Excellent discussion of return on investment, but not in currency units, but biophysical-energy units. In my opinion, this is the essential blindness of today's current economic paradigm, that monetary ROI is the only one. This also brings to light another crucial paradigm for ROI: social return on investment.
This was a good episode for those who want to learn more about EROI and systems thinking. However, I have a couple of criticisms. Background: I only got onto peak oil and EROI in 2008 so I have only been working and writing on this for fifteen years. I started blogging about using our most efficient engine - the human body - as a replacement for fossil fuel engines at about this time and wrote two books on this solution soon after. My graduate degree is in physical anthropology so I have some credibility in this area. The bottom line is that replacing machine labor with manual labor significantly reduces the energy inputs into every human activity. You do not need to use computer modeling and produce reams of numbers to verify this OR to use more manual labor in your daily life. Even before making the paradigm shift to using EROI and thermodynamic metrics to develop alternatives, I had been working on other alternatives, like food cooperatives, for fifty years. Pérez has come to the same conclusion, and talks about local cooperatives in Valladolid, even though he took a different path to get there. Kudos to him for thinking about solutions. So many of Nate's guests have no solutions. My criticism of Pérez' methodology and of systems work in general is that: 1) one cannot exclude embedded energy in the grid (and I think he is including the entropy of the grid itself due to the resistance of the wires, which is also considerable in this variable), and 2) trying to measure whole systems is flawed in concept because of the multitude of interactive variables. Keep in mind that a multivariate statistical methodology like principle components analysis requires transformation of variables into new variables and then calculating an eigenvalue which must then be normalized and fitted into a graphical representation. This is why Milford Wolpoff was so dismissive of multivariate statistics in his work on the modern human/Neandertal interface in Europe. You can contrast this with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), which can STILL be calculated using a paper and pencil. As R.A. Fisher used to say, "Give me the mean, number of specimens in the sample, and the variance and I don't need to see the data to provide meaningful conclusions." So here's the analogy. Just like ANOVA, a paradigmatic look at the data can provide solutions, without systems thinking and without extensive computer modeling and datasets. And what is the paradigmatic view? Simply put, we use energy for everything. If we use our most efficient engine (the human body) and reduce our inputs of energy, we will be able to adapt in the face of the multiple crises we face. I first got onto this over fifty years ago without knowing anything about EROI or systems thinking. I came to the same conclusions as Pérez about working locally and expanding the cooperative idea long ago. It is good that Pérez' and Nate are both thinking that way, but I now see systems thinking as an impediment. So much time is spent gathering data and focusing on convincing people that practical solutions die from lack of funding. Instead of funding yet another department focused on systems thinking, the university should be subsidizing small-scale sustainable farmers that are actually working on solutions AND adapting to the new normal. Spain is already covered with so many energy intensive greenhouses you can see them from space. We need more low-energy solutions - in Spain and everywhere else. Nate is striving mightily to change the economic paradigm from price to biophysical limits and I applaud him for that. However, he is likely to suffer the same fate. as Daly and Costanza, i.e. indifference and rejection. If he were ever to make a significant dent in the economic sphere, he would promptly be canceled. Dieoff is something that everyone needs to consider. If you go through the paradigms, narratives and even the numbers and then reject it, fine. But I have been studying it for over fifty years and I don't see how a Great Simplification can proceed without dieoff. We have been in overshoot for several decades. Consider this: a complex society could simplify if we had enough fossil fuel energy and the air, water and soil were not so degraded. A hypercomplex society cannot. Even if you recognize the built-in stopping mechanisms that are a feature of a hypercomplex society or hypercomplex cells in the cerebral cortex, these stopping mechanisms ensure dieoff, not just reduced complexity. Yes, we need more cooperatives on the ground. But how many of you are actually working on them?
We somehow tend to believe we can fix elementary emotional disconnection and lack of involvement with enough data. But data does not build relationships and the will to change.
Nate! A channel called "Just have a think" made a video attempting to debunk claims made on this show. Wondering if you could address it in a frankly episode. Love you, Nate.
