Friday, June 30, 2006
ER/EI
Over the past several weeks I have been rather focussed on ideas regarding Energy Return On Energy Invested, aka EROEI. I prefer the math version, ER/EI, as it is more to the point - it's a ratio created by a simple division - Take your energy return and divide it by the energy invested. ER divided by EI.
My posts have been sporadic lately as I have moved back across the country, and between the jetlag and exhaustion of re-fitting myself into a more domestic existence, I've been keeping a lower profile than usual.
In my thinking, I am wondering if the entire ER/EI question is itself something of a red herring, and that perhaps there needs to be a better understanding of how we use energy in total.
Example: Nuclear power. A limited analysis would say that nuclear power is an extremely energetic system, far in excess per pound of fuel than any other, as (X) tons of plutonium or uranium fuel = (P) watts of power, and that this ratio P/X is rather astounding, hence: Nuclear power is a good value from the understanding of that ratio.
However, as many are quick to point out, there's a lot more to nuclear power than (X) tons of fuel making (P) watts of energy, as there is the mining and processing of uranium and plutonium - an extremely energetic process. Then there is the building of a nuclear power plant; again, an energetic process. Then there is the amount of energy needed to keep the plant itself running, and the amount of energy needed to remove the fuel and dispose of it, and then, eventually dismantle the radioactive bits of plant itself. This significantly pulls a lot of value out of the X side of the X/P equation...
Then, there is what I've been looking at, which significantly impacts that X value as well, and it is what I call "secondary energy costs". What are these? In the case of Nuclear Power, there's a bunch of them. Let's look at a nuke plant in terms of: Construction, Fuel, Maintenance, Fuel Disposal, and Decomissioning. Each of these are fraught with secondary costs.
Construction
The concrete doesn't appear from nowhere. It has to be mined. The mining equipment requires energy. There are people who need to do the mining, and they have homes and families and these also require energy. The school where the kids go requires energy. The clothing the miners wear is made in factories thatrun on energy, and are shipped to stores in trucks thatuse energy, and the truck itself is made from metals that are mined by other miners who also have energy requirements. And the mining machines are made in factories that use energy and by people who also have energy needs and schools and hospitals and TV sets. And then there is the construction itself - exotic metals, concrete, rebar, all of these things require energy in their mining, processing, and construction, and each step of the way is a factory using energy, and people using energy to go to work in and live near those factories.
Fuel
The development of nuclear fuels is a hazardous and toxic process, and one that is highly energetic. It takes thousands of tons of unranium, and thousands of centrifuges running flat out for days, and huge factories full of raw and waste materials to make, process, and form the fuel for a nuclear power plant. These factories have thousands of workers, and each of them has families and homes and towns and cars and TV sets all needing energy. Then there is the fuel needed to transport the fuel to the plant, and the energy needed to build the machines that
transport and store the fuel.
Maintenance
The nuclear power plant has a crew of people - people who are engineers that keep the place running, grounds keepers keeping it nice looking, management personnel to keep things organised and running, and of course, Mr Burns who owns the plant must be kept in the lifestyle to which he has become eminently accustomed, a cleaning crew that takes out the trash and sweeps up, security personnel, and at least one guy named Homer to nap on the job as the core goes critical...
Still, all these people have homes - Homer has Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Homer has to drive to work, and that takes energy. He sucks down a foaming frosty mug of Duff Beer at Moe's Bar and the beer is transported to the bar, the bar requires energy to be built and maintained and power the neon lights, and Homer needs energy to get to Moe's, wash his clothes, get his kids to school, perm Marge's hair, etc.
This is all just part of Homer's life as a worker at the nuke plant, and each plant has many many Homers, and they all need energy as do all of Homer's friend's and acquaintances.
Fuel Disposal
Once the fuel is used up, it must be removed and disposed of, requiring no small amount of energy and effort by Homers who are hired to do this sort of thing, and who also have families and homes and cars.
Decomissioning
When the plant is done, it needs to be dismantled and disposed of, and that is also a highly energetic effort...
This deeper analysis points to an odd conclusion - that ER/EI is a relevant equation, but in a mixed fuel economy, it is functionally impossible to tease out accurate numbers, and even when these numbers are teased out, they may be of limited use. Hence ER/EI may not be the important question.
No matter what we do, we use all the energy we've got.
(Just as I typed that line, "Corsair" by Boards of Canada came on the random choice of iTunes... man is that creepy...)
I am not certain, but I am fairly well convinced that true ER/EI is not as crazy as an NP-hard problem, but due to the total inter-relatedness and dynamics of society and energy, I am fairly well convinced that an accurate ER/EI analysis is not practically possible.
This is a BIG problem. Pimentel et al have staked their authority on such analysis, and while my extension of the ER/EI analysis only serves their points that alternative energy systems sch as ethanol have very low ER/EI (and my view punches it well below 1:1) it also points out the deep and impenetrable fog at the edges of such analysis, which can be used by all sorts of people to both credit and discredit any given technology.
