Author Archives: ruud

Upside down economics.

  By ruud | September 15, 2011 - 10:50 | ,
4 Comments

The two figures shown below are from this article (year 2007).

In my opinion the figures below give a simple but meaningfull illustration on how on one side most regular economist and on the other side so called ecological economists give weight to basic resources like food, fossile fuels (especially oil), minerals etc.

Figure 1 represents the economic view of most of the ‘regular’ economists.
Figure 2 represents the economic view of the ecological oriented economists (who take a heavy weight on the climate aspect) and economists who put a heavy weight on vital resourses, like by example oil.

Quote from the article:
“The entire economy stands on the shoulders, as it were, of agriculture, forestry, and mining (especially the extraction of oil, gas, coal and uranium) and on the utilities that deliver the energy mined in usable form”.

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

In figure 1 food, minerals, oil and gas etc. are not seen as basic components from which the existence of the other economic components are dependent.
In figure 2 the economic components are seen as derivatives of the basic food and resource components.
By example: If the food and resource components become too small (bottom of the pyramide) in relation to the rest of the pyramide, the higher components in the pyramide have too become smaller to prevent the pyramide from collapsing.

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

  By ruud | November 2, 2010 - 15:23 | ,
6 Comments

Talking about consumption…

Below a link to an article from the New York Times (January 2, 2008).
I think the article is still very actual.
Maybe the numbers in the article are not an exact representation of (nowadays) reality, but i assume there is a lot of thruth in them (the numbers).

http://www.thelavinagency.com/images/uploads/1215820671_nytimes-jan08.pdf

Text I like to highlite:
The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and
produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences.

If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates).

Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven’t met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies — for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy — they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. THIS PROMISE IS IMPOSSIBLE, A CRUEL HOAX: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people.

Gross oilproduction, ERO(E)I and Net energy. Part 3

  By ruud | October 1, 2010 - 16:48 |
6 Comments

PART 3: Some general remarks…

The world is still very dependent on fossil fuels
Worldwide for every 100 units of primary energy consumed, about 85 units are from fossil fuels and the rest is coming from hydropower stations, nuclear plants, biomass, biofuels, thermal energy, windmills, solar panels etcetera.

When will be the peak in gross oilproduction and what will be the decline rate in production after the peak?
Many oil analists and moderate peakoilers are expecting (if the world economy growth doesn’t go negative) that the gross oilproduction (all liquids) will peak somewhere between 2011 and 2015. After that the gross oilproduction will decline permanently. Some analists claim that the decline rate in production may be as high as 4% per year. That would (according to those analists) be catastrophic for many people (even in the short term).
The convential oil production (the real oil), according to independent analists, has already peaked.

Declining EROI and declining oilquality
From an EroEI perspective, the peak in available energy for society from oil is earlier then the peak in gross oilproduction (because of declining EroEI).
And, because of declining oil quality, more and more barrels of oil are needed to refine it into a certain quantity of an important petroleum product.
More and more energy input is needed to stay even! More and more investments are needed to stay even. One has to run harder and harder to stay even.
According to some analists, even with an infinite amount of money the worldwide oilproduction will not increase significantly. There is an asymptote for the gross oilproduction.

So, even if the gross oilproduction increases in the near future, the amount of energy (from oil) available for society may decline because of declining Ero(E)I and declining oil quality.
So, even if in the (near) future the gross oilproduction increases, less energy from it can be available for society because a lot more energy is needed for extraction and refinery.

The end…
Because of a unique combination of properties of (especially good quality) oil, it will be very difficult to compensate for (especially good quality) oil with alternatives.
Abundant (cheap) good quality oil is almost a form of free energy.

But the era of cheap energy is coming to an end, in my view very quickly. The turning point has arrived. A new energy reality has arrived where in my opinion the regular (classic) ecomic rules don’t work anymore (loose their value, meaning), but that’s a different story.

Gross oilproduction, ERO(E)I and Net energy. Part 2

  By ruud | October 1, 2010 - 16:34 |
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PART 2

NET ENERGY and oil quality
Net energy is often viewed as a broader concept then ERoEI, which besides the ERoEI also takes into account the quality of the oil.
The oil has to be transformed into a certain petroleum product to make use of it.
Good quality oil is oil which can be refined into a relatively high amount (quantity) of an important petroleum product (b.e. gasoline, diesel etc.).
A barrel of bad quality oil can (by example) contain the same amount of btu’s as a barrel of good quality oil, but more btu’s are lost when the barrel of bad quality oil is refined into an important petroleum product. Or in other words, a lesser quantity of an important petroleum product can be made from a barrel of bad quality oil.