Saw it. I like that channel but (mostly) disagree w that particular video. Lots of these things work “in theory” if rest of system stays constant- which it doesn’t. No time for anything dedicated however. Thank you
@@thegreatsimplification Thank you very much for your reply Nate. I want to thank you for the work you do, and do so well. I also want to thank you for the ways you open up about ways that you struggle as a human. This gives me hope because if you struggle with this stuff (existentially) then of course we are all going to. 🙏
@@thegreatsimplificationYeah, I saw that recent episode as well. I suspect this Just Have A Think guy would flounder in a Just Have A Debate on your podcast. He seems to be the point man in a well funded research/propaganda think tank.
Thank you both! I’ve used MEDEAS before as a conversation starter with tech people I work with as it presents the current predicament in a language they are comfortable with. Really wish there was greater funding for your team as it’s so important that the dynamism of our energy future be acknowledged and then proper planning done
Thank you so much Nate for this interview with Iñigo. Biophysical System Dynamics is such an important yet maligned paradigm of thought. Perhaps because it's hard, more likely because it reveals some truths many would rather sweep under the carpet!
An interesting conversation. For some time now I’ve reading, following on social media and UA-cam the debates of FF’ers versus RE’ers regarding EROI (& EROEI) and it became evident over time this was becoming more complex to define as the arguments have gone on. Energy’s input to EROI becomes more and more difficult to isolate in a product, in this case: Coal, Oil, Gas and Nuclear Plants versus PVP’s, WT’s, GSB’s, (USB’s) Hydrogen etc. especially when integrated into systems. From your conversation with Iñigo Capellán Pérez it again became evident just how difficult the subject is. Hopefully you’ll invite Iñigo back in the not too distant future to continue discussion along the lines he’s suggested: net energy assessment of hydrogen and sustainable potential of RE. Believe it was Vaclav Smil who’ attributed with saying: “Scale and Complexity”, will be the challenges in transitioning from FF to a RE Civilisation in pursuit of Net Zero Carbon by 2050, how right he’s proving to be🤔
I wrote and discussed this topic a lot back in the early 2000s. I probably wrote a books worth of material on the Peak Oil forums, it inspired me to get back into higher education in my 30s!
Hello Nate, great interview. I write you because very recently an economist said that the growth of companies and consumption was reactivating the economy and the increase in what people earned was greater than the increase in inflation. I told him that surely some professionals or specialized workers could earn more, but he told him that he did not know if the unskilled workers would have an increase in wages that reached that population. I did some research and some data told me that since 2000 inflation was multiplied by 2, the same type of health insurance was multiplied by 6. I also told him why the adjustment for inflation is always taken and there is no adjustment for citizen income. I know that it is a complex and laborious job but I would like it if someone like you who lives in the US, and manage a lot of information, can show us the differences between society in the 2000s and today. Greetings and I always follow you from Argentina.
This is a great guest and thanks for doing another video on EROI i am really looking into this and find it fascinating. Will society only survive by staying on fossil fuels as long as we are royally screwed anyway then why not throw everything in renewable energy at this problem and at least go down the toilet trying or will the social disorder caused by legislating consumption cause the collapse of the economic system before that
It will be easy to do. The hard part is escaping from the arbitrary system of monetary measurement of inputs and outputs. This inequitable and criminally inefficient social order was built and is maintained by the underlying and overarching system of monetary "creation" and manipulation. We will not be rid of social, material and political inequality until this is recognized and understood. Media, education and government protect, reenforce, and maintain this disorder of waste and imbalance while obscuring, burying and even criminalizing sane alternatives.
@@MagnumInnominandum Very nice summation! I think the feudal and chattel slave systems were only overcome by creating a monetary system where human energy extraction was possible by way of forcing/manipulation of the currency rather than the humans directly. Humans are dreadfully greedy.
The ever-growing hegemony of monied interests, coupled with governmental collusion, conjures up a future world where the poor and dispossessed will be "reluctantly"sacrificed for the benefit of the "whole". It is good to be old.
