Global financial system implosion begins

[Falcon]

so to answer my quetion - you are unable to quote any actual figures to support your POV on this.

Fallacy. Actual figures - in the sense of quantified estimates - require standardised methods of lifecycle energy accounting and EROEI which have not been developed yet. No one - least of all me - claims to have quantified the magnitude of the reduction. Nor do we have to - we claim only that EROEI is falling faster than supply growth is rising - the necessary and sufficient condition that net energy is falling. And that evidence is presented in abundance in the literature e.g.

() (Heun, Matthew Kuperus, and Martin de Wit. 2011. “Energy Return on (Energy) Invested (EROI), Oil Prices, and Energy Transitions.” Energy Policy 40 (0) (November 5): 147–158. doi:doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2011.09.008.) fig.15

However, your POV can easily be quantified. And let's, shall we? You claim that the increase in gross energy volumes since 2008 has translated into increased net energy volumes. You also claim to have reasonable facility with the literature discussing EROI, including consensus estimates.

So, citing EROIs for all energy sources you claim have made a material contribution to energy supply, estimate how low EROEIs would have to be to maintain net positive energy growth?

And please don't think that your failure to acknowledge the fatal omission of climate change prevention from your argument has gone unnoticed. My argument is that the financial system is unsustainable. A counter argument that it is not because we are currently ignoring the measures necessary to prevent climate change is not an argument.

 

[free spirit]

btw, I do accept that at some point there may well be a time when the headline primary energy figure is going up, but the actual available net energy to the rest of the economy is dropping as the average EROI figure drops.

I'm actually of the opinion that a fairly significant portion of recent energy demand growth has probably come from the energy extraction, refining and transport industries, but I'm not sure where I'd need to go to obtain figures to verify this.

EROI isn't the only factor in this though, there's also the fact that replacing gas / oil / coal generated electricity with renewables generated electricity, would show up as a reduction in primary energy figures, as virtually 100% of everything they generate is turned into electricity directly, whereas only around 35% coal, 50-60% gas is actually converterd into electricity, the rest is usually lost.

Then there's the fact that if the rate of increase in the rate we install renewables is above a certain point, then the renewables sector remains a net energy consumer until that growth rate slows below that point, as the energy investment in building the renewables is only repaid relatively slowly. This is partly why it's important to know whether or not we're already experiencing a decline in overall energy available, as if we were then it would make the process of making this up front energy investment in developing a mass renewable energy supply system into a much more difficult proposition, which would require some hard choices in terms of prioritising the available energy for use to support renewables growth.

So, there are various factors that combine to make coming up with valid Net energy figures quite complex, which is why it's not really possible for someone like me to be trying to work them out myself, and there is a possibility that Falcon is correct. The problem is that unless Falcon actually has access to these figures, then he's no business presenting this as anything other than a possibility, and certainly not as if it's something that he knows for a fact.

TBH I'd just like to have access to the figures required to know and be able to monitor the actual net energy figures, as it is a vital metric that currently doesn't seem to be widely available. I've been hoping that Falcon would actually be able to link to a source for this metric, but it increasingly seems that he's just basing his position on gut instinct rather than hard data. I hope he'll prove me wrong on that at some point.

 

[free spirit]

However, your POV can easily be quantified. And let's, shall we? You claim that the increase in gross energy volumes since 2008 has translated into increased net energy volumes. You also claim to have reasonable facility with the literature discussing EROI, including consensus estimates.

Please show me where I've said that.

What I've actually done is to point out that the precise statements you've made are wrong - the ones where you've not specified you were referring to net energy as you should if this is what you were referencing.

What I've also done is to say that if you were referring to net energy, then please supply the figures to support your position as I can't find any myself.

It now turns out that as I suspected, what you've been stating as being a fact is nothing of the sort, it's a theoretical extrapolation of various figures that leads you to conclude that Net Energy is probably falling in your opinion. If you'd actually put it like that instead of stating this as being a fact then I'd not have had a problem with that, and we could have had a worthwhile discussion about the actual methods you'd used to reach your conclusion, the data you had based it on etc.

So, citing EROIs for all energy sources you claim have made a material contribution to energy supply, estimate how low EROEIs would have to be to maintain net positive energy growth?

nah, sorry this is on you. You're the one making the claims about this, which means you should have already done those calculations yourself, or be able to reference a report in which they have been done already. If you haven't done these calcs, then you've had no business going around making such grand claims about this for the last few years.

