I’ll comment on it later.
Well, you seem to like The Oil Drum, so here is one of theirlinks:
In fact, these trends can be forecasted, and frankly I think solar power might lead us back to an energy regime that resembles the '30s or even the '20s; that is, let the good times roll!
I read Raugei’s study on EROI for PVs found here:
and here’s what I gathered: the EROI of 30 is based on the electricity output of the panel across its lifetime (30 years) minus the EBPT.
However, for the electricity to be used, the energy conversion efficiency of the electricity grid has to be included, which means only a fraction of the electricity output will be available. Given that, EROI is 6.
Finally, there may be other energy inputs to consider. For example, there is a recently published book about this issue, with the authors studying solar plants in Spain. I have not read the book, but there is a review here:
“Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar Photovoltaics”
http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
The conclusion is that the EROI for the solar plants in Spain is 2.45.
“Oil prices started to skyrocket when one quarter of global supplies went into irreversible decline”
It is my understanding that only about 2-3% of the oil used in the US is used for agricultural purposes. So I don’t think we will be starving to death anytime soon.
Civilizations have survived plagues, wars, revolutions, etc. If you look at the period of 1914-1945 many european nations went through a lot of turmoil. A world war, the spanish flu, political unrest, the great depression, the second world war. And civilization survived. I don’t see how people living in the suburbs not being able to drive to the grocery whenever they are in the mood will destroy civilization if wars and plagues can’t do it.
Besides, people are smart. I assume there will be a shift towards expanded public transit or private companies that provide something akin to public transit (carpools or small passenger vans that can hold 10 people, etc). It’ll be an adjustment but people will survive. The vast majority of oil is used for personal vehicles and semis.
so my view is it’ll mostly just be a downshift in lifestyle and an inconvenience. Shipping will take longer (maybe the 2 day cross country shipping we are used to will stop), and people will have to carpool or rely on public/private transit to get to work or run errands. But we are facing other resource shortages other than oil.
According to this source,
http://www.iea.org/aboutus/faqs/oil/
during the next few years China will take up almost half of oil demand growth. The chart in this source
shows that only a fraction of oil is used for personal transport. Most of it is used for other forms of transport (including deliveries), industry, etc.
Given that, I’m guessing that much of oil worldwide is used for manufacturing and shipping, and that includes manufacturing and shipping passenger vehicles used for personal transport.
“Fossil industry is the subprime danger of this cycle”
“Orwellian Newspeak and the oil industry’s fake abundance story”
which includes references to oil growth and price.
“As cash flow flattens, major energy companies increase debt, sell assets”
Events certainly make a compelling case that peak oil is indeed almost upon us. Look what is happening at Exxon:
Their output is dropping and coming in below estimates. Clear support for the notion that peak oil is nigh.
But the thread is about ‘the end of civilization as we know it’ being the result of peak oil, and your own articles suggest that isn’t the case. For the shit to really hit the fan, there would have to be nothing to pick up the slack as oil output declines. But, from your first article:
Look at an analysis of one successful solar company:
Let that sink in. While your sources state that global oil output has slowed to just a 3% increase over the last 6 years, annual solar output is growing at 29% currently (and the rate is accelerating). The company discussed in the article is increasing their output from 1.1GW in 2013 to at least 2.5GW, ~225% increase over 4-6 years, and yet the stock is down and the article is somewhat skeptical of the company’s ability to compete in part because* it isn’t growing fast enough compared to the broader industry.*
Also keep in mind that solar output is different in nature from oil output. As oil gets sucked out of the ground, it is gone and you have to go look for another (probably more expensive) source. Build a solar panel fabrication plant and you have a nearly permanent source of output. Build another one, and you’ve doubled your output. It is cumulative. Sure, you need silicon, copper and a little silver, but those don’t present the kind of supply constraints that oil does.
The eventual effect is described in this article:
I’m not going to claim that such a revolution is not going to be disruptive or without pain- I think it will be both of those things. But it is a much better outcome than that predicted by proponents of worst case Peak Oil- the notion that the world is just going to go down the drain altogether for lack of energy.
It isn’t.
