Energy Return on Investment

[Falcon]

Something I've always wondered. How long would one of those wind generators standing in the sea off Clacton have to run for to generate the power used by the total amount of fossil fuel used to manufacture/transport/erect & to get that windmill up & running. I would have thought that until windmill has 'repaid' the energy used to get it to the stage where it is generating power it cannot be said that it is producing 'green' energy. I guess the same question could be asked about solar farms or even just solar panels on a house roof.

& is this even a relevant question, I'm not really sure?

It's a fantastic and fundamentally relevant question.

The wind generators and solar farms don't just have to repay their own manufacturing and installation costs. They cannot be created without the co-dependent functioning of a vast number of systems, each one of which cannot function without a vast number of subsystems. Trace a ballbearing in the power shaft of a wind turbine right back to the mining operation for its raw materials and, every time you touch some element, trace that element back to its raw state. You’ll be looking at the factory that made the gearbox for the truck that mined the gypsum for the cement that bonded the brick in the factory that made the oxygen for the smelter that made the steel for the boat that transported the … etc. etc.

Do it for the structural materials, the electronics, the power distribution networks, the logisitics access networks. Then do that for the financial and legal systems that allowed the contracts to be fulfilled at a distance, the defence and security systems that preserved access to raw materials and transport routes as they become scarce and contested, and the food systems that support a global population of 7 billion and workforces in a degraded industrial agriculture system.

That currently requires an energy source that returns an energy profit greater than fifty.

All of that - all of it - is powered by hydrocarbon.

For it to be true that renewables are a substitute for hydrocarbon, it must also be true that renewables are capable of powering their entire manufacturing system right back to raw material procurement from their own output. It must also be true that it can do so with enough surplus energy to maintain the financial systems, security and law enforcement systems, food systems, and social institutions without which no manufacturing process can run.

So to your question - no, the windmill doesn’t just have to power its own manufacture. It has to be capable of forming a system that powers everything.

There are four unique properties of hydrocarbon that make such a system possible.

(1) It is incredibly energy dense. That means that transport systems can carry their own fuel without the weight of the fuel preventing them from moving. That has enabled the marine and aviation global transportation system upon which the manufacture of renewable devices depends.

(2) It offers an incredibly high energy return, providing 50 to 100 units of energy ‘profit’ for every unit expended to obtain it. That ‘profit’ (which has nothing to do with financial profit) funds the energy losses described by thermodynamic laws in the thousands of energy conversion processes required by the manufacturing system.

(3) It is highly transportable, being relatively inert and stable over a wide range of environmental conditions and easy and cheap to distribute to points of application.

(4) It is extraordinarily flexible, providing the raw material for a huge number of components (e.g. plastics and lubricants) which would otherwise have to be made in other ways at enormous incremental energy cost.

Renewable energy has none of these properties, yet these properties are inseperable from the process by which renewable energy technologies are made.

 

[Falcon]

I'm saying that, because of its complexity, the global industrial manufacturing system requires an energy source of an EROEI > 50 to function (EROEI is a function of complexity) - currently supplied by hydrocarbon. The statement that it can function with lower EROEI energy sources is at best untested and in fact implausible.

cf.

Out of all the statements you've ever come out with, that must rank among the least supportable of them.

I've posted the previous to support. However, a simpler one. In support of your proposition that a population of 7 billion and a complex global industrial manufacturing and agricultural system can be maintained by energy sources of EROEI < 50 - Give an example of one. The one on my planet uses hydrocarbon with EROE > 50 and is starting to get very stressed.

If that were the case then an industrial society based largely on electricity from 30-40% thermally efficient generators would have been completely impossible as it involves throwing away 60-70% of the energy content of the fuel vs 2% of energy used in extraction at 50:1, 5% at 20:! or 12.5% at 8:1 EROEI.

You've skewered yourself. The loss in that energy conversion process (constrained by thermodynamics to a performance not much better than that) is only sustainable because the primary energy supply driving it - hydrocarbon - has such a high EROEI. That's the whole point of this thread. Your rather difficult task, having demonstrated how wasteful energy conversion processes are thermodynamically, is to explain how the thermal manufacturing processes of equal or higher loss required in the production of single digit EROEI energy sources can be sustained with a single digit EROEI primary energy source. But thank you for helpfully pointing out the perils that now face us as we head below EROEI of 50, which your solar manufacturing processes must withstand.