And please don't think that your failure to acknowledge the fatal omission of climate change prevention from your argument has gone unnoticed. My argument is that the financial system is unsustainable. A counter argument that it is not because we are currently ignoring the measures necessary to prevent climate change is not an argument.

I'm responding to one specific claim you made - support that claim or withdraw it, don't use climate change to wriggle out of it again.

For reference, this is the claim I'm referring to, can you back this up or not?

the global financial system is undergoing implosion, brought about by its critical dependence on an expanding energy supply which is now contracting.

 

[Dr Jon]

link

Conventional oil has been doing the bumpy plateau boogie since 2005.
The production growth, such as it is, has come from tar sands and shale oil, both of which have crap EROEI.
Comparing recent growth to that prior to the peak of conventional oil 2005-2008 shows why this is such a big problem; one that is going to become increasingly acute as conventional production falls.

(I reduced the size of the pic when editing, but this is ignored when I save changes. Is there a special technique for doing this?)

 

[elbows]

Blimey, after us all droning on so much for years we finally seem to have arrived at the crux of the matter, or at least the most important crux that isnt yet presented to the masses via the mainstream media or in most statistics.

I certainly consider the lack of research & mainstream standardisation of EROI to be a sign of how stupidly out of touch aspects of our systems and economics have had the luxury of being for a long time. I suppose the declining EROI is at least partially reflected in the price and cost figures, and the mainstream acknowledgement of the 'end of the era of cheap oil' is the same as saying that the high EROI we were so lucky to have for so many years is history. But personally I find reducing all this stuff down to something expressed as a price does not seem to fill the masses in as to the nature of the problems we face, and the figures can easily be corrupted by otehr factors, sentiments, speculation etc.

EROI also gives me a way to explain why I've taken issue with some of Falcons hyperbole over the years. At his most dramatic, it seems to me there is a desire to paint a picture of EROI for anything other than conventional fossil fuels as being dangerously close to or even below 1. Now granted the lack of highly sophisticated models that completely take account of where to draw the line in terms of all the energy costs of every single step of the chain and even vaguely related human activity means that I cannot whip loads of EROI numbers for different energy technologies & sources out of my hat and claim them as fact. And its sane of Falcon to raise the issue generally since this is surely one of the areas responsible for dangerous complacency, and where the stakes are raised as the luxurious EROI's that have offered humanity plenty of room to soak up accounting errors diminish. But at this point I dont think its safe to leap ahead and produce pessimistic AEROI assumptions in order to declare with certainty that most alternatives are pointless and will uttery fail to serve us.

Anyway regardless of variations of opinion about the exact numbers and scale of the issue, it must certainly be a great part of the reason why the future is such a challenge, and why much will need to change on the demand & consumption efficiency side of things. If I try to imagine how they could possibly pull off the salvation of a system that has growth and other features that are the norm today in it, the only way I can see how is if they manage to find a vast amount of stuff that can be counted as economic activity but has very low energy requirements. And despite changes to things like the amount of oil used per unit of economic activity for decades now, I dont see any sign of this happening on the required magnitude to make the numbers add up. And even if it did, the growth numbers would not really be describing the same beast anymore, so there isnt any particular reason to expect this sort of growth data would actually sustain the beast in its present form. I mean even if I simplify by forgetting the last few things I said and present a simple version of the future where there is still economic growth, but all of this growth is in activity centring around the 'production' of energy, is that enough to keep our economic systems & ideologies working?

 

[junglevip]

This is worth a squint:

Remember when the Icelandics did the unthinkable and, unlike Ireland, told bank creditors to take a hike? They also imposed capital controls and allowed the value of their currency to fall – the Icelandic krona has lost almost half of its value against the euro over the past five years.
The "experts" queued up to assure us that these latter-day Vikings would be severely punished for their impertinence. While no one forecast that a hole would open up in the North Atlantic and swallow Iceland whole, some of the predictions came pretty darned close.

http://www.independent.ie/business/...s-proved-that-the-joke-was-on-us-3327164.html

 

[Falcon]

Please show me where I've said that.

OK.

Even in energy terms oil only accounts for something like 30% of global energy provision, and there is no current shortage of the other 70%

For anyone who's interested, the reason all of this is significant is that even assuming the worst of the peak oil hypothesis is right, and we're already on the downward curve for oil, gas and coal are at very very different points on their production curve, and the production of both is still increasing.

so you say (and it may or may not prove to be the case), but the point I was making was merely that you were factually wrong to assert that energy production was contracting when it's actually rising.