While symbolic system can be developed to represent these analyses (Odum et al) even these symbolic systems cave under the complexity of dynamic energy allocations and sourcings.
Example: let's say Homer drives a 1988 Chrysler Imperial to work, and it gets 15 mpg. Sure, his energy source for driving doesn't require energy from the nuclear plant, and so that energy input is not counted against X, but the pumping of the gas is, as is the electricity the gas station uses. The food may be delivered to the Springfield Safeway by truck, but the Safeway runs on electricity, and Marge's time spent shopping there uses some portion of that, and that does count against X, as the food she bys there mostly goes into Homer's gut. And the Dunkin Donuts cooks its donuts using natgas, but the rest of it operates on electricity, and Homer's donut consumption is some part of that, and that also counts against X. And then, one day, Homer replaces his gas guzzling Imperial with a plug in Hybrid, and now THAT cuts into X.
I don't see how these dynamic fluctuations can be properly accounted for in any symbolic quantitative system, especially as these dynamic systems influence each other's behaviour and output. So, Homer and a jillion other Homers get plug in hybrids. These hybrids are more efficient per watt per mile than a gas engine, so it uses fewer watts per mile travelled. Then one day, Homer figures out that he can lose some weight by riding a bike, but he's too old and fat to get over some of the hills, so he opts for an electric assist bike, which is even MORE efficient with watts per mile travelled, but is slower.
One plug-in Prius equals dozens, if not hundreds, of electric bikes, so the energy embodied and used by one plug-in Prius is radically less than the energy and material that went into building a 1986 Imperial, and the electric bikes (or even trikes) are even more radically efficient, and embody and use even less than a Prius. However, if Homer sells his Imperial and buys a 1996 Geo Metro, he will double (if not triple) his fuel mileage and rather than demand more minerals from the earth to build a new Prius, he will be re-using the minerals someone else demanded from the earth ten years previously, and, in so doing, will be doubling the use of those materials, rather than have them go to the crusher and be recycled at some future date.
The Metro aside, all these electric bikes being pedalled by the Homers at the Burns Nuclear Power Plant and all the electric bikes pedalled by the friends of all the Homers, and all the electric bikes that get the service employees for all the Homers (Moe at the bar, Apu at the QuickieMart, etc.) are powered by the nuke plant, so it affects the ER/EI of the nuke plant, but certainly less than if they had plug-in Priuses.
You get the picture - calculating the ER/EI of a given energy technology is not an exact science, and that is why I wonder if it isn't something of a red herring.
Basically, I think the question of ER/EI is critical in a general sense, but I do not believe ER/EI can ever get beyond a general or vague number, due to the dynamism and vagaries of its component structures and subsystems.
I may be an artist, and I may be insane, but I am enough of a scientist to appreciate being wrong. Please prove me so.
My posts have been sporadic lately as I have moved back across the country, and between the jetlag and exhaustion of re-fitting myself into a more domestic existence, I've been keeping a lower profile than usual.
In my thinking, I am wondering if the entire ER/EI question is itself something of a red herring, and that perhaps there needs to be a better understanding of how we use energy in total.
Example: Nuclear power. A limited analysis would say that nuclear power is an extremely energetic system, far in excess per pound of fuel than any other, as (X) tons of plutonium or uranium fuel = (P) watts of power, and that this ratio P/X is rather astounding, hence: Nuclear power is a good value from the understanding of that ratio.
However, as many are quick to point out, there's a lot more to nuclear power than (X) tons of fuel making (P) watts of energy, as there is the mining and processing of uranium and plutonium - an extremely energetic process. Then there is the building of a nuclear power plant; again, an energetic process. Then there is the amount of energy needed to keep the plant itself running, and the amount of energy needed to remove the fuel and dispose of it, and then, eventually dismantle the radioactive bits of plant itself. This significantly pulls a lot of value out of the X side of the X/P equation...
Then, there is what I've been looking at, which significantly impacts that X value as well, and it is what I call "secondary energy costs". What are these? In the case of Nuclear Power, there's a bunch of them. Let's look at a nuke plant in terms of: Construction, Fuel, Maintenance, Fuel Disposal, and Decomissioning. Each of these are fraught with secondary costs.
Construction
The concrete doesn't appear from nowhere. It has to be mined. The mining equipment requires energy. There are people who need to do the mining, and they have homes and families and these also require energy. The school where the kids go requires energy. The clothing the miners wear is made in factories thatrun on energy, and are shipped to stores in trucks thatuse energy, and the truck itself is made from metals that are mined by other miners who also have energy requirements. And the mining machines are made in factories that use energy and by people who also have energy needs and schools and hospitals and TV sets. And then there is the construction itself - exotic metals, concrete, rebar, all of these things require energy in their mining, processing, and construction, and each step of the way is a factory using energy, and people using energy to go to work in and live near those factories.
