Table of Contents

On ERoEI as a Measure of Feasibility

 

ERoEI* as a Measure of Feasibility

 

Comment on Computing ER and EI

 

Why We Need the Concept of Emergy

 

Definition of Emergy

 

Five Ways to Compute ERoEI

 

Missing Components of ERoEI

 

Additional Concerns about Recycling

 

What Is the Energy Cost of Pollution?

 

The Fundamental Principle of Ecology

 

Time Delay and Spacial Separation for ERoEI

 

Renewable Energy

 

ERoEI* Redux

 

The following posts provide the easiest explanation for the shabby treatment this thesis has endured at the hands of those with a vested interest in the status quo. The truth, however, continues to be the truth.

 

Why We Need a Planned Economy

 

Not all planned economies are the same.

 

Capitalism, Marxism, and Dematerialism

 

Comment on the Austin ASPO Conference

 

Recent posts in no particular order

We Need a New Monetary System: The complete essay as far as I got

Sustainability, Quasi-Sustainability, and Feasibility

Albert Bartlett''s Exponential Lecture

Gail the Actuary almost gets it right.

My Answer

More distractions from three point sustainability platform

The Recycle Problem redux

A Discussion of Planned Economies that Began on the Google Group America 2.0

Special Characteristics [of a monetary system] Needed to Avoid Economic Collapse

Wealth sharing is necessary and philosophically correct.

Letter to Pedro A. Prieto for the Energy Resources Yahoo Group (including Denis Frith and Kermit Schlansker)

 

 

  

Pedology

 

Thank you, Erik, for providing specific conditions regarding an important ancillary requirement to achieve ERoEI* = 1.0. In fact it was the lack of a scientific theory of soil preservation that drove the invasion of the New World by our predatory ancestors and fugitives from a Europe the soil of which had been abused to the point of exhaustion. There is no more "New World"; so, pedology and other sciences are essential.

However, there is nothing like the difficulties of renewable energy which in fact subsumes pedology. We must not let those who wish to preserve the status quo prevent us from recognizing the economic changes required by the well-understood definition of sustainability by presenting imaginary complications for purposes of their own.

Perhaps they now have comfortable livings; and, therefore, wish to avoid moving on to the next political stage.

More discussion about more discussion

 

Amelia Delgado

You know I have begun to regret my latest remarks. I think you may be right and I may be wrong. Nevertheless, I can't help applauding your last suggestion, inasmuch as the pedestrian posts that play into the hands of the business-as-usual Ponzi scheme are driving me nuts.

I took a look at mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/... and you can guess that I resent the single word "Sustainability" which they have no right to employ. I regret even more the outcome of a legal action to make them stop using that word. After all, if I should go into court with mathematical evidence that proves that none of their suggestions will work but mine will, the judge should order them to cease and desist from all such claims regarding sustainability unless they are congruent with mine. Nearly every statement made on that website is a falsehood or a preamble to a falsehood.

I wish you luck in luring all the bright young well meaning and creative spirits to a new venue. And, perhaps due to your bright idea, I might move along to a political forum where sustainability is the leading political promise. Oh, please, read https://www.dematerialism.net/ to show there is no hard feelings. You can leave a comment to indicate the point where you couldn't stand any more even if it is at the end

Tom Wayburn, Chemical Engineering, BS University of Michigan, 1956, PhD University of Utah, 1980

More discussion

 

Amelia Delgado added an answer

4 hours ago

Very interesting discussion about a concept which should be straightforward for the sake of humanity. firstly a concept calls for consensus. Currently sustainability is clearly defined and linked to the SGDs (see UN documentation). yet some of the views herein presented seem more or less biased. e.g. “So I think "sustainability" is a just a buzzword that decision-makers use to excuse just any politics they want to put forward (good or bad). The word itself is often used just  as a decoration, without any true meaning. In this situation it makes little sense to define the word properly....” - at least the SDG related to responsible production and consumption is disregarded, as is the first 2R on REDUCE-REUSE and Recycle (at last); WE CANNOT afford business as usually, it is not sustainable- that means this way, our constructs (beliefs) will not perdure much longer over reality. green industrial policies and climate action is urgent .... global efforts on innovative solutions 💪 (a better utopia than insisting on business as usual, as dreams are better than nightmare, and humanity has advanced in pursuing dreams

Thomas Wayburn added an answer

22 minutes ago

Amelia Delgado

Good for you. You understand. The SDGs are absurd. They manage to sound wonderful but pin nobody down to anything by avoiding quantities. Moreover, they do not require de-growth of populations or de-growth of economies of the rich nations. Further they do not require an end to capitalism, which is your point. The 'manifesto', which conjures up the old left, most assuredly will demand political change. But it is precisely political change that I proved is necessary to achieve sustainability. Cutler Cleveland excluded me from the encyclopedia of Earth because I was "too ideological" without realizing that not to be ideological is to be ideological. Yes, there are no such claims that political change is essential to make ERoEI* greater or equal to 1.0. But, it is difficult to see how to raise it to 1.0 or greater any other way.