@@MagnumInnominandum No it isn't easy to do. It's extremely expensive, especially in energy and biophysical terms. The material resources and pollution created by transition has to be accounted for, and also how you can perform a wholesale reconstruction of the infrastructure while still using the old infrastructure to keep the existing system going.
I could find nothing out about "Janet Diam" and "Colabs" (That was what the caption said.) Is that a book? Did I get that wrong? What I heard reminded me of Dr. Samuel Alexander's book "Wild Democracies". I am surprised that you, Nate, have, to the best of my knowledg,e not mentioned him. (Or, of course, Ralph Borsodi, as you keep approaching decentralism.). AH! Maybe the name was Jared Diamond. I'll look again. That was it. Sorry to bother you. Great interview.
While there is too much debate over how to measure EROEI. The difference between using net energy and EROEI. Using net energy ignores the size of the energy industry. It is important to maintain a high EROEI in order that the energy industry stays a support industry not an all consuming industry as is a real probability if the focus becomes net energy.
59:00 Jared Diamond's book Collapse (and Guns, Germs and Steel 1997) is what started me on my Collapse (2006) journey. In 2008, I found out about methane clathrates (and even methane hydrates). I'm a Chemist so it was a gut punch. Yeah, game over already. The cake is baked. Prof. Diamond gets a bad rap as being too hopium. I watched a recent interview with him and he said he does have a "prepper" room (like I do).
1:04:00 Sadly inadvertent H2 gas leaks cause more atmospheric warming because the H cations bind to free OH anions that could help break down CO2, CH4, NOX and SOX. Oh well.
Talking of EROIE on primary energy for fossil energies is quite strange. Isn't there a definition of final energy return on invested energy? Fossil fuels are very lossy to provide efficient energy.
There are not enough metals and minerals to replace fossil fuels for more than a small portion of the current population. This means fossil fuels will be used to economic depletion. Economic depletion is when the cost of supplying commodities is more than the ability to pay or the value. This is only a few decades away maybe sooner for oil. The reason is the understanding of the geological formation of commodities has been since 1950s. Few resources left to be found. The options are planned and managed economic and population decline or have economic collapse, massive migration, famine and violence forced on us by reality.
Unless fossil fuels are rapidly phased out, global warming will exceed 4 C warming with 2-3 m sea level rise by 2100. But fossil fuels are required to produce the low emissions energy production.
What is the EROI of almost zero cost Solar Energy I remember you saying that early oil was almost 100 to 1 but now it’s more like 10 to 1 or Less I’m wondering if some of the solar EROI numbers coming from Solar are at 8 to 1 and going higher and a lot of the EROI numbers for batterie are also helping put solar and wind in a different category than standard EROI measurements because the second you use fossil fuels you need to mine or drill more plus transport them. A solar panel or wind turbine just get outdated as improvements in technology make the EROI better some of the paybacks on a battery investment are less than 2 years as they replace expensive gas and diesel peaker plants . But alas I agree any conservation measures or improvements in efficiency Just pump the growth engine and we just drive bigger electric vehicles and put up larger solar panels on a bigger house
The EROI payback on batteries isn't less than 2 years. Batteries aren't an energy source. You're referring to the *economic* payback time for using PV vs using grid power. A full wide boundry EROI system analysis with give you very different numbers. Even if PV is EROI positive on the municipal level, that doesn't mean it is on an individual level even if it's currently economically advantageous.
I don't think the climate modellers are doing their best, rather it appears they are purposely making models too sensitive to CO2, potentially to continue their careers and secure funding. The climate is not a thermostat with CO2 as the controller. Such thinkint lacks intellectual rigour and quite frankly is ridiculous.
@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesignerHow much infrared radiation can CO2 absorb before it's saturated? Ridiculous is the word I chose after researching it for myself. Your thinly veiled ad hominem speaks volumes about yourself bud. Thinking a system as complex as global climate can be controlled with a single variable is in fact ridiculous
@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner WTF are you talking about? We need at least 280 ppm for plant life to thrive, you should know that. Look at the CO2 variability over time from the Vostok ice cores.