I'm not sure you even understand your own argument, much less mine.

 

[Falcon]

You really do like mixing up your facts with hyopthesis don't you. It's not a fact at all that economic growth is extinguished at $90 a barrel of oil, this may well be a hypothesis you adhere to, but it's not even remotely approaching a fact. Personally I give that sort of statement the same level of credence as I gave to those arguing that a minimum wage would extinguish economic growth, ie very little.

Kopitz (2009) shows that recession occurs whenever crude oil expenditure exceeds 4% of GDP (currently $80 per barrel for the US), or overwhelms oil shedding by rising at more than 0.8% of GDP on an annual basis.

Hamilton (2011) shows that 10 out of 11 post-World War II recessions in the United States were preceded by a sharp increase in the price of crude petroleum.

Chen & Hsu (2012) investigate the link between oil price volatility and international trade flow, concluding that oil price fluctuation hurts globalisation, and that deglobalisation is now observable following the 2008 oil shock.

Your problem is not that you don't know the basic principles of the subject you are speculating about, or even that you don't know you don't know. It's your arrogant lack of the caution that others adopt when exploring new material that disables you.

Kopitz, Steven. 2009. Oil: What Price Can America Afford? New York: Douglas-Westwood.

Hamilton, JD. 2011. Historical Oil Shocks, Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. Routledge.

Chen, Shiu-Sheng, and Kai-Wei Hsu. 2012. “Reverse Globalization: Does High Oil Price Volatility Discourage International Trade?.” Energy Economics (February 22): 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2012.01.005.

 

[free spirit]

I see no mention of net energy in any of those statements.

Your claim was that energy supply was contracting, I was responding to that claim on the same basis it was made.

If we're going to discuss that though, then yes I an of the opinion that net energy is probably currently still rising, though by significantly less than the headline rate of primary energy. I accept that there is a possibility that it's not, but I've not seen anything like convincing evidence of this yet, and the numbers I've been looking at don't seem to support that position, though I've not found all the data I'd need to be confident of that yet.

I do accept that there's significant potential, maybe even a probability, that this will become the case at some point in the next couple of decades, but I don't really have a handle on whether it's more likely to happen in 5 years or 20 years time.

Unlike you though, I'm of the opinion that it's still possible to have economic growth from this position in a situation of net energy decline, as long as a significant proportion of that growth is targeted at reducing the energy intensity of the economy. One way this can be achieved is via the unravelling of the last few decades globalisation process, which has been based entirely on the availability of abundant cheap oil to make it cheaper to manufacture stuff half way around the world than it is to manufacture it close to the point of consumption. High oil costs should start to reverse this equation and result in manufacturing jobs being relocated back to the UK, USA, Europe etc. I've heard a few small UK manufacturers mentioning this starting to be a factor that's helping them to be more competitive, so I reckon this process could well be on the brink of starting to happen.

I can also see that the way you go about calculating EROEI figures that it'd be a bit surprising if there were any net energy gain at all, but as we've discussed previously, this is because you double count energy consumption that you include both on the costs of the energy generation side of things, and on the actual energy needed to supply the rest of the economies needs side. It could be fair enough to try to count every last kWh of energy consumed by everyone with the merest hint of a connection to the production of that energy within the EROEI figures, but only if you were then also able to take this energy off the headline figures for the energy the rest of the economy requires to function. From what I've seen in the past, you don't do this, which is why you reach the sorts of conclusions you reach IMO. Far better IMO to use a more standard EROEI calculation, and leave the other related energy costs as being part of the overall energy requirements of the economy / GDP growth as it's really impossible to actually pull the 2 things apart to that sort of an extent.

 

[free spirit]

Kopitz (2009) shows that recession occurs whenever crude oil expenditure exceeds 4% of GDP (currently $80 per barrel for the US), or overwhelms oil shedding by rising at more than 0.8% of GDP on an annual basis.

Hamilton (2011) shows that 10 out of 11 post-World War II recessions in the United States were preceded by a sharp increase in the price of crude petroleum.

Chen & Hsu (2012) investigate the link between oil price volatility and international trade flow, concluding that oil price fluctuation hurts globalisation, and that deglobalisation is now observable following the 2008 oil shock.

Kopitz, Steven. 2009. Oil: What Price Can America Afford? New York: Douglas-Westwood.

Hamilton, JD. 2011. Historical Oil Shocks, Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. Routledge.