Fuel
The development of nuclear fuels is a hazardous and toxic process, and one that is highly energetic. It takes thousands of tons of unranium, and thousands of centrifuges running flat out for days, and huge factories full of raw and waste materials to make, process, and form the fuel for a nuclear power plant. These factories have thousands of workers, and each of them has families and homes and towns and cars and TV sets all needing energy. Then there is the fuel needed to transport the fuel to the plant, and the energy needed to build the machines that
transport and store the fuel.
Maintenance
The nuclear power plant has a crew of people - people who are engineers that keep the place running, grounds keepers keeping it nice looking, management personnel to keep things organised and running, and of course, Mr Burns who owns the plant must be kept in the lifestyle to which he has become eminently accustomed, a cleaning crew that takes out the trash and sweeps up, security personnel, and at least one guy named Homer to nap on the job as the core goes critical...
Still, all these people have homes - Homer has Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Homer has to drive to work, and that takes energy. He sucks down a foaming frosty mug of Duff Beer at Moe's Bar and the beer is transported to the bar, the bar requires energy to be built and maintained and power the neon lights, and Homer needs energy to get to Moe's, wash his clothes, get his kids to school, perm Marge's hair, etc.
This is all just part of Homer's life as a worker at the nuke plant, and each plant has many many Homers, and they all need energy as do all of Homer's friend's and acquaintances.
Fuel Disposal
Once the fuel is used up, it must be removed and disposed of, requiring no small amount of energy and effort by Homers who are hired to do this sort of thing, and who also have families and homes and cars.
Decomissioning
When the plant is done, it needs to be dismantled and disposed of, and that is also a highly energetic effort...
This deeper analysis points to an odd conclusion - that ER/EI is a relevant equation, but in a mixed fuel economy, it is functionally impossible to tease out accurate numbers, and even when these numbers are teased out, they may be of limited use. Hence ER/EI may not be the important question.
No matter what we do, we use all the energy we've got.
(Just as I typed that line, "Corsair" by Boards of Canada came on the random choice of iTunes... man is that creepy...)
I am not certain, but I am fairly well convinced that true ER/EI is not as crazy as an NP-hard problem, but due to the total inter-relatedness and dynamics of society and energy, I am fairly well convinced that an accurate ER/EI analysis is not practically possible.
This is a BIG problem. Pimentel et al have staked their authority on such analysis, and while my extension of the ER/EI analysis only serves their points that alternative energy systems sch as ethanol have very low ER/EI (and my view punches it well below 1:1) it also points out the deep and impenetrable fog at the edges of such analysis, which can be used by all sorts of people to both credit and discredit any given technology.
While symbolic system can be developed to represent these analyses (Odum et al) even these symbolic systems cave under the complexity of dynamic energy allocations and sourcings.
Example: let's say Homer drives a 1988 Chrysler Imperial to work, and it gets 15 mpg. Sure, his energy source for driving doesn't require energy from the nuclear plant, and so that energy input is not counted against X, but the pumping of the gas is, as is the electricity the gas station uses. The food may be delivered to the Springfield Safeway by truck, but the Safeway runs on electricity, and Marge's time spent shopping there uses some portion of that, and that does count against X, as the food she bys there mostly goes into Homer's gut. And the Dunkin Donuts cooks its donuts using natgas, but the rest of it operates on electricity, and Homer's donut consumption is some part of that, and that also counts against X. And then, one day, Homer replaces his gas guzzling Imperial with a plug in Hybrid, and now THAT cuts into X.
I don't see how these dynamic fluctuations can be properly accounted for in any symbolic quantitative system, especially as these dynamic systems influence each other's behaviour and output. So, Homer and a jillion other Homers get plug in hybrids. These hybrids are more efficient per watt per mile than a gas engine, so it uses fewer watts per mile travelled. Then one day, Homer figures out that he can lose some weight by riding a bike, but he's too old and fat to get over some of the hills, so he opts for an electric assist bike, which is even MORE efficient with watts per mile travelled, but is slower.
One plug-in Prius equals dozens, if not hundreds, of electric bikes, so the energy embodied and used by one plug-in Prius is radically less than the energy and material that went into building a 1986 Imperial, and the electric bikes (or even trikes) are even more radically efficient, and embody and use even less than a Prius. However, if Homer sells his Imperial and buys a 1996 Geo Metro, he will double (if not triple) his fuel mileage and rather than demand more minerals from the earth to build a new Prius, he will be re-using the minerals someone else demanded from the earth ten years previously, and, in so doing, will be doubling the use of those materials, rather than have them go to the crusher and be recycled at some future date.
The Metro aside, all these electric bikes being pedalled by the Homers at the Burns Nuclear Power Plant and all the electric bikes pedalled by the friends of all the