If that’s the case they seem to be following the script of Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry For The Future” it’s a great read. Nate Hagens was in conversation with him “Kim Stanley Robinson: "Climate, Fiction, and The Future" | The Great Simplification #66” - around 2 months ago🤔
It is almost like you are operating as someone who has not had an update since school. It is 2023. Oil Energy Return is LAST Century. While it is true that Less comes out of the hole per input as time goes on . . . it turned out that never mattered since it was CHEAP energy being thrown down the hole (Electricity and Gas, generally) while VALUABLE Energy (Oil) was coming out). Real deal EROI was really only about Money -- the original ROI, as it were. But at this point -- again 2023 (not last Century) Solar PV is building Solar PV. This is a positive feedback loop. The more PV built, the cheaper it gets. The cheaper it gets, the more there is built. And Solar PV can build Solar PV. Might want to do some serious updating to your thinking, modeling and mindset. Solar PV can replace Oil for Energy Inputs by replacement of ICEs (Internal Combustion Engines) with Electric Motors. No new technology or methods are even required.
@@JaseboMonkeyRex It is rough to put links on here -- youtube tends to delete the entire comment. But here are the numbers -- it is all China. Just hit any search related to "China Solar PV Electricity Generation" and you should see all these numbers come up. They are the serious players in all this -- You may know that China leads the world both in production of new Solar PV AND installation of new Solar PV. So for 2021 over 3.5% of China Electricity production came from Solar PV. They are increasing their installs at a rate of doubling every three years. Makes sense -- Solar PV is now the cheapest, fastest, cleanest new install, especially in China. So 2023 Solar PV Electricity Generation will be around 5% of their total Electricity Generation. Since it is all grid tied, we know that at least 5% of all New Solar PV is being produced by that Grid Electricity (duh, huh?). But when you dig into the details, most of their Solar PV production is in the Far West (Xinjiang region) and most of their Solar PV and Big Wind installs are the West and Northwest, as well. So much so they are saturating the Western Grid, and building export HVDC to the Eastern cities. So with all the New Silicon Production and all the New Solar PV Installs in the West -- a big chunk of the production is being powered by Solar. This will just keep building.
@@Apjooz It looks like Tar Sand Oil (Canada, Alberta) may be below 1. By the time you factor in the dirt work, gas for melting the tar, mixing it with water, pipelining it, and then down to Port Arthur, Texas for refinery, and then clean up -- this is a less than 1 number. And then the real losses begin by putting it in an Internal Combustion Engine. However, at present prices -- Tar Sands are profitable -- so on the stupidity goes.
What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Cheaper PV is not due to building more of it, it's subject to material limits both in refinement of the technology and in manufacture and material input sourcing. Solar PV certainly *could* power a solar PV plant, but that doesn't even come close to powering the full process, it certainly doesn't build itself. You need mines, refinement, factories, WORKERS, distributors, installers etc. In reality, a PV plant is going to be powered by whatever power source is most economically profitable.
I’m 70 years old and I’ve learned more in your podcasts than I did in 12 years of public schools. Thanks Nate!
Ditto here Dave
Same here. Bravo Nate and your team.
You’re 4 years ahead of me but same here.
Excellent discussion of return on investment, but not in currency units, but biophysical-energy units. In my opinion, this is the essential blindness of today's current economic paradigm, that monetary ROI is the only one. This also brings to light another crucial paradigm for ROI: social return on investment.
This was a good episode for those who want to learn more about EROI and systems thinking. However, I have a couple of criticisms. Background: I only got onto peak oil and EROI in 2008 so I have only been working and writing on this for fifteen years. I started blogging about using our most efficient engine - the human body - as a replacement for fossil fuel engines at about this time and wrote two books on this solution soon after. My graduate degree is in physical anthropology so I have some credibility in this area. The bottom line is that replacing machine labor with manual labor significantly reduces the energy inputs into every human activity. You do not need to use computer modeling and produce reams of numbers to verify this OR to use more manual labor in your daily life. Even before making the paradigm shift to using EROI and thermodynamic metrics to develop alternatives, I had been working on other alternatives, like food cooperatives, for fifty years. Pérez has come to the same conclusion, and talks about local cooperatives in Valladolid, even though he took a different path to get there. Kudos to him for thinking about solutions. So many of Nate's guests have no solutions.