Chen, Shiu-Sheng, and Kai-Wei Hsu. 2012. “Reverse Globalization: Does High Oil Price Volatility Discourage International Trade?.” Energy Economics (February 22): 1–10. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2012.01.005.

so as I said, a hypothesis and not a fact then?

I have a counter hypothesis for you which also fits those facts, namely that it's volatility and rapid swings in the oil price that really causes significant economic problems on a global level, and not across the board high energy prices as such.

I've not read them, but from the titles it would seem that only 1 or 2 of those books supports your hypothesis about there actually being an oil price that can't be breached vs 4 that support my hypothesis.

That hypothesis of mine btw is the reason why I believe it's important to understand and address the impact of the influx of $200 billion from virtually nothing into the commodity speculation markets over the last 10 years (actually that was 2008 figures, I'd imagine it's a lot more than that by now). If the problem really is volatility, and the speculation is significantly amplifying that volatility then the obvious action to take to mitigate the problem is to regulate those markets to remove that source of increased volatility.

Your problem is not that you don't know the basic principles of the subject you are speculating about, or even that you don't know you don't know. It's your arrogant lack of the caution that others adopt when exploring new material that disables you.

ok, if I'm wrong it should be simple for someone such as you who professes to be so on top of the subject to provide the data that's required to prove me wrong - note I refer to data, not a list of titles of books, articles or reports.

Your failure to ever do this speaks volumes IMO - either I'm right and that's why you can't prove me wrong, or I'm wrong but you still don't know the subject matter sufficiently well to supply the evidence to prove me wrong, or the situation is actually unclear, the data doesn't really exist to be sure one way or another, in which case I'm still right as this is a large part of my point about you presenting things that may or may not be right as being facts rather than possibilities.

 

[Falcon]

I see no mention of net energy in any of those statements.

Your claim was that energy supply was contracting, I was responding to that claim on the same basis it was made.

If you are attempting to assert that it may be possible to confuse net and gross energy in an argument about energy supply contraction, then either you do not understand the subject, or you are engaging in sophistry.

Unlike you though, I'm of the opinion that it's still possible to have economic growth from this position in a situation of net energy decline, as long as a significant proportion of that growth is targeted at reducing the energy intensity of the economy.

Sounds great. Until you understand what "reducing the energy intensity of the economy" means when you apply it to the energetically intense food factory system supporting over half the population, in a system already undergoing rapid decline in yields.

I can also see that the way you go about calculating EROEI figures that it'd be a bit surprising if there were any net energy gain at all, but as we've discussed previously, this is because you double count energy consumption that you include both on the costs of the energy generation side of things, and on the actual energy needed to supply the rest of the economies needs side.

I presume this reflects your confusion between net and gross energy. An energy system must be manufactured. The energy of manufacture must come from the energy system. We live off any difference between the energy system's output and the quantity that is consumed in its manufacture, operation, maintenance and replacement.

The energy of manufacture in hydrocarbon energy systems has historically been close to zero. The difference we live off has been correspondingly huge, allowing a large population to develop.

The energy of manufacture of so-called renewable energy systems - the energy requirement of the global industrial manufacturing system - is greater than the energy output of the system. There is no difference we can live off.

This is not complex, just unpalatable for those emotionally attached to techno-political solutions.

 

[Falcon]

so as I said, a hypothesis and not a fact then? …

You mean, like climate change?

Your failure to ever do this speaks volumes IMO - either I'm right and that's why you can't prove me wrong, or I'm wrong but you still don't know the subject matter sufficiently well to supply the evidence to prove me wrong, or the situation is actually unclear, the data doesn't really exist to be sure one way or another, in which case I'm still right as this is a large part of my point about you presenting things that may or may not be right as being facts rather than possibilities.

So let me see. You are attached to a certain techno-political world view. You aren't very familiar with an emerging scientific consensus which challenges your view and, frankly, you aren't motivated to find out. You reject hypotheses, and require facts and proof before you'll consider the implications of a body of evidence which is counterfactual to your case. And you'll attack anyone ad hominem you disagree with.

The mechanism of neoconservative climate change denial, in a nutshell. There can be no rational discussion here.

 

[free spirit]

The energy of manufacture of so-called renewable energy systems - the energy requirement of the global industrial manufacturing system - is greater than the energy output of the system. There is no difference we can live off.

there we have it again, you making claims of fact which are just your opinion, and in this case I've clearly demonstrated why you're wrong on this previously.

shall we recap?

the single report that you gave that supports this view point is based on an imaginary solar largescale field mounted installation which the report author believes would entail the construction of hundreds of miles of properly tarmacked roads between each array to allow for installation and servicing.