Why would I assume there wasn't an oven when I can clearly see that there is an oven that's in full working order?

Because the argument "The hydrocarbon powered oven is in full working order, and therefore there will be one in full working order when there is no hydrocarbon power and this one has worn out" would be deranged.

You've developed a theory of how everything works that is so divorced from reality that to make it work you have to assume that the entire industrial infrastructure doesn't already exist and must be built from scratch entirely powered by each renewable energy source alone for those renewables to have any viability.

I observe merely that the current system is powered by hydrocarbon, and must be powered by something else when there is none. That is hardly a theory, or divorced from reality.

If it cannot be powered by any substitute, the fact that there is some transition to that substitute is irrelevant. Yet your argument consists entirely of speculation about the transition. You avoid debate on the endpoint, other than to engage in indirect assumption that, at that point, "something else" is taking up the slack, stating that it is not your responsibility to enquire as to the nature of that "something else".

In this respect, your argument resembles that of a teenager who, satisfied with his pocket money, is disinterested in the household finances of his parents.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

Cheers for explaining that, it something that is touched upon in the media because its obvious that fossil fuels are being used, for example by the specialised ship you can see erecting the things, I watched all this happening off Clacton in the last few yrs. People see renewable energy as a very attractive thing, free energy from sun/wind/tide & one would think that the way forward is to cover every roof in the country with solar panels but just look below the surface to see the amount of fossil fuel required to achieve this. The solar panels are all made in China, I think.

 

[rover07]

Something I've always wondered. How long would one of those wind generators standing in the sea off Clacton have to run for to generate the power used by the total amount of fossil fuel used to manufacture/transport/erect & to get that windmill up & running. I would have thought that until windmill has 'repaid' the energy used to get it to the stage where it is generating power it cannot be said that it is producing 'green' energy. I guess the same question could be asked about solar farms or even just solar panels on a house roof.

& is this even a relevant question, I'm not really sure?

Wind turbines generating electricity for 20 years need just 2 years worth of energy to manufacture and install. This is an EROI of 10:1

The big advantage of Renewables is that their EROI increases with technological improvements. For instance 6MW turbines were recently upgraded to 7.5MW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon_E-126

The Enercon E-126 is the largest model of wind turbine built to date, manufactured by the German wind turbine producer Enercon. With a hub height of 135 m (443 ft), rotor diameter of 126 m (413 ft) and a total height of 198 m (650 ft), this large model can generate up to 7.58 megawatts of power per turbine. The nameplate capacity was changed from 6 MW to 7 MW after technical revisions were performed in 2009. Since 2011 the E-126 is available as a 7.5 MW nameplate windturbine.

With fossil fuels, their EROI is also improved by technology, ie the latest diesels can get 60mpg compared to 40mpg previously.

But because there is only a limited and dwindling supply, the overall EROI of fossil fuels is decreasing.

Right now we are at the tipping point where Renewables are starting to replace the old infrastructure.

 

[Falcon]

Wind turbines generating electricity for 20 years need just 2 years worth of energy to manufacture and install. This is an EROI of 10:1

Dear God. This is not even wrong.

SaskiaJayne, Rover07 can be guaranteed not to have read anything in my posts about the systems from which his wind turbine have emerged. For him, they have appeared perfectly formed from under a gooseberry bush. To the extent that this is a common view, his posts are an interesting window into the world of the uninformed.

 

[Falcon]

People see renewable energy as a very attractive thing, free energy from sun/wind/tide & one would think that the way forward is to cover every roof in the country with solar panels but just look below the surface to see the amount of fossil fuel required to achieve this. The solar panels are all made in China, I think.

I should say that I am a vocal supporter of renewable energy, and my home is a net energy exporter (using the superficial metrics favoured by Free Spirit and the likes) over a full year cycle. My point is that this arrangement is a temporary one afforded by the conversion of still-surplus hydrocarbon into some convenience devices. It does not offer a sustainable model of a post-hydrocarbon energy supply.

The devices we use then will have to be very much simpler - examples of what Schumacher labelled "Intermediate Technology" (pdf) i.e. created and maintained with cheap and readily available materials, embedded in a society organised in a radically different way. Even achieving that would require all or more of the scarce surplus energy stores that remain. The current drive toward fragile white elephant high tech devices that will fail as soon as the supply chain for the first critical spare part fails is a suicidal squandering of that scarce resource.

