Investment Inn

Efficacy: the way to close the renewables gap

With peak oil already upon us, maintaining oil supply is akin to running up the down escalator.

Or,

as nate hagens put it at the aspo peak oil conference earlier this month, “technology is in a race with depletion and is losing (so far). “

The question is therefore urgent renewables can fill the deficit of oil depletion? Mind the gap. The most recent global selective information summarized by fuel available from the eia is, regrettably, for 2006 and only preliminary (i know they’re attempting to advance their reporting, but gravely – they need to do much better than that). But we’ll use what we’ve got. . .

In 2006, the total amount of energy the world consumed was 469 quadrillion btus, or quads. *

Whether or not the most recent selective information i gathered at the aspo peak oil conference is correct (and i think it’s, or leastways as close to, correct as anyone is going to come at this point), then we ought to suppose oil to begin declining at about 5% per year, starting around 2012-2014.

Of the 157 quads furnished by oil, a 5% decline rate will give way to 7. 85 quads lost per year, or 1. 7% of the world’s primary energy supply.

The “geothermal and other” category – providing 1. 6% of the world’s primary energy – represents all the renewable origins combined: geothermal, solar, wind, biomass, and so on.

Since 1. 7% is very close to 1. 6%, we can replace the challenge of renewable energy for oil as follows: beginning around 2012-2014, is required to build the equivalent of existing capacity in the world of renewable energy each year simply to replacing lost oil BTUs.

Luckily, renewable energy of all kinds is enjoying a massive growth spurt, attracting trillions of dollars in investment capital. On intermediate, the sector appears being growing at about 30% per year, which is phenomenal. . . But it’s not 100%.

In terms of btu substitution, then, it seems improbable that renewables can grow at the necessary rate.

Not just btus

Nonetheless, the challenge is more complex than mere btu substitution.

Replacing the infrastructure, specially transportation, that’s grounded on oil with one grounded on renewably generated electricity will in itself require energy – and a large total of it. As vail pointed out, amongst 80% and 90% of the energy inputs for renewables ought to be made up front, before they start to pay any energy out.

Even whether or not renewables were able to make up all of the lost energy from oil, still more would be needed to afford any economical growth.

In all, it seems a fair bet that it will take leastways a decade for renewables to merely catch up with the annual toll of oil depletion. The gap will likely manifest as fuel shortages in the oecd, when the manufacturing world outbids it for oil, and a long economical recession or depression. . . Unless efficacy comes to the rescue.

To that point, jeff vail, an companion with davis graham & stubbs llp, said at the conference that population increase alone could offset as much as 30% of the improvement in conservation and efficacy. He noted that in spite of the recession, car sales are up 29% in india as humans buy their very introductory cars.

Falling net energy

Another driver of the down escalator is that the world wide web energy (eroi, or energy returned on energy invested), of nearly all fossil fuel production is falling.

Dr. Cutler cleveland at boston university has observed that the world wide web energy of oil and gas extraction in the u. S. Has decreased from 100:1 in the 1930s; to 30:1 in the 1970s; to roughly 11:1 as of 2000.

Merely put: as the quality of the remaining fossil fuels declines, and they become more difficult to extract, it takes more energy to continue manufacturing energy.

This begs the question: what eroi ought to the replacements have to pay for oil depletion?

Vail staged assorted models attempting to answer it. In his optimistic scenario, assuming a 5% rate of net energy decline and an eroi of 20 for the renewables, the “renewables gap” was filled in year 3. In his pessimistic scenario, assuming a 10% rate of net energy decline and an eroi of 4 for the renewables, the gap wasn’t filled until year 7.
For a sense of how fair those assumptions are, we ought to turn to the academic creative writing of recognized artistic value – since no business or government agency has yet shown any peculiar interest in eroi studies (much to my dismay).

Studies gathered by david murphy put the average eroi of wind at 18 (kubiszewski, cleveland, and endres, 2009); solar at 6. 8 (battisti and corrado, 2005), and nuclear at 5 to 15 (lenzen, 2008; hall, 2008). No selective information is available for geothermal or marine energy. All the biofuels are beneath 2, making them non-solutions whether or not the minimum eroi for a society is indeed 3 (hall, balogh and murphy, 2009).

[a quick isolated: the huge range of the nuclear estimate is one indication of how unmanageable it’s to accurately assess the costs of nuclear, which is part of the reason i still haven't written the article i know galore of you’re hoping to see galore day. I'm working on it, and still looking for current exploration with appropriately inclusive boundaries and modified numbers. Almost everyone still uses cost estimates are prior to the start of the commodities bull, not even realizing how it distorts the analysis. So far, i have found not one thing to modify my outlook that the nuclear part of global supply will remain roughly the same for assorted decades. ]

I am not aware of any studies on the eroi of biomass not made into fluid fuels. As an example, methane digester using waste, landfill gas, and so on. . . But its origins and uses are so varied that whether or not the numbers were available, they probably wouldn’t be very useful. While such applications are in general good, they’re not very scalable: they work where they work, and don’t where they don’t. Theorem of renewables substitution

Where eroi analysis leaves us is unclear; it needs more exploration and much more selective information. There are galore useful clues in it, even though.

Introductory, we know that biofuels – leastways the ones we have today – won’t support much, other than providing an alternate source of fluid fuels while we’re making the transition to electric.

Secondly, we know that solar energy tends to the pessimistic scenario of Vail, and wind fits the bill for their optimistic scenario.

But here’s the rub: the lowest eroi source, biofuels, is the easiest to do, with the vigorous support of a huge lobby and energy secretary chu himself. Rooftop solar is the following-easiest to do. . . But making up the lost btus takes longer, because of its moderate eroi. And the source with the most eminent eroi, wind, is the most unmanageable. (i explained why solar is posing no difficulty here. )

Accordingly i propose the following, slightly snarky theorem of renewables substitution: the posing no difficulty it’s to develop a source of renewable energy, the fewer it helps.

The winner: efficacy

All of these elements – the declining supply, the pressures of the manufacturing world on demand, the renewables gap, and the theorem of renewables substitution – underscore how primary efficacy is to addressing the energy crisis.
They likewise underscore how profitable the whole energy sector will be for galore years to come.

With supply maxed out, and demand at the mercy of a manufacturing world, the name of the game now is doing more with fewer. More effective vehicles and widgets, building insulation, co-generation. . . And all the other ways to remove waste.