In reality, these roads simply do not exist, there is no requirement for them either for installation or maintenance, they are a figment of the authors imagination because he obviously had fuck all idea how this stuff works - tbf he was writing this in the mid 90s, you on the other hand are continuing to repeat his false premise 15 years later when the evidence that he got it wrong is all around us.

Then we've got your own uniquely wrong double counting method of EROEI calculations that from what you've said in the past seems to somehow imagine that you need to actually incorporate the energy costs needed to building the mines, foundries, aluminium smelting plants, tool manufacturers and essentially everything down to the sandwhich shops the installers use to buy their lunches within the energy costs of the solar PV in the first place. All these energy costs are already incorporated into the energy requirements of the economy generally, and are best left there rather than attempting some complex calculation to somehow spilt their energy costs proportionally across the various energy supply sources. FFS all these plants are part of the wider economy, only a small proportion of their output goes to PV, wind etc so why should the entire energy cost of their replacement be met within the EROEI costs of PV / wind? You're just plain wrong on this, and it's largely why you get everything else wrong that's based on this calculation - whoever taught you or didn't teach you this has a lot to answer for.

It really is no wonder that you've spent 3-4 year tying yourself up in knots about this when you're basing your opinions on such fundamental errors.

 

[free spirit]

You mean, like climate change?

If you wish, but the weight of evidence supporting the climate change hypothesis is of a different order of magnitude to the evidence supporting your hypothesis, and yet the scientists who write those reports take great pains to clearly present the level of confidence they assign to each statement they make.

So let me see. You are attached to a certain techno-political world view. You aren't very familiar with an emerging scientific consensus which challenges your view and, frankly, you aren't motivated to find out. You reject hypotheses, and require facts and proof before you'll consider the implications of a body of evidence which is counterfactual to your case. And you'll attack anyone ad hominem you disagree with.

The mechanism of neoconservative climate change denial, in a nutshell. There can be no rational discussion here.

so my repeated request for you to supply data to support your position is akin to the mechanism of climate change denial, and prevents rational discussion does it?

pull the other one, or you know, you could just post up some actual evidence to support your position. Surely you have evidence to support the position you've taken and seem so certain of, don't you?

 

[Falcon]

Then we've got your own uniquely wrong double counting method of EROEI calculations that from what you've said in the past seems to somehow imagine that you need to actually incorporate the energy costs needed to building the mines, foundries, aluminium smelting plants, tool manufacturers and essentially everything down to the sandwhich shops the installers use to buy their lunches within the energy costs of the solar PV in the first place. All these energy costs are already incorporated into the energy requirements of the economy generally, and are best left there rather than attempting some complex calculation to somehow spilt their energy costs proportionally across the various energy supply sources. FFS all these plants are part of the wider economy, only a small proportion of their output goes to PV, wind etc so why should the entire energy cost of their replacement be met within the EROEI costs of PV / wind? You're just plain wrong on this, and it's largely why you get everything else wrong that's based on this calculation - whoever taught you or didn't teach you this has a lot to answer for.

You really do need to sit down with a cup of tea and a chocolate hobnob and have a think about the logic of your argument for a second. Accept for a moment that the energy system could not generate the energy requirement of its own manufacture. Yet, by your logic, it might suddenly be able to if, in the accounting process, the energy was measured somewhere else in the system. Energy has been created, simply by accounting for it in a different place?

 

[free spirit]

You really do need to sit down with a cup of tea and a chocolate hobnob and have a think about the logic of your argument for a second. Accept for a moment that the energy system could not generate the energy requirement of its own manufacture. Yet, by your logic, it might suddenly be able to if, in the accounting process, the energy was measured somewhere else in the system. Energy has been created, simply by accounting for it in a different place?

no, the energy system as a whole would be capable of generating the energy required, it's just that you're not attempting to apportion all of that energy to any one part of the energy generation system (and then also include it in the general economies energy requirements as well), it's being powered by everything in totality as part of the general economy.

I really don't need to spend any more time thinking about it, I'm absolutely certain of my position on it, which is the mainstream position on the subject - you're the one who's devised a method of calculating EROEI that is at odds with the standard methodologies used worldwide, and has then as a direct result of this managed to come up with EROEI figures that bear no relation to anything else in the academic literature other than one blatantly wrong 16 year old paper.