But a lot of people are now deriving very comfortable livelihoods and much intellectual and misplaced moral satisfaction from that drive, so my sense is that our fate is unavoidable.

 

[rover07]

Yesterday Nissan started production of the first mass produced all electric car in the UK.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/...on-starts-at-sunderland-plant-video-1-5536596



It's unlikely that anyone born today will ever buy a new car powered by an internal combustion engine.

 

[Falcon]

Yesterday Nissan started production of the first mass produced all electric car in the UK.

In other news, OFGEM has announced that the UK faces blackouts in 2015 because of the deepening electricity generating crisis.

Today's report reveals the UK could be left with a shortage equivalent to 1,000 households in 2015/16, or 9,000 households if there was a harsh winter and estimates the chance of network operator National Grid having to cut power to customers would stand at one in 12 in 2015/16. But National Grid would cut power to businesses and industrial customers before households

Errm - in which bit of the system are renewable devices made? - oh yes, the business and industrial bit. A perfect illustration of what will happen under transition conditions as we transfer scarce hydrocarbon out of the manufacturing system and into higher utility services - like food, heat and light.

Can anyone detect a disconnect between our renewable fans and unfolding reality?

Meanwhile, while I agree with Rover07's conclusions, it is a brave soul who buys one of these white elephants.

 

[rover07]

A visual representation of unlimited renewables (electric train) compared to fossil fuels. (silver car)

 

[Falcon]

A visual representation of unlimited renewables (electric train) compared to fossil fuels. (silver car)

Sadly, the clip fails to represent visually the very limited resources without which the devices by which the unlimited renewable energy can be captured, converted and transported are impossible.

Meanwhile, where that "unlimited renewables" electricity is coming from in the clip:

South Africa's energy sector is critical to the economy as the country relies heavily on its large-scale, energy-intensive mining industry. South Africa has only small deposits of conventional oil and natural gas and uses its large coal deposits for most of its energy needs, particularly in the electricity sector...South Africa's dependence on hydrocarbons, particularly coal, has led the country to become the leading carbon dioxide emitter in Africa and the 12th largest in the world, according to the latest 2010 EIA estimate.
(source)

An economy that relies heavily on a large-scale energy intensive mining industry to function is not able to switch to large-scale energy intensive renewable device manufacture - the loss of exports created by the attempt would deprive it of the income to fund the attempt. Worse, the mining operations are precisely those that renewable enthusiasts are not aware are necessary for the production of their gadgets - transferring energy use into renewable device manufacture is to transfer it out of renewable device manufacturing's global resource supply chain - a fundamentally self defeating process. Unless it steps up coal consumption and associated emissions - but climate change denial and renewable enthusiasm come hand in hand.

Meanwhile

Despite having reached a 75 percent electrification rate nationwide, the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 55 percent of the rural population has access to electricity (compared to 88 percent in urban areas). According to 2009 data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), these figures indicate that approximately 12.5 million people had no access to electricity.

… making Rover07's clip an example of an atrocious misallocation of resource.

It's a neat illustration of the predicament - keep them coming, Rover07.

 

[fractionMan]

I'd love to see Falcon's recipe for baking a cake...

Add flour, then add more flour, then add more flour, then add more flour, then put it in the oven.

if you find that the cake isn't up to scratch, then assume that it's impossible to bake a cake using flour, and flour is useless as an ingredient and must be disregarded in favor of an oil based substitute that can give you the same energy value of a proper cake with just one ingredient, and since oil is running out we're just going to have to get used to not eating cake anymore.

 

[rover07]

No surprise that coal is currently the main source of energy for South Africa.

In 20 years time it will be wind and solar.

 

[Falcon]

In 20 years time it will be wind and solar.

Because …?

 

[Wilson]

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article4850234.ece

Plan to generate sea power for Durban
The project, a joint venture between the city and the two companies, will transform the fast-flowing Agulhas ocean current into energy using floating generators.
Taxpayers will not have to fund the project because the units and the installation - said to cost R155-million - will be paid for by Hydro Alternative Energy, which will sell the electricity to the city.
Mark Antonucci, co-chairman of the US firm, said yesterday that eThekwini liked the plan.
"There are other companies that do this but for research purposes we are the first one to commercialise it. And we are using technology that has been there for years."