My criticism of Pérez' methodology and of systems work in general is that: 1) one cannot exclude embedded energy in the grid (and I think he is including the entropy of the grid itself due to the resistance of the wires, which is also considerable in this variable), and 2) trying to measure whole systems is flawed in concept because of the multitude of interactive variables. Keep in mind that a multivariate statistical methodology like principle components analysis requires transformation of variables into new variables and then calculating an eigenvalue which must then be normalized and fitted into a graphical representation. This is why Milford Wolpoff was so dismissive of multivariate statistics in his work on the modern human/Neandertal interface in Europe. You can contrast this with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), which can STILL be calculated using a paper and pencil. As R.A. Fisher used to say, "Give me the mean, number of specimens in the sample, and the variance and I don't need to see the data to provide meaningful conclusions."
So here's the analogy. Just like ANOVA, a paradigmatic look at the data can provide solutions, without systems thinking and without extensive computer modeling and datasets. And what is the paradigmatic view? Simply put, we use energy for everything. If we use our most efficient engine (the human body) and reduce our inputs of energy, we will be able to adapt in the face of the multiple crises we face. I first got onto this over fifty years ago without knowing anything about EROI or systems thinking. I came to the same conclusions as Pérez about working locally and expanding the cooperative idea long ago. It is good that Pérez' and Nate are both thinking that way, but I now see systems thinking as an impediment. So much time is spent gathering data and focusing on convincing people that practical solutions die from lack of funding. Instead of funding yet another department focused on systems thinking, the university should be subsidizing small-scale sustainable farmers that are actually working on solutions AND adapting to the new normal. Spain is already covered with so many energy intensive greenhouses you can see them from space. We need more low-energy solutions - in Spain and everywhere else.
Nate is striving mightily to change the economic paradigm from price to biophysical limits and I applaud him for that. However, he is likely to suffer the same fate. as Daly and Costanza, i.e. indifference and rejection. If he were ever to make a significant dent in the economic sphere, he would promptly be canceled.
Dieoff is something that everyone needs to consider. If you go through the paradigms, narratives and even the numbers and then reject it, fine. But I have been studying it for over fifty years and I don't see how a Great Simplification can proceed without dieoff. We have been in overshoot for several decades. Consider this: a complex society could simplify if we had enough fossil fuel energy and the air, water and soil were not so degraded. A hypercomplex society cannot. Even if you recognize the built-in stopping mechanisms that are a feature of a hypercomplex society or hypercomplex cells in the cerebral cortex, these stopping mechanisms ensure dieoff, not just reduced complexity.
Yes, we need more cooperatives on the ground. But how many of you are actually working on them?
We somehow tend to believe we can fix elementary emotional disconnection and lack of involvement with enough data. But data does not build relationships and the will to change.
how do we find your writings? best wishes
Thank you, Iñigo and Nate👍! Great conversation😊
Nate! A channel called "Just have a think" made a video attempting to debunk claims made on this show. Wondering if you could address it in a frankly episode. Love you, Nate.
Yes that would be good, I don't like hopium
Saw it. I like that channel but (mostly) disagree w that particular video. Lots of these things work “in theory” if rest of system stays constant- which it doesn’t. No time for anything dedicated however. Thank you
@@thegreatsimplification Thank you very much for your reply Nate. I want to thank you for the work you do, and do so well. I also want to thank you for the ways you open up about ways that you struggle as a human. This gives me hope because if you struggle with this stuff (existentially) then of course we are all going to. 🙏
@@thegreatsimplificationYeah, I saw that recent episode as well. I suspect this Just Have A Think guy would flounder in a Just Have A Debate on your podcast. He seems to be the point man in a well funded research/propaganda think tank.
@@leonsapplWhat’s an ice vehicle? A Zamboni?
I like the concept of local/regional energy communities/co-ops. The food distribution co-op works really well in my locality.