 

[Falcon]

so my repeated request for you to supply data to support your position is akin to the mechanism of climate change denial, and prevents rational discussion does it? pull the other one, or you know, you could just post up some actual evidence to support your position. Surely you have evidence to support the position you've taken and seem so certain of, don't you?

I provided a carefully selected set of references, filled with data, to form the basis of a reasonable discussion, and even extracted some for you. You dismissed them as irrelevant.

If you read them, state the basis of your claim. If you didn't, state how your claim that they were irrelevant is different from a neoconservative climate change denier's claim of the irrelevance of climate change literature.

Yes. Your repeated request for me to supply data to support your position is akin to the mechanism of climate change denial, and prevents rational discussion

 

[free spirit]

I provided a carefully selected set of references, filled with data, to form the basis of a reasonable discussion, and even extracted some for you. You dismissed them as irrelevant.

If you read them, state the basis of your claim. If you didn't, state how your claim that they were irrelevant is different from a neoconservative climate change denier's claim of the irrelevance of climate change literature.

Yes. Your repeated request for me to supply data to support your position is akin to the mechanism of climate change denial, and prevents rational discussion

I didn't ask for lists of references for me to plough through to attempt to find the snippits of information you might be referring to, I asked you to supply the specific data that supports your claims. Can you do that or not?

ps - yes I've checked through the paper you linked to with the graph of EROEI earlier, and as I suspected, it just reinforces my view that the data you're basing your claims on is very poor data which should have massive uncertainty bands around it, not be proclaimed as fact. I'm not even sure that paper even backs up your statements, and it certainly only seems to focus on oil, not energy.

I'm really not trying to be funny here, I just don't think it's too much to expect for someone to actually supply the specific data directly that they believe supports their statements instead of pointing at a long list of papers that they can claim support their position when really they may not at all, but nobody will be any the wiser unless they've got hours to spare to analyse them all themselves to attempt to find the parts you might be referencing.

 

[Falcon]

I really don't need to spend any more time thinking about it, I'm absolutely certain of my position on it, which is the mainstream position on the subject

"Fallacy by consensus" - everyone says it's true, so it is?

 

[toblerone3]

So the EROI trend for oil is declining steeply if the graph in post 3271 is to be believed.
The EROI for other hydrocarbons is probably also declining.
But there are no reliable figures or even estimates for the EROI for the different types of renewables.

This information gap is critical in the debate on this thread between a type of neo-Maltusianism and a type of neo-Keynsianism.

 

[Falcon]

I didn't ask for lists of references for me to plough through to attempt to find the snippits of information you might be referring to, I asked you to supply the specific data that supports your claims. Can you do that or not?

You want me to read the papers for you, edit them, and send you an abstracted précis? Yes I can do that. But no, I won't, because I know it won't make the slightest bit of difference. You read them, and tell me what you disagree with - you profess to have an interest in this subject, and they are foundational reading. If you can't be bothered, then there is no reason to be interested in your speculations.

 

[toblerone3]

You want me to read the papers for you, edit them, and send you an abstracted précis? Yes I can do that. But no, I won't, because I know it won't make the slightest bit of difference. You read them, and tell me what you disagree with - you profess to have an interest in this subject, and they are foundational reading. If you can't be bothered, then there is no reason to be interested in your speculations.

You only need to abstract the summary data on EROI not the whole argument.

 

[free spirit]

"Fallacy by consensus" - everyone says it's true, so it is?

everyone says it's true, and it makes logical sense, and the numbers add up

vs

virtually nobody else uses this method, everyone else I've spoken to about it says it's a ridiculous method to use (ok just one person, but he is a professor who teaches this stuff, so I reckon his viewpoint is valid), it doesn't make logical sense and the numbers don't add up.

sometimes the consensus is actually right you know.

 

[Falcon]

everyone says it's true, and it makes logical sense, and the numbers add up

vs

virtually nobody else uses this method, everyone else I've spoken to about it says it's a ridiculous method to use (ok just one person, but he is a professor who teaches this stuff, so I reckon his viewpoint is valid), it doesn't make logical sense and the numbers don't add up.

sometimes the consensus is actually right you know.

The consensus is that rapid climate change is not happening, in the sense of "everyone", as distinct from that tiny minority (as a fraction of the total population with an opinion) who take a different view.

On at least one of the topics we are discussing here, consensus is totally wrong. You just happen to prefer whichever consensus supports your view.