I believe I have proved that no economy that retains any important feature of capitalism can be sustainable. Perhaps you can prove I am wrong. If not, you will have diligently investigated the issue and found my conclusion correct. The only rational behavior is to get busy with the recommended changes as time is short.

Brainwashing in schools

 

I should first point to my admittedly sketchy notes on De-schooling in Dematerialism:

But my principal complaint is that normal class curricula never mention the limits to growth and the impossibility of perpetual growth in a finite world. Posterity is never imagined to be a territory to which everyone has an equal right. Please think about this and then think about overpopulation and why the failure to discuss it constitutes brainwashing (in the ironic sense, of course, as children’s minds need to be washed).

Community ERoEI

 

Since I was unable to find a table of the distribution of energy costs among material, labor, and expenses for various manufactured objects, I decided to select objects to pretend to manufacture according to distributions of my own choosing. My first object that I shall manufacture shall be known as (0.3, 0.3, 0.4).

Moreover, as I am indicating a methodology that is to be used on as yet unknown systems, I shall assign a separate labor cost for each labor syndicate arbitrarily in emergy units. For example, the collection of all medical doctors in the community is one syndicate and the set of all farm laborers is another. In each enterprise in which an object is manufactured for export or in which a natural byproduct is prepared for export after some portion is consumed within the community if it makes sense to do so, the fractional representation of each syndicate is associated with the fractional representation of each economic sector

in a distribution as close to optimal as a consensus permits. In a real life situation these distributions will be known from long experience and the portions to be exported will depend upon the net emergy in case ERoEI* is greater than 1.0, as it will be in the hypothetical example, inasmuch as ERoEI* < 1.0 leaves us nothing more to do except all those things I mentioned earlier to raise ERoEI* - mostly to do with altering the political economy.

Our Fatal Flaw

Undoubtedly, the human race has to overcome the inclinations that assisted survival 10,000 years ago or thereabouts but which are worse than undesirable today. Despite the difficulties of doing this (some would say improbability), the nearly impossible task of providing truly sustainable renewable energy remains to be completed. Chief among the obstacles is the difficulty of maintaining sufficiently large storehouses of vital material resources that can be replenished from the remaining world supply without drawing down the residuum faster than prudence permits. This is a physical barrier to sustainability; however, there seems to be a psychological barrier that is preventing otherwise reasonable people from adopting ERoEI* to satisfy the critical need to be able to determine if and when sustainability has been achieved. ERoEI* greater than or equal to 1.0: result = sustainability; ERoEI* < 1.0: result = unsustainability. That's it. So far, no other technique determines sustainability.

It goes without saying, of course, that sustainability does not prevent war, epidemic disease, and many other paths to extinction. It just means that the human race could survive.

 

Let me mention, either in contradistinction or in support of the fatal flaw just discussed, Albert Bartlett's famous dictum that the most serious failing of the human race is its failure to understand the exponential function.   See the blog entry  http://eroei.net/bartlettexp.mp4 
or http://eroei.net/bartlettexp.wmv

Net energy analysis for Mark III economy

 

Since I was unable to find a table of the distribution of energy costs among material, labor, and expenses for various manufactured objects, I decided to select objects to pretend to manufacture according to distributions of my own choosing. My first object that I shall manufacture shall be known as (0.3, 0.3, 0.4).

Moreover, as I am indicating a methodology that is to be used on as yet unknown systems, I shall assign a separate labor cost for each labor syndicate arbitrarily in emergy units. For example, the collection of all medical doctors in the community is one syndicate and the set of all farm laborers is another. In each enterprise in which an object is manufactured for export or in which a natural byproduct is prepared for export after some portion is consumed within the community if it makes sense to do so, the fractional representation of each syndicate is associated with the fractional representation of each economic sector

in a distribution as close to optimal as a consensus permits. In a real life situation these distributions will be known from long experience and the portions to be exported will depend upon the net emergy in case ERoEI* is greater than 1.0, as it will be in the hypothetical example, inasmuch as ERoEI* < 1.0 leaves us nothing more to do except all those things I mentioned earlier to raise ERoEI* - mostly to do with altering the political economy.

This is a brief reply to the composer of the unfortunate title to which I do not subscribe.

 

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Re: Wind & Solar Are Wrong Path Pt. 2

by TomWayburn » Mon 07 Dec 2020, 02:05:34

Assuming purveyors of wind and solar do accurate eMergy accounting in their respective sectors, I would like to compare these eMergy balances with the petroleum balance for the State of California. Perhaps renewable energy is subsidized by fossil fuels as I suspect ERoEI-star (ERoEI*) accounting might reveal. However, someday we shall have true renewable energy. That day has not yet come, I believe.