Hello, I am Tom Wayburn. Some of you may remember me from Running on Empty 2, Energy Resources, Energy Round Table, or even Jay Hanson's America 2.0. I have just joined (or possibly rejoined) this forum after writing, arguing, and complaining elsewhere. Lately, I have been uploading papers to academia.edu for better or worse and to ResearchGate where a lively discussion is going on regarding the meaning of and the possibility of sustainability. Also, equally confident scholars on both sides discuss anthropogenic global warming (AGW) with absolutely no one changing sides - ever. I come to this forum with a way to compute the well-known energy returned over energy invested (ERoEI) datum in such way that if it is no less than 1.0 we have a sustainable alternative energy technology; but, if it is less than 1.0, we do not have truly renewable energy. To do this, I have to include some items in the energy-invested term that are normally omitted, namely, the energy equivalents corresponding to the living expenses of every person whose life depends either directly or indirectly upon his or her dedication to keeping the alternative energy flowing. Energy isn't just one thing out of many. Energy is [i]everything[/i]. I hope I am forgiven this figure of speech, because no matter how important we think energy is, it is probably more important than that.
Let us indulge ourselves in a little thought experiment: Suppose a very special community occupies a portion of the Earth's surface where repositories of every element needed for the manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, and moth-balling of an alternative energy installation. In addition, it has whatever additional repositories are needed to feed, clothe, shelter, keep healthy, preserve from drudgery, entertain, and elevate spiritually. These are finite repositories although most of them are extremely large. Out of each repository a reasonably sized storehouse is kept at steady state, making up for such deficiencies of recycling as are bound to occur by drawing from the surrounding repository sufficiently slowly that the repositories will not reach the analogy to Peak Oil for some agreed upon length of time in excess of 1000 years certainly and maybe much longer under NO GROWTH.
The people of the community possess all of the expertise necessary to keep the energy flowing and to manage precisely whatever else is needed to support the people who manage the energy technology, although they needn't be specialists.
The sun shines on the community and the junk heat radiates to deep space. Other than this nothing crosses the boundary of the community (thought of now as a region) except possibly energy that is exported free of charge to the neighboring regions. If ERoEI is greater than 1.0, there is some net energy available for export. (The reason it is free of charge in this thought experiment is that I don't want to be concerned with anything coming back.)
The entire community produces energy and nothing but energy; therefore, everything consumed and everything produced (except the net energy) within the community is overhead for producing energy and belongs in the energy-invested term. In this figment of our imaginations, we have no control over what the members of the community produce and consume.
Now, here comes the punch line: If we should run into an engineering study in which an ERoEI is computed by a methodology that can be applied to our thought experiment, we may take the results of the study seriously. If the methodology is lacking in any important respect, it is probably not trustworthy.
I'll give an example of an omission of a component of sustainability that can be missing with only a slight concern. Suppose the analyst does not include the energy costs of restoring the plant site to its pristine natural beauty in case the plant is shut down or moved for one reason or another. The operators of the plant can apologize for this in a number of ways. In any case, we might open up a category of near-sustainability. Of course, we wouldn't put up with the mess frackers leave behind for two minutes let alone two years.
Let us indulge ourselves in a little thought experiment: Suppose a very special community occupies a portion of the Earth's surface where repositories of every element needed for the manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, and moth-balling of an alternative energy installation. In addition, it has whatever additional repositories are needed to feed, clothe, shelter, keep healthy, preserve from drudgery, entertain, and elevate spiritually. These are finite repositories although most of them are extremely large. Out of each repository a reasonably sized storehouse is kept at steady state, making up for such deficiencies of recycling as are bound to occur by drawing from the surrounding repository sufficiently slowly that the repositories will not reach the analogy to Peak Oil for some agreed upon length of time in excess of 1000 years certainly and maybe much longer under NO GROWTH.
The people of the community possess all of the expertise necessary to keep the energy flowing and to manage precisely whatever else is needed to support the people who manage the energy technology, although they needn't be specialists.
The sun shines on the community and the junk heat radiates to deep space. Other than this nothing crosses the boundary of the community (thought of now as a region) except possibly energy that is exported free of charge to the neighboring regions. If ERoEI is greater than 1.0, there is some net energy available for export. (The reason it is free of charge in this thought experiment is that I don't want to be concerned with anything coming back.)
The entire community produces energy and nothing but energy; therefore, everything consumed and everything produced (except the net energy) within the community is overhead for producing energy and belongs in the energy-invested term. In this figment of our imaginations, we have no control over what the members of the community produce and consume.
Now, here comes the punch line: If we should run into an engineering study in which an ERoEI is computed by a methodology that can be applied to our thought experiment, we may take the results of the study seriously. If the methodology is lacking in any important respect, it is probably not trustworthy.
I'll give an example of an omission of a component of sustainability that can be missing with only a slight concern. Suppose the analyst does not include the energy costs of restoring the plant site to its pristine natural beauty in case the plant is shut down or moved for one reason or another. The operators of the plant can apologize for this in a number of ways. In any case, we might open up a category of near-sustainability. Of course, we wouldn't put up with the mess frackers leave behind for two minutes let alone two years.
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