Thank you both!
I’ve used MEDEAS before as a conversation starter with tech people I work with as it presents the current predicament in a language they are comfortable with.
Really wish there was greater funding for your team as it’s so important that the dynamism of our energy future be acknowledged and then proper planning done
Thank you so much Nate for this interview with Iñigo. Biophysical System Dynamics is such an important yet maligned paradigm of thought. Perhaps because it's hard, more likely because it reveals some truths many would rather sweep under the carpet!
An interesting conversation. For some time now I’ve reading, following on social media and UA-cam the debates of FF’ers versus RE’ers regarding EROI (& EROEI) and it became evident over time this was becoming more complex to define as the arguments have gone on. Energy’s input to EROI becomes more and more difficult to isolate in a product, in this case: Coal, Oil, Gas and Nuclear Plants versus PVP’s, WT’s, GSB’s, (USB’s) Hydrogen etc. especially when integrated into systems. From your conversation with Iñigo Capellán Pérez it again became evident just how difficult the subject is. Hopefully you’ll invite Iñigo back in the not too distant future to continue discussion along the lines he’s suggested: net energy assessment of hydrogen and sustainable potential of RE. Believe it was Vaclav Smil who’ attributed with saying: “Scale and Complexity”, will be the challenges in transitioning from FF to a RE Civilisation in pursuit of Net Zero Carbon by 2050, how right he’s proving to be🤔
Thank you for this discussion!
I wrote and discussed this topic a lot back in the early 2000s. I probably wrote a books worth of material on the Peak Oil forums, it inspired me to get back into higher education in my 30s!
Hello Nate, great interview.
I write you because very recently an economist said that the growth of companies and consumption was reactivating the economy and the increase in what people earned was greater than the increase in inflation. I told him that surely some professionals or specialized workers could earn more, but he told him that he did not know if the unskilled workers would have an increase in wages that reached that population.
I did some research and some data told me that since 2000 inflation was multiplied by 2, the same type of health insurance was multiplied by 6.
I also told him why the adjustment for inflation is always taken and there is no adjustment for citizen income.
I know that it is a complex and laborious job but I would like it if someone like you who lives in the US, and manage a lot of information, can show us the differences between society in the 2000s and today.
Greetings and I always follow you from Argentina.
Thanks once again. As someone who lives in South Australia which is planning on going very big in hydrogen, I look forward to the return conversation.
This is a great guest and thanks for doing another video on EROI i am really looking into this and find it fascinating. Will society only survive by staying on fossil fuels as long as we are royally screwed anyway then why not throw everything in renewable energy at this problem and at least go down the toilet trying or will the social disorder caused by legislating consumption cause the collapse of the economic system before that
Growing, growing, gone! We are going to have a very difficult time with the paradigm shift away from growth to stable state economy and energy use.
It will be easy to do. The hard part is escaping from the arbitrary system of monetary measurement of inputs and outputs. This inequitable and criminally inefficient social order was built and is maintained by the underlying and overarching system of monetary "creation" and manipulation. We will not be rid of social, material and political inequality until this is recognized and understood. Media, education and government protect, reenforce, and maintain this disorder of waste and imbalance while obscuring, burying and even criminalizing sane alternatives.
@@MagnumInnominandum Very nice summation!
I think the feudal and chattel slave systems were only overcome by creating a monetary system where human energy extraction was possible by way of forcing/manipulation of the currency rather than the humans directly. Humans are dreadfully greedy.
The ever-growing hegemony of monied interests, coupled with governmental collusion, conjures up a future world where the poor and dispossessed will be "reluctantly"sacrificed for the benefit of the "whole". It is good to be old.
@@MagnumInnominandum No it isn't easy to do. It's extremely expensive, especially in energy and biophysical terms. The material resources and pollution created by transition has to be accounted for, and also how you can perform a wholesale reconstruction of the infrastructure while still using the old infrastructure to keep the existing system going.
What's the vertical axis (y-axis) on the graph? and what units?