 

[rover07]

Because …?

Because it will be cheaper than coal.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...-now-cheaper-than-coal-in-some-countries.html

When many countries are choosing their next generation of power stations, they will be tempted to pick wind turbines. Thanks to better design, building wind farms can now be cheaper than building new coal or gas power stations.

Figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance show that this is already the case in Australia. Any wind farms built now would generate electricity for between A$80 (about US$80) and A$113 per megawatt-hour, whereas new coal plants would cost A$176/MWh.

In Australia, coal's high cost is partly due to the nation's carbon tax, but new coal power stations would still cost A$126/MWh even in the absence of the tax.

 

[Falcon]

Because it will be cheaper than coal.

Ah, OK. So the fact that the reason it is currently cheaper than coal is because the devices are produced with energy derived from relatively inexpensive oil and gas, under subsidy, by a system that won't run on wind and solar, is lost on you.

That's fine - just clarifying. I thought you might have a substantive point to make.

 

[Wilson]

Because …?

Is there a post somewhere where you outline any thoughts as to what should/could be done in this post oil situation?

 

[Falcon]

Is there a post somewhere where you outline any thoughts as to what should/could be done in this post oil situation?

Like this one, 10 posts ago?

 

[Wilson]

Aye, similar to that but more expanded, maybe you've made some other posts you can direct me to.

 

[Falcon]

Aye, similar to that but more expanded, maybe you've made some other posts you can direct me to.

Here and here.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

Dear God. This is not even wrong.

SaskiaJayne, Rover07 can be guaranteed not to have read anything in my posts about the systems from which his wind turbine have emerged. For him, they have appeared perfectly formed from under a gooseberry bush. To the extent that this is a common view, his posts are an interesting window into the world of the uninformed.

Yes I understand what is being said here, I will let you 2 continue your discussion & I am not going to pretend that I understand anything except the obvious basics, ie a small tank of petrol contains enough energy to propel a car at 70mph for 400miles & that is awful lot compared with power generated by wind or sun. It bothers me that in the UK we have to pay 'green taxes' to subsidise development of renewable energy when India & China are satisfying their increasing power needs by building more coal fired power stations. But if the idea is that UK's future prosperity is based on hi tech development & leave the manufacturing to countries east of Suez where labour is cheap then I suppose we should be doing this development for future generations.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

China invests more in renewables than any other country.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

Have they included how useful the energy is?

Only 30% of the energy in a gallon of petrol is converted into energy used to drive a car forward.

In electric vehicles the figure is 90%.

The interesting point here that it appears from these figures that there is an awful more that can be done to improve the efficiency of petrol/petrol engines than electric motors & indeed is being done. Ford's new 1litre 3 cylinder turbo engine has fuel consumption to match a 1litre engine & power to match a 1.6litre. So with petrol/diesel engines all the development needs to be with the engines but for electric motors all development needs to be with batteries & one presumes the ultimate goal will be to produce a long lasting & reasonably priced battery pack the size & weight of a tank of petrol with enough energy to take the car as far & as fast as a tank of petrol & can be recharged at a roadside point as quickly as one can fill a tank of petrol. It will be interesting to see if this is ever technically possible. The counter argument of course would be that future generations should not drive cars & rely on other forms of transport but at the moment people are in love with cars & the emerging markets all wanting to own cars as well, with India/China expanding car manufacturing for their domestic markets.

 

[free spirit]

I've posted the previous to support. However, a simpler one. In support of your proposition that a population of 7 billion and a complex global industrial manufacturing and agricultural system can be maintained by energy sources of EROEI < 50 - Give an example of one. The one on my planet uses hydrocarbon with EROE > 50 and is starting to get very stressed.

this one - we've not had an average real EROEI of over 50 for all energy since we starting burning huge amounts of coal in thermally inefficient coal power stations, and that period has seen the fastest period of economic, manufacturing, food, and social development in history.

We may on paper have had a thermal EROEI on primary fuels for part of that period, but this is irrelevant when you're losing 70% of the energy content of that primary fuel source in conversion.