 

[free spirit]

You only need to abstract the summary data on EROI not the whole argument.

specifically I'm looking for the data on net energy across all energy sources that would show whether this is in decline or not. I suppose this can be calculated from the EROI data if it's available for all energy forms, but those calculations would only be as good as the data inputted into them, which is one of my major problems here, in that Falcon is expressing certainty on the subject that just isn't appropriate to the quality of the data on which it is based.

For example, here's how the data on which that graph posted above was worked out, in a paper titled "A Preliminary Investigation of Energy Return on Energy Investment for Global Oil and Gas Production" by Gagnon et al 2009

To generate this first assessment of the EROI of global oil and gas extraction we were forced to
make many assumptions that introduced varying degrees of error to our analysis. The first of these is
the assumption that changes in monetary expenditures indicate changes in energy expenditures. There
are other factors, such as scarcity of drilling rigs, which can change the dollar cost of exploration,
development, and production without affecting the energy cost. We believe we address this issue by
calculating discreet energy intensity ratios for each year of our analysis in our base case. In this way
our estimated energy costs in a given year will be related to the monetary expenditures in that same
year only. Then sensitivity analysis of inflation-corrected estimates gave similar values.

Similarly, we have applied the energy intensity ratios calculated from US and UK data to the entire world. We realize that this requires the possibly unrealistic assumption that energy intensities are the
same the world over. However, the data necessary for calculating energy intensities on a regional basis
are not publicly available.

So basically they've taken pretty rough and ready estimates of UK and US EROI figures, then applied them to the entire worlds output, but the UK and US fields are at very different points in the curve to the global average - the UK's north sea fields are experiencing rapid decline in output in that period from 99-2006, and the US fields were also mostly either in decline, or have already largely experienced the majority of decline, or were deep offshore, or far in the wilds of alaska, and was in the process of developing a large volume of very low EROI shale oil fields.

Put simply, they are not likely to be representative of the actual global situation - they're almost certainly experiencing a much greater reduction in EROI than average in that period, so extrapolating directly from those figures to the whole world introduces a huge degree of uncertainty into the figures. To then take a short period of declining EROI (following a short period of rising EROI in the same figures) and then try to extrapolate from that to work out what the linear or possibly exponential decline curves should be and to claim these extrapolations as anything even vaguely accurate is clearly nonsense.

It's a useful first stab at working it out, but it's riddled with massive holes that make it totally unreliable for extrapolating global EROI decline rates from. Fair enough to reference it, but not to reference it without pointing out the massive uncertainties within the data IMO.

 

[free spirit]

The consensus is that rapid climate change is not happening, in the sense of "everyone", as distinct from that tiny minority (as a fraction of the total population with an opinion) who take a different view.

On at least one of the topics we are discussing here, consensus is totally wrong. You just happen to prefer whichever consensus supports your view.

I don't really care too much about consensus tbh, I go with what is supported by the data and what makes the most sense.

If this is against the consensus, or some one who's supposed to be knowledgeable on the subject then that would cause me to really triple check the data, sources, methods and theories on which I'm basing my opinions, but if I still think I'm right then I'll stick with my opinion and post up the data needed to back my opinion up even in the face of any opposing consensus viewpoint.

The consensus isn't always right, but then it's not always wrong either. IMO though it's always incumbent upon the person who's questioning the consensus to provide credible data to support their viewpoint, and they should expect to have their credibility questioned if they fail to supply that data on request.

 

[free spirit]

The consensus is that rapid climate change is not happening, in the sense of "everyone", as distinct from that tiny minority (as a fraction of the total population with an opinion) who take a different view.

On at least one of the topics we are discussing here, consensus is totally wrong. You just happen to prefer whichever consensus supports your view.

btw - that reports analysis of the EROI of oil and gas isn't based on your methods either, so if you really do insist on using your own method of calculating it, then you're going to have to start from scratch and produce your own EROI calcs for every energy production form, and then go through and systematically remove all those additional energy inputs from the energy requirements of the economy generally if you're going to come up with any meaningful analysis of the situation that compares like with like.

 

[elbows]

The energy of manufacture of so-called renewable energy systems - the energy requirement of the global industrial manufacturing system - is greater than the energy output of the system. There is no difference we can live off.

You'll actually need to provide much better EROI data than you've ever been able to thus far to make your point in a way that will convince those who arent already true believers.

Personally I think there are some valid points there despite the hyperbole, and this is why in the past I have not been too keen to proclaim that sustainable/renewable energy technologies are actually going to be permanently sustainable or renewable. It is simply too early to properly judge the ultimate destination.

