[ExI] Wash post comment

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Thu May 17 06:08:03 UTC 2012


On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:35 PM, Jeff Davis  wrote:
> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Eugen Leitl  wrote:
>> Advanced automation will actually make EROEI worse.
>
> You sir, are an imposter.  Gene would never say such a thing.
> Everyone knows automation makes everything cheaper.
>

I think Eugen is referring to the fact that new oil resources are much
harder to process.

Quote:
Worldwide, the average EROEI of oil is down to 20:1 from its original
value of 100:1 eighty years ago. This means that our oil-fueled
economy simply has less capacity to generate wealth than it did back
then, because an increasing share of the energy that used to be
dedicated to producing goods and services is being plowed back into
securing energy.

Even more troubling than oil’s 20:1 global average is the figure for
new oil, just 5 to 1. It takes a lot of energy to drill five miles
under the ocean and pump crude back to a refinery, or to cook tar
sands to extract a usable fuel.

Wind and other renewable energy sources offer returns in the 17:1
range — still a nice income flow, but nothing like the flood we once
got from oil. Everything our economy accomplishes, including health
care, government, schools, roads, defense, repairing our aging
infrastructure and re-engineering our built environment to handle the
changed weather that oil use has given us, is going to have to be
financed from a much-diminished EROEI.
-----------


>>All nonessential activities
>> are reduced during crisis.
>
> What crisis?  The mainstream news vs cable vs internet
> competition-over-eyeballs manufactured crisis?  That one?  Puleeeeese!
>
>

The crisis that means your pension and Medicare will disappear and the
world will be forced to a permanent 'Make do with Less' environment.


BillK




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