You've skewered yourself. The loss in that energy conversion process (constrained by thermodynamics to a performance not much better than that) is only sustainable because the primary energy supply driving it - hydrocarbon - has such a high EROEI. That's the whole point of this thread.

er no, I've given the lie to your figures, because renewables directly generate electricity, whereas the EROEI figures for coal that we're comparing it with are for the direct thermal EROEI figure, not for the figure after those 60-70% losses in the process of converting that thermal energy into electrical energy.

Because the argument "The hydrocarbon powered oven is in full working order, and therefore there will be one in full working order when there is no hydrocarbon power and this one has worn out" would be deranged.

But you don't apply that argument, you attempt to make out that solar, wind etc are useless because they can't power the replacement of the entire global manufacturing base now.

At the growth rate the global renewables industry has sustained for the last 20 years, there really is very little reason to suspect that a largely renewables based global electricity supply situation in 30-50 years time won't be able to generate sufficient energy to support the ongoing replacement requirements of the global manufacturing base.

I observe merely that the current system is powered by hydrocarbon, and must be powered by something else when there is none. That is hardly a theory, or divorced from reality.

bollocks - this is not what you've repeatedly been saying, as proven by your next sentence.

If it cannot be powered by any substitute, the fact that there is some transition to that substitute is irrelevant.

You've personally taken it upon yourself to determine, on very dubious hypothetical grounds, that there can be no suitable energy substitute, and that as a result the current highly industrialised society is basically finished, and then state that as categorical fact, and if necessary bring up your 2 masters in the field as evidence of how much of an expert in the field you are rather than having to actually engage with the direct evidence on the ground that flatly contradicts your position.

You're very right to state that the is a massive looming energy gap, particularly a low carbon energy gap, but very wrong to categorically state that there is no possible solution to it.

If you were successful in your apparent mission to spread this notion that we're all fucked and there's nothing we can do about it, then that would act to suck the momentum from the very efforts that are absolutely necessary right now to actually build the new infrastructure that is required to overcome this looming energy gap.

I'm in no way saying that it's inevitable that we will achieve this massive task entirely, far from it, I know full well how much work is required to make this low carbon energy vision a reality, but if we don't actually give it our best efforts now then we really will be dooming the rest of humanity to the sorts of mad max style future you seem to imagine is actually inevitable anyway. If we fall a little short, then so be it, we'll have to deal with that then, but we'll still be in a hell of a lot of a better position than if we sat on our arses and did fuck all about it other than smugly telling anyone who'll listen that we're all doomed anyway.

Since we've been arguing about this subject on here, the proportion of electricity generated from renewables has increased from 5% to 12% (2007-2012), most of which happened since 2010. The reality on the ground is that the renewables industry is gathering momentum to build this low carbon energy base regardless of your theoretical objections to it.

What are you going to do next? Start turning up at renewables sites with fucking placards telling the workers that they're all wasting their time and should stop work so you can educate them on why their toy projects aren't capable of doing anything useful?

 

[SaskiaJayne]

China invests more in renewables than any other country.

Indeed but with 22 times the population of the UK does it invest 22 times as much I wonder?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Indeed but with 22 times the population of the UK does it invest 22 times as much I wonder?

It doesn't have 22 times the consumption, though. And a lot of the energy use in China goes towards producing things for us.

Figures from 2011 here. Both China and India are in the top five. The UK is not in the top 5.

$50 billion a year from China and the US is nowhere near enough. We need to be channelling a lot more of the remaining fossil fuel energy supply towards developing its replacements. But it's simply false to point the finger at China and India as you were doing. Especially when you're no doubt doing it on a computer made in China. China and India's energy consumption is our energy consumption too.

 

[Falcon]

this one - we've not had an average real EROEI of over 50 for all energy since we starting burning huge amounts of coal in thermally inefficient coal power stations, and that period has seen the fastest period of economic, manufacturing, food, and social development in history. We may on paper have had a thermal EROEI on primary fuels for part of that period, but this is irrelevant when you're losing 70% of the energy content of that primary fuel source in conversion.