Not sure I understand your point but if meant to extrapolate current % of oil use in China for cars to either future oil use in China or worldwide oil use today, your assumptions aren’t correct. Over half of oil use in the US is for light duty vehicles (though that would include personal-type cars/trucks used in commerce) and as China grows the whole issue or problem will be if there’s a large growth in personal vehicles there.
That said, some sloganeering about oil implies that it’s almost all about cars in the world as a whole, which of course it’s not. But cars are a major use of oil worldwide. International shipping (ie literally, by ships not counting planes) is not, accounting for around 4-5% of global oil use. Moreover the scale of ships makes them particularly efficient candidates for alternative fuels, particularly natural gas. Also in part because of scale, ships use residual or heavy fuel oil. This may eventually be curtailed because of (non-CO2) pollution regulations, but as long as there is crude oil recovered, there will be some residual oil, and fewer and fewer uses for it other than ships (heavy fuel oil fired electric power plants and larger building boilers are tending to disappear in most of the world). So like farming, sea transport is very far away from being outright unsustainable for lack of oil, much further away than the car culture is.
That said, of course the economics of international supply chains are very sensitive to cost and already changing just because oil has gotten as expensive as it has so far. Further large increases could have dramatic effects. But we’re talking how to do things, not the modern world withering away for lack of oil for ships.
In general discussions like this come down in many cases to people who think it’s possible to predict the outcomes of extremely complicated systems like interaction of oil supply and demand in the distant future, and those who think it’s not. Some of the former group are well informed of current facts (others not) but one can agree all the basic facts and disagree how likely it is to make accurate predictions. I don’t think it’s possible. Very important topic, very useful if reliable predictions could be made, but I simply don’t think they can be.
But the energy return for solar power is at best 6. In an actual study of operating systems in Spain, it was less than 3. More details are given in my previous messages.
In addition, to meet various wants, we need an energy return of around 15. To meet standards equivalent to that of the U.S., which is inevitable as the civilization referred to is industrial, we will need even higher.
This is equivalent to one Saudi Arabia in new oil every three to four years.
Actually, you need lots of oil and other material resources for the manufacturing process. In fact, it’s the energy needed for the manufacturing process that pulls down the energy return. See my previous message for details.
As explained in previous messages, the transition process will take place across several decades. But U.S. shale oil is expected to peak by 2020, and extra fossil fuels will be needed for the transition.
To make matters worse, unconventional oil has low energy returns, which means the amount of new oil needed has to be even higher to meet growing energy demand plus the transition.
Given that, the only hope for this transition is to lower energy and material resource consumption for several decades, which should give us enough surplus energy and material resources for the process. But how is that possible in a global capitalist system?
Actually, my point is to show that not only are significant amounts of oil being used for industry and manufacturing worldwide (not just China) but the same oil is being used to manufacture cars driven in the U.S.
In short, we face two problems: increasing oil demand for basic needs, industry, and manufacturing, and increasing oil demand for a growing global middle class, even as demand destruction is taking place in the U.S., EU, and Japan. See the link shared earlier concerning oil consumption for these three vs. for the rest of the world.
Finally, if civilization refers to industrial civilization and a global capitalist system, then I don’t think the topic is simply about “doing things,” especially if various components not just for passenger vehicles but for various manufactured goods have to be shipped overseas.
You keep repeating this, but it just isn’t the case. Spain’s solar infrastructure was installed long ago (viewed through the lens of the rapidly-advancing solar industry). And it was mostly installed by BP, The Shittiest Corporation In History. Using Spain as a benchmark is simply inaccurate.
Could be a difference of temperament. Maybe you are a pessimist, or maybe you have some kind of stake in peak oil being especially bad, and this prevents you from processing data about how increasingly effective solar power really is. I don’t know how to change your mind, Ralfy. I’ve laid it all out repeatedly. There have been new advances just in the time we’ve been talking about this (google 3D solar cells). We will just have to agree to disagree, and see what happens.
Please prove your arguments. That is, show how the installation period and the company involved led to the results given.
The only way you can change my mind is to counter my arguments. Consider my last post on the matter here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17473293&postcount=342
The EROI of 30 is based on EBPT across lifetime. Include the efficiency of the electricity grid, and it goes down to 6. Include many other factors, and it goes down to less than 3.