LIGHT SWEET OIL
The best oil is the so called LIGHT SWEET CRUDE OIL, because out of one barrel of light sweet oil the highest quantity of gasonline can be made! And light sweet crude contains a very low quantity of Sulphur. It costs extra energy to remove all the Sulphur from the oil.

More about energy in PART 3 (some general remarks)

Gross oilproduction, ERO(E)I and Net energy. Part 1

  By ruud | October 1, 2010 - 15:04 |
6 Comments

Because of its length I divided this subject into three parts:

Part one: ERoEI

Part two: Net Energy

Part three: some general remarks

Maybe the subject is a little bit boring for a lot of people, but in my view the subject is important enough to write about it (especially in ‘Overthepeak’). And excuses for my bad English. I hope that my English is sufficiently clear.

PART 1

A negative spiral. The knife cuts along several sides.
Not only the gross production of oil is important, but also the amount (units) of energy produced (extracted) per unit of energy input. Also the quality of the oil is important. Per barrel of good quality oil a relatively higher amount of important petroleum products can be made then per barrel of lesser quality oil.

EROEI: “The amount (units) of energy produced (extracted) per unit of energy input.”
A certain amount of energy (energy input) is needed to extract a certain amount of oil and transport it to the (nearest) refinery.

The energy input is often expressed in ‘barrels of oil_equivalents’. How many barrels of oil_equivalents are needed to extract a certain amount of barrels of oil.
Sometimes the BTU (a thermal unit) is used as an energy unit. How many btu’s are needed to extract a certain amount of btu’s (contained in the form of oil).

When, by example, 10 barrels of oil_equivalents are needed to extract 100 barrels of oil, the EROEI is 10 (100 : 10). One unit of Energy Input (EI) input returns 10 units of Energy output (ER).
When, by example, 6 barrels of oil_equivalents are needed to extract 100 barrels of oil, the EROEI is about 17 (100 : 6).

Difficulties in measuring EROEI:
The amount of oil extracted from the ground is relatively easy to measure.
But how to calculate the exact amount of energy input?
Mostly a certain amount of natural gas, coal or even other forms of energy input are needed to extract a certain amout of oil. But besides the direct energy input in the form of natural gas, coal, oil or whatever, there is also indirect energy input. By example how much indirect energy input was needed to make, transport and maintain the materials that are needed to extract the oil?

For many analists ERO(E)I is a very important concept:
Because it is very difficult to calculate the exact number of “EROEI”, it doesn’t mean that het EROEI concept is meaningless. On the contrary, for many analists it is a very important concept even if there is disagreement on how to calculate the exact value of EROEI.

Declining trend of the “ERO(E)I”:
“ERO(E)I of oil and natural gas decreased from 35:1 in the 1990’s to 20:1 in 2005”.
If I remember correctly, at this moment (2010) the ERoEI of oil is about 17  (17:1). This means that for every 85 million barrels of oil daily extracted, about 5 million ‘barrels of oil equivalent’ a day are needed to produce 85 million barrels a day.

Some analists claim that in the next decades there will be a 5% growth in energy input per unit of production per year (for oil, gas and coal!). If the latter becomes true, this means that the energy input per unit of production in the year 2020 will be about 1,6 times higher (1,05^10) then in 2010. If in 2010 an energy input of 5 million barrels of oil equivalents per day are needed to extract 85 million barrels of oil per day, in 2020 about 8 millions barrels of oil_equivalent per day will be needed to extract 85 million barrels of oil per day.

So, from an ERoEI perspective, in 2020 the gross production has to be about 3 million barrels a day higher then the gross production in 2010. (85 million a day in 2010, 88 million a day in 2020) to stay even in the available amount of energy for society.

Same story for other fuels and (from a RO(E)I perspective) for minerals.
The same story goes for other fossil fuels (Coal, Natural gas) and for a lot of important minerals, because the highgrade mines of many minerals are almost depleted and it costs (even with better and more efficient technology) more and more energy to mine a certain amount of an important mineral.

More and more oil, coal and natural gas are needed to extract a certain amount of oil, natural gas and coal. More and more energy is needed to mine by example 1000 ton of a mineral.

More about energy in PART 2 and PART 3.