I refer to the effective EROEI in the period in which the bulk of the current capital assets were constructed, and from which your science experiments benefit, not the EROIE through which fuel supplies are now collapsing. Your entire experience and argument is based on the current performance of a system that was built with very high EROEI energy sources. You have no example of a system that has demonstrably functioned with single digit EROEI energy sources. In your accusations of unsupportable claims, your central claim is mere speculation.

er no, I've given the lie to your figures, because renewables directly generate electricity, whereas the EROEI figures for coal that we're comparing it with are for the direct thermal EROEI figure, not for the figure after those 60-70% losses in the process of converting that thermal energy into electrical energy. But you don't apply that argument, you attempt to make out that solar, wind etc are useless because they can't power the replacement of the entire global manufacturing base now. At the growth rate the global renewables industry has sustained for the last 20 years, there really is very little reason to suspect that a largely renewables based global electricity supply situation in 30-50 years time won't be able to generate sufficient energy to support the ongoing replacement requirements of the global manufacturing base.

But the critical manufacturing processes in the global manufacturing system don't run on electricity, and can't run on electricity. What role does electricity play in the trucks that mine the ore? In the ships that transport the thousands of raw materials to their intermediate points of assembly? In the plastics from which the structures, fittings, and insulators are made? In the insulators that house the integrated circuit chips? In the industrial agricultural system that feeds the workers and prevents the other 6.9 billion people from killing each other? In the necessary military and security processes by which, whether you like it or not, contested access to resource is preserved? No, refusing to engage in the tricky bits isn't the same as giving lie to something.

You've personally taken it upon yourself to determine, on very dubious hypothetical grounds, that there can be no suitable energy substitute, and that as a result the current highly industrialised society is basically finished, and then state that as categorical fact, and if necessary bring up your 2 masters in the field as evidence of how much of an expert in the field you are rather than having to actually engage with the direct evidence on the ground that flatly contradicts your position.

Thermodynamics and energy economics - in contrast to the many unsupportable extrapolations upon which your assumptions rest - are far from hypothetical, any more that your unfamiliarity with them makes them so. The grounds for the argument I present which, far from being mine, are advanced by very credible sources, are not dubious merely because you find them unappealing and unfamiliar. I have seen nothing that you have presented that contradicts anything I've said, and a considerable amount that relies on simply ignoring the inconvenient bits.

You're very right to state that the is a massive looming energy gap, particularly a low carbon energy gap, but very wrong to categorically state that there is no possible solution to it. If you were successful in your apparent mission to spread this notion that we're all fucked and there's nothing we can do about it, then that would act to suck the momentum from the very efforts that are absolutely necessary right now to actually build the new infrastructure that is required to overcome this looming energy gap.

While we both agree that there is a crisis in the current provisioning arrangements, I reject totally your conclusion that the solution to the complexity driven energy crisis is to increase the complexity of the system. You believe the solution lies on the supply side and by increasing complexity even further. I simply believe it lies on the demand side and by decreasing complexity - an effort which yours is in direct conflict with. And in contradiction to your assertion that I think we are fucked, I've posted links to two fairly detailed postings which outline a very different approach to yours which set out a very much more realistic agenda by which to un-fuck ourselves than happy-clappy techno-euphoria.

Meanwhile, in all your selective quotations, you missed a bit.

Yet your argument consists entirely of speculation about the transition. You avoid debate on the endpoint, other than to engage in indirect assumption that, at that point, "something else" is taking up the slack, stating that it is not your responsibility to enquire as to the nature of that "something else". In this respect, your argument resembles that of a teenager who, satisfied with his pocket money, is disinterested in the household finances of his parents.

Your whole thesis reduces to the hope that a grown up will keep the lights on so you can plug your toys in. A perspective some might consider rather incomplete, if not naive.

 

[free spirit]

I refer to the EROEI in the period in which the bulk of the current capital assets were constructed, not the EROIE to which fuel supplies are now collapsing through. Your entire experience and argument is based on the current performance of a system that was built with very high EROEI energy sources. You have no example of a system that has demonstrably functioned with single digit energy sources. You merely speculate.

as do you. Except you've stated as fact that an EROEI figure of 50:1 is necessary - there is zero evidence to support the proposition that 50:1 is some sort of a magic number below which society can not function.

But the critical manufacturing processes in the global manufacturing process don't run on electricity, and can't run on electricity. What role does electricity play in the trucks that mine the ore? In the ships that transport the thousands of raw materials to their intermediate points of assembly? In the plastics from which the structures, fittings, and insulators are made? In the insulators that house the integrated circuit chips? In the industrial agricultural system that feeds the workers and prevents the other 6.9 billion people from killing each other? In the military processes by which contested access to resource is preserved? No, you really haven't given lie to anything.