Models without EROI is insane. 😮
I could find nothing out about "Janet Diam" and "Colabs" (That was what the caption said.) Is that a book? Did I get that wrong? What I heard reminded me of Dr. Samuel Alexander's book "Wild Democracies". I am surprised that you, Nate, have, to the best of my knowledg,e not mentioned him. (Or, of course, Ralph Borsodi, as you keep approaching decentralism.). AH! Maybe the name was Jared Diamond. I'll look again. That was it. Sorry to bother you. Great interview.
Jared Diamond is the Author.
@@dankoepp68 Thanks. I figured that out. I was mislead and confused by the subtitles..
While there is too much debate over how to measure EROEI. The difference between using net energy and EROEI. Using net energy ignores the size of the energy industry. It is important to maintain a high EROEI in order that the energy industry stays a support industry not an all consuming industry as is a real probability if the focus becomes net energy.
Hey Nate could you share a link to Iñigo‘s research?
See show notes! Always there -every episode: www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/78-iigo-capelln-prez
Cute owl 🦉 shirt!
59:00 Jared Diamond's book Collapse (and Guns, Germs and Steel 1997) is what started me on my Collapse (2006) journey. In 2008, I found out about methane clathrates (and even methane hydrates). I'm a Chemist so it was a gut punch. Yeah, game over already. The cake is baked. Prof. Diamond gets a bad rap as being too hopium. I watched a recent interview with him and he said he does have a "prepper" room (like I do).
my name is Iñigo...
1:04:00 Sadly inadvertent H2 gas leaks cause more atmospheric warming because the H cations bind to free OH anions that could help break down CO2, CH4, NOX and SOX. Oh well.
I love how Inigo has the map of Skyrim on his door.
Talking of EROIE on primary energy for fossil energies is quite strange. Isn't there a definition of final energy return on invested energy? Fossil fuels are very lossy to provide efficient energy.
Think of the energy needed for the entire corn to ethanol channel. Food for fuel. In a world of 8 billion.
On Hawai’i Island, we have five volcanoes. The steam is free and will be free from 1-2 million years.
Because the rain in Spain falls.., um, or the lack of rain is forcing people to think.
He mentioned food as part of the mitigation..
There are not enough metals and minerals to replace fossil fuels for more than a small portion of the current population. This means fossil fuels will be used to economic depletion. Economic depletion is when the cost of supplying commodities is more than the ability to pay or the value. This is only a few decades away maybe sooner for oil. The reason is the understanding of the geological formation of commodities has been since 1950s. Few resources left to be found.
The options are planned and managed economic and population decline or have economic collapse, massive migration, famine and violence forced on us by reality.
All business plans begin to fail when oil goes over $80 a barrel.
We can get far better results via electricity and hydrogen.
Unless fossil fuels are rapidly phased out, global warming will exceed 4 C warming with 2-3 m sea level rise by 2100. But fossil fuels are required to produce the low emissions energy production.
What is the EROI of almost zero cost Solar Energy I remember you saying that early oil was almost 100 to 1 but now it’s more like 10 to 1 or Less I’m wondering if some of the solar EROI numbers coming from Solar are at 8 to 1 and going higher and a lot of the EROI numbers for batterie are also helping put solar and wind in a different category than standard EROI measurements because the second you use fossil fuels you need to mine or drill more plus transport them. A solar panel or wind turbine just get outdated as improvements in technology make the EROI better some of the paybacks on a battery investment are less than 2 years as they replace expensive gas and diesel peaker plants . But alas I agree any conservation measures or improvements in efficiency Just pump the growth engine and we just drive bigger electric vehicles and put up larger solar panels on a bigger house
The cost of making a solar panel or wind turbine is the destruction of the natural environment. That's all.
The EROI payback on batteries isn't less than 2 years. Batteries aren't an energy source. You're referring to the *economic* payback time for using PV vs using grid power. A full wide boundry EROI system analysis with give you very different numbers. Even if PV is EROI positive on the municipal level, that doesn't mean it is on an individual level even if it's currently economically advantageous.
