[ExI] repercieve the economy [was: Engineering]

[ablainey at aol.com]

re: roquefort Not at all.  If you are eating roquefort only for its energy value then yes, stop eating it. There is always merit in some uneconomic activity whether that is calculated in money or energy.
The point is to change the majority emphasis from focus on tricks for collecting and generating more worthless paper to a focus on efficiency and innovation.
The chain you mention and more so in my example where the tanker is resold again and again; is designed to maximise profit at every point. Profit in terms of cash. If the energy efficiency=profit then maximising it automatically makes it pointless to have long chains. Producer to supplier becomes most profitable to everyone. The point being It makes middlemen uneconomic.

There is nothing to actually stop me being inefficient and I could have many reasons to do it. To someone that needs a specific type of fuel, extracting it at an uneconomic energy cost may still be worth it if he really needs to run something.
Also, today why should I take time cutting wood for the stove when I can use cheap gas to heat the house? Sometimes the uneconomic activity is worth the freedom, independence and resilience that a private source gives. 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Sat, 22 Dec 2012 10:50
Subject: Re: [ExI] repercieve the economy [was: Engineering]


On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 9:34 AM,  <ablainey at aol.com> wrote:

Take an undefined & inefficient
> collection method where a physical energy source is put in a tanker ready
> for market. The eroei can be less than parity yet you still have a salable
> product which someone will buy. That product can change hands many times
> each adding a markup and taking their cut. By the time it gets to the end
> user the total eroei for the whole system can outweigh the energy contained
> in the tanker. Yet people are still buying and others getting rich. A
> nonsense situation. Entropy in action.

### So you say adding a "markup" as oil goes from 1000 ft underground,
to a wellhead, then to terminal, then to tanker, then to refinery,
then to tank truck, then to gas station, is all nonsense? Just a
cynical ploy to exploit the brainless masses and get rich?

And why should EROEI be the key factor in deciding which economic
activity is nonsense and which one is not? Eating Roquefort releases a
tiny fraction of the energy invested in its production - does it mean
I should stop eating it?

Rafal
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