Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) shapes our
lives. ERoEI says it takes energy
– mining, drilling, refining, transporting – to get the energy we use.
A paper
recently published in Energy Policy by Ferrucio Ferroni and Robert J. Hopkirk
and titled Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic
solar systems in regions of moderate insolation. They used a similar
methodology thart Charles Hall and Pedro Prieto used in their study for 4 GW in
Spain. That is, they considered not only the usual energy inputs for modules
and its components and/or some immediate accesories to them, but also some
societal sine qua non energy input expenses for solar systems and concludes
that in these regions (countries like Germany and Switzerland), the EROI is
0.85:1.
Scientific studies show it takes
years to payback the energy used in solar electric devices. EROI (Energy
Returned on Energy Invested) says it takes energy – mining, drilling, refining,
transporting, installing, maintenance, and replacement parts – to make the
devices necessary to capture solar energy.
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution:
The Energy Return on Investment by Prieto, Pedro A., Hall, Charles 2013.
http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-1-4419-9436-3
and http://energyskeptic.com/2013/tilting-at-windmills-spains-solar-pv/
and Book Review: Energy
in Australia - Peak Oil, Solar Power, and Asia’s Economic Growth by Graham Palmer
http://www.springer.com/energy/renewable+and+green+energy/book/978-3-319-02939-9
Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution
presents the first complete energy analysis of a large-scale, real-world
deployment of photovoltaic (PV) collection systems representing 3.5 GW of
installed, grid-connected solar plants in Spain. Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of
solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny
climate. Germany’s EROI is probably 20
to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop
installations.
“Solar advocates can learn from
this analysis . . . “ Not looking at the
reality of EROI “is not good science and leads to wasted money and energy that
could have been better spent preparing more wisely for declining fossil fuels
in the future.”
This study does not detail the
environmental destructive mining, toxic chemicals or air and water pollution
necessary to get the materials for manufacturing and installing solar
devices. It is the sun not the devices
that is renewable, green and sustainable.
Here are some ERoEI calculations for selected energies.
EROI (for US) Fuel
1.3 Biodiesel
3.0 Bitumen
tar sands
1.3 Ethanol
corn
6.8 Photovoltaic
5.0 Shale
oil
1.6 Solar
collector
1.9 Solar
flat plate
18.0 Wind
This study puts photovoltaics much lower and is the most
recent and peer reviewed.
It is important to understand that the “renewable” energies
like wind use lots of fossil fuels to mine, process, manufacture, transport,
assemble and do multiple maintenances during the year. They have an estimated 20-year life
span. Where will the energy come
from to manufacture the next batch?
They do not reproduce themselves like a horse or an oak tree.
See:
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/machines-making-machines-making.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/01/energy-in-real-world.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/thruanotherlens.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-small-fan.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-hammer-looking-for-nail.html
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2013/11/to-die-for.html
The way it works is you give me $20 and I give you $1 in return
for 20 years. Of course, if there is inflation (part replacement) then I
must adjust my payment to you accordingly.
We must aim for a simpler lifestyle. I know I am whistling
into the wind but it is not my world but yours and if have children, your
children's.
Even the electricity from the Becker, Minnesota, plant
requires not just coal but diesel to run the huge trucks, scoops for mining and
three 100 car trains to bring the coal.
Here is just one of the trucks used for coal and copper. Copper being critical for the way we live. It is one of the smaller ones.
See:http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/machines-making-machines-making.html
MT5500 statistics include a gross vehicle weight of over 1,100,000 pounds. The truck
is 46 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 24 feet tall. The MT5500 house's a 16 cylinder,
3000 horsepower engine requiring 264 quarts of oil and consumes fuel at the rate of
137 gallons per engine/hour. 21/2 Gallons a minute or over 1 Gallon every 30
seconds !
“The EROI for oil in the US during the heydays of oil development in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in the 1930s was about 100 returned for one invested. . . . declining to about 20:1 in the first half decade of the 2000s.”
The shale oil ERoEI is around 1 to 5; this is the minimum needed to maintain life as we know it. However, the decline rate of an individual well in the region is very high, and thus the industry has to continue to drill wells at a rapid rate, just to replace the decline.
“From Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll: Red Queen ‘It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place’ "
Presently the estimated breakeven price for the “average” well in the Bakken formation in North Dakota is $80 - $90/Bbl. In plain language this means that presently the commercial profitability for new wells is barely positive.
The “average” well now yields around 85,000 Bbls during the first 12 months of production and then experiences a year over year decline of 40% (+/-) 2% .
Easily accessible oil peaked in 2005. We now are finding only the hardest to
retrieve and lowest ERoEI in the oceans, the artic, in shale, in tar
sands. It endangers the
environment now and for your grandchildren’s future.
We will do anything and everything to maintain our present
personal level of energy use and the comfort it affords us. We will do anything and everything to
the earth, to other people, and even to ourselves to continue on this path. The
proof of this assertion is simple; we are doing it.