I don't think the climate modellers are doing their best, rather it appears they are purposely making models too sensitive to CO2, potentially to continue their careers and secure funding. The climate is not a thermostat with CO2 as the controller. Such thinkint lacks intellectual rigour and quite frankly is ridiculous.
Ridiculous is a word normally used by people who haven't actually studied the topic.
@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesignerHow much infrared radiation can CO2 absorb before it's saturated? Ridiculous is the word I chose after researching it for myself. Your thinly veiled ad hominem speaks volumes about yourself bud. Thinking a system as complex as global climate can be controlled with a single variable is in fact ridiculous
@@Rawdiswar lol. Why don't you type out how much is too much then?
@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner WTF are you talking about? We need at least 280 ppm for plant life to thrive, you should know that. Look at the CO2 variability over time from the Vostok ice cores.
@@leonsappl Do you have an academic background?
Nate, read that US and EU openly considering geoengineering. Beyond foolish IMO
If that’s the case they seem to be following the script of Kim Stanley Robinson’s “The Ministry For The Future” it’s a great read. Nate Hagens was in conversation with him “Kim Stanley Robinson: "Climate, Fiction, and The Future" | The Great Simplification #66” - around 2 months ago🤔
It is almost like you are operating as someone who has not had an update since school.
It is 2023. Oil Energy Return is LAST Century. While it is true that Less comes out of the hole per input as time goes on . . . it turned out that never mattered since it was CHEAP energy being thrown down the hole (Electricity and Gas, generally) while VALUABLE Energy (Oil) was coming out). Real deal EROI was really only about Money -- the original ROI, as it were.
But at this point -- again 2023 (not last Century) Solar PV is building Solar PV. This is a positive feedback loop. The more PV built, the cheaper it gets. The cheaper it gets, the more there is built. And Solar PV can build Solar PV. Might want to do some serious updating to your thinking, modeling and mindset. Solar PV can replace Oil for Energy Inputs by replacement of ICEs (Internal Combustion Engines) with Electric Motors. No new technology or methods are even required.
And I would argue that since oil is mostly an energy carrier now an energy return of 1 for oil is plenty good.
Care to share some references ? And I'm genuinely curious , please share where they are manufacturing solar PV cells with solar energy.
@@JaseboMonkeyRex It is rough to put links on here -- youtube tends to delete the entire comment. But here are the numbers -- it is all China. Just hit any search related to "China Solar PV Electricity Generation" and you should see all these numbers come up. They are the serious players in all this -- You may know that China leads the world both in production of new Solar PV AND installation of new Solar PV. So for 2021 over 3.5% of China Electricity production came from Solar PV. They are increasing their installs at a rate of doubling every three years. Makes sense -- Solar PV is now the cheapest, fastest, cleanest new install, especially in China. So 2023 Solar PV Electricity Generation will be around 5% of their total Electricity Generation. Since it is all grid tied, we know that at least 5% of all New Solar PV is being produced by that Grid Electricity (duh, huh?). But when you dig into the details, most of their Solar PV production is in the Far West (Xinjiang region) and most of their Solar PV and Big Wind installs are the West and Northwest, as well. So much so they are saturating the Western Grid, and building export HVDC to the Eastern cities. So with all the New Silicon Production and all the New Solar PV Installs in the West -- a big chunk of the production is being powered by Solar. This will just keep building.
@@Apjooz It looks like Tar Sand Oil (Canada, Alberta) may be below 1. By the time you factor in the dirt work, gas for melting the tar, mixing it with water, pipelining it, and then down to Port Arthur, Texas for refinery, and then clean up -- this is a less than 1 number. And then the real losses begin by putting it in an Internal Combustion Engine. However, at present prices -- Tar Sands are profitable -- so on the stupidity goes.
What you're saying makes absolutely no sense. Cheaper PV is not due to building more of it, it's subject to material limits both in refinement of the technology and in manufacture and material input sourcing. Solar PV certainly *could* power a solar PV plant, but that doesn't even come close to powering the full process, it certainly doesn't build itself. You need mines, refinement, factories, WORKERS, distributors, installers etc. In reality, a PV plant is going to be powered by whatever power source is most economically profitable.