We arent starting from scratch, we have fossil fuel resources at the moment, some of which we can and are redirecting into the manufacture of these technologies. So at a bare minimum we are buying some time, taking some energy that we would have pissed away on some more frivolous cause and turning it into something that will return some energy over a longer period of time. Even if you believe that the energy that we get back over time from that is less than what is put in, its still a better activity to spend some of our fossil fuel on than stuff that will return nothing. You could argue that it would be better to leave the fossil fuel as the future reserve of energy instead, but we already have a system that is geared up to producing stuff, and humans will fill their time engaging in such activities, exploiting resources and making shit, so we may as well make some shit that returns something, buys a little time, and will help us to learn and refine various technologies.Even if its still a waste of time in your book, I consider it well worth trying, less of a waste of time than a lot of the other shit we wont stop doing till we no longer have any choice.

And buying time is rather important, even if you believe that the ultimate destination bears no resemblance to the 'advanced societies' we live in today. The implications and final destination are quite different if our way of live collapses with a very slow groan rather than a big bang. A rather slow collapse offers different opportunities to adjust, come to terms, different ways to die, scale back, turn the volume down. There will be moments of reckoning, there will be decay, but there will also be renewal in some form or another.

I do hope you give some thought to the possibility that even if you are right about the ultimate unsustainability of various alternatives, much of what we have right now might creak on for a rather long time yet. What are you doing in the meantime? I hope you arent just earnestly trying to prepare people for a sudden utter collapse scenario where a void suddenly opens up that is utterly free from old powers, influences, ideals and wants, and most of what we've gained from progress. Or focusing mostly on finding all the supporting evidence you can that demonstrates why all the sustainable stuff is actually unsustainable and pointless. Why waste the effort and give up on stuff prematurely that may yet be a modest part of a longer term sustainable alternative? Is there something you'd rather be doing with the energy we are already pissing away? Something thats actually possible to get people to do? All the awareness and preaching about climate change in the world isnt going to be enough to get people to voluntarily give up the stuff that are hard-addicted to in a generation, so no matter how much 'leave it in the ground and lets get straight to some brutal survival of the fittest/most aware and prepared' might appeal to you, I really doubt thats how its going to go down. The falcon may think it spots a moment where its prey will no longer be shielded by unsustainable things, but desperation, solidarity and ingenuity may yet thwart its lunch on numerous occasions for decades to come.

 

[free spirit]

On second reading, the only data falcon has so far supplied to support his POV gets a lot worse.



The US and UK figures given here for expenditure are what they've based their EROI figures on, and as far as I can tell they've based them on the total spending for exploration, development and production, rather than simply production itself.

The vast majority of the rather unexpected peak in EROI in the late 90s is therefore based largely on the slowdown in in spending on exploration and development that occurred at that time due to the low oil price at the time. Similarly, a large part of the rapid reduction in EROI figures through to 2006 is due to the rapid rise in exploration and development spending that occurred in this period once oil prices started to rise.

It'd clearly be wrong to make any sort of linear or even exponential extrapolation line from these figures which are at least partially cyclical figures, as the increase in spending on exploration and development is unlikely to continue to rise longer term at anything like the rate it did between 99/2000-2006, which was a pretty much unprecedented ramping up of this side of the oil business from a very low ebb to all systems go.

This is not to say that the EROI hasn't declined, it clearly has even just based on the production costs, but these only amount to 30% of the overall US costs in 2006 vs 42% in 1999, which gives a clear indication of where the majority of the rise has come from.

It's hard to be sure, but I'd even suspect that 2006-8 may well have been a high point for investment in exploration and development, and once demand and prices dropped again in 2008/9 that this will have either levelled off, or even reduced, so far from continuing inexorably downward, the EROI figures (based on these relatively dubious calculation methods) could well have either levelled off, or possibly even have risen slightly since 2006. I'd think that a more likely proposition than any of the extrapolation lines in the graph falcon posted.

Not that I agree with the way they've estimated EROI figures either, as the energy per $ spent in exploration is going to be far far lower than the energy per $ for extraction. I'd expect that the majority of the exploration budget goes on hiring the surveying boats my mate pilots, which cost several million quid a day to hire, very little of which has anything to do with the energy costs involved in running the boats. By contrast I can see both the development and production costs being significantly more energy intensive.

Junk in Junk out.

 

[free spirit]

Actually, maybe the gradual exponential line on the graph is a reasonable fit for what's most likely to be the average once you strip out the cyclical aspects of it, or somewhere between that and the nominal exponential line anyway, though I think that one's too steep at the start and drops too far.