” effort to downplay climate change that strives to maintain the status quo.
However, Gore’s effort is also part of an attempt to hijack the growing concern over the greenhouse effect. Laying out the problem so well, and then offering piecemeal solutions, is the modus operandi of all well-funded technofix advocates. Some energy reformers have green credibility because they tend toward only renewable technologies. Gore, however, is for nuclear power and “clean coal.” Or was he for these industries only up until now?
Al Gore may be repositioning himself.
…All considered, it is safe to say that Al Gore is in effect trying to prop up the status quo while hoping to slow down global warming a tad. Yet, “He is moving people up the ladder to an awakening, and it starts rung-by-rung, hand-over-hand.” – this from one of his former mentors not in the film. The purpose of this essay is not to weigh Gore’s net worthiness but to counter the dangerous error of his film’s conclusion that modifications in energy use are the answer (assuming they could be done immediately).
(4 Aug 2006)