Really, you're really making that argument? I thought you had more of a clue than that.

Electrically powered industrial processes, off the top of my head, would include: Aluminium smelter, steel works, glass manufacturing, virtually all medium to light manufacturing plants, all silicon chip and processor manufacturing plants, pretty much all the processes involved in manufacturing renewable energy products, all automated manufacturing plants, it powers the entire internet and global communications system, it runs the refrigeration that allows the entire global food supply chain to function, powers the milking machines for virtually all milk production, runs the fans and driers for grain production, the vast majority of the tools used in construction, the forklifts, and cranes that operate the container and pallet based supply chain...

Basically electricity powers the vast majority of everything other than space heating, some process heat, and most transport (other than trains which are mostly electrically powered), and specialist heavy equipment.

Thermodynamics - in contrast to the many unsupportable extrapolations upon which your assumptions rest - is far from hypothetical. The grounds for the argument I present - which is not mine - are not dubious merely because you find them unappealing. I have seen nothing that you have presented that contradicts anything I've said, and a considerable amount that simply ignores the inconvenient bits.

oh joy, are you going to explain to me again how you consider electricity to be a low grade form of energy with the aid of a bath full of luke warm water? lucky me.

I simply believe it lies on the demand side - an effort which yours is in direct conflict with.

wait, what?

Let me just put you straight on something here.

My position is that we need to both dramatically reduce the demand side of the equation, and at the same time to rapidly switch to as much low carbon generation as we possibly can to supply as much of the remaining energy demand as possible from low carbon sources.

At no point have I ever indicated that I thought we could or should be able to power business as usual energy demand from a future low carbon energy mix, and I've clearly outlined this position many times on these boards on threads you've participated in.

How the fuck can you possibly consider that a position that is based only on addressing the demand side of the equation to be a more credible position than one that addresses both sides of the equation?

Meanwhile, in all your selective quotations, you missed a bit.


Can't think why.

because it was bullshit that I didn't consider worthy of dignifying with a response.

 

[free spirit]

In other news, OFGEM has announced that the UK faces blackouts in 2015 because of the deepening electricity generating crisis.


Errm - in which bit of the system are renewable devices made? - oh yes, the business and industrial bit. A perfect illustration of what will happen under transition conditions as we transfer scarce hydrocarbon out of the manufacturing system and into higher utility services - like food, heat and light.

Can anyone detect a disconnect between our renewable fans and unfolding reality?

Hold up a second, that's because we've had a policy in this country for the last 25 years of making the country ever more dependent upon gas for both heat and electricity generation, even over the last 10 years ignoring the fact that output from the north sea gas reserves is rapidly diminishing and we've got relatively low levels of storage capacity.

And then we've gone and closed a significant proportion of our coal plants 2-3 years earlier than had been planned for because of an ill thought out carbon tax being applied from next week, at the same time as government support for renewable alternatives has caused major stutter in it's phenomenal growth rate.

The major hope for averting the problem between now and then is to bring online as much wind, solar, biomass, tidal stream & hydro pumped storage as possible, as all of this generation serves to directly reduce gas demand for renewables generation... as well as ramping up the rate of insulation and energy efficiency uptake, and biomass heating.

Unfortunately government policies over the last 18 months have probably resulted in the loss of 50,000 jobs in precisely those sectors of micro-generation, and home insulation through the fiascos of their FIT policies, 3 year delays in renewable heat incentive scheme roll out, and the disasterous transition from a previously successful home insulation scheme to a badly thought out and managed Green Deal scheme.

So if we do have blackouts, it will not be because they were inevitable, and certainly not as a result of the failings of a renewables based, reduced energy intensity system, but down to combined failings of government policies that should have been pushing this project forward instead of holding it back at this crucial time.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Falcon, can you not envisage a functional system with lower eroie than oil? Sure, more resources would need to be devoted to energy production, but I don't see why that couldn't be perfectly manageable.

It seems to me to be a failure of imagination to go from 'we cannot carry on as we are' to 'we're fucked'. The current model of shareholder capitalism may be fucked, but alternative ways of evaluating growth and managing resources in a way that serves the common good first, not private capital first, are perfectly possible. And as the current model fails, such alternatives will gain traction.