Your argument is that a growing economy requires growing energy usage, or rather growing oil usage. Have you addressed how this theory does not fit the real world data? I believe even the USA has stagnating oil consumption. You are at the same level as in 1998 Denmark is at the same energy usage level as in 1989 or something. Double the economy, same energy usage.
World oil consumption has been growing. See the first chart in this article for details:
That link was shared several times in earlier messages. See also other links referring to increasing credit, demand destruction in relation to economic crisis, etc.
Why do you reply to my post when you don’t reply to anything I wrote in it? So again:
Your argument is that a growing economy requires growing energy usage, or rather growing oil usage. Have you addressed how this theory does not fit the real world data? I believe even the USA has stagnating oil consumption. You are at the same level as in 1998 Denmark is at the same energy usage level as in 1989 or something. Double the economy, same energy usage.
Mature economies having been growing for some time without a growing energy - or oil - consumption.
It’s actually longer than that, Rune. The US, in 2013, used the same amount of oil as we used in 1978!
Since 1978, the population has grown by 90 million people, real (inflation adjusted) GDP has grown from $6.4 trillion to $16 trillion… really, I could just go on.
Ralfy’s point is that the global oil consumption is growing, but he discounts the fact that oil production is growing, the shale revolution, more, because of eROI. However, eROI (like many statistics) isn’t something that is set in stone - it’s a variable term that can be affected by thousands of inputs. For example, the eROI needed to drive a 1972 Dodge Charger is far greater than the eROI needed to drive a 2014 Prius, which is greater than the eROI needed to drive a Nissan Leaf (electric car). The eROI needed for my Dad’s lawn mower was much greater than the eROI needed to power my small electric mower. To say that “Civilization needs X eROI in order to sustain itself” implies that civilization is frozen in our inputs and outputs… which is hardly the case.
I think that Ralfy brings many interesting points to the discussion and has given us (well, me at least) a lot to think about. However, the fixation on eROI and the reliance on citing the same source repeatedly, one that primarily cites himself in this link, doesn’t help his case.
Ok, ralfy. First, look at the trend in the cost of solar power. It is declining very rapidly- systems installed even a few years ago are quite a bit more expensive than today’s, and the trend continues.
Look at theprogress of solar technology. The technology is advancing very rapidly. Systems produced even a few years ago are already inferior to today’s.
See here for a chart of projected grid parity dates around the world. Grid parity is when unsubsidized solar costs equal or less to fossil alternatives. I think it is safe to say that reaching grid parity means we get the same or better return on investment from solar as from fossil fuels.
Look what UBS has to say.
Here is a brief article about why BP solar failed. They get put in the same category as Solyndra- they just weren’t that good at it. BP’s solar panels were all of 13.5% efficient. Even thin film panels are better than that today. Factories are being built right now that will mass-produce 25% efficient cells.
Also, Spain uses concentrated some concentrated solar. The advantage is that they produce power 24hrs a day. However, they are not as cost-effective. Spain’s solar system isn’t as advanced as what can be produced now, and in combination with the economic crash, people are unhappy with it and see it as a burden. The present and future of solar are different though.
There is a reference to technology being cheaper and more efficient in the same review, plus many factors to consider.
I don’t disagree with the argument that there are new technologies coming into play, but I don’t think this will be enough given the requirements of the global economy. As one recent article points out, we will need the equivalent of 40 Mb/d in new oil production during the next two decades just to maintain economic growth, or the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every five years.
To meet the demands of a growing global middle class, we will need even more than that.
Recent studies on energy returns are shared here:
Very likely, combinations of energy sources will help, but we also need to look at energy quantity. More details are found in my previous posts.
Real world data shows that world oil consumption has been growing. You are only referring to the U.S. More details are found in the link shared in my previous post.
Oil consumption for the U.S., EU, and Japan are dropping because of economic problems, but their GDPs are growing because of increased credit creation (e.g., bailouts).
The implication is that although one can make an economy grow by simply creating more credit, the real economy can only grow if more goods and produced and sold, and that requires increasing use of energy and material resources.
The connections between oil use and economic growth are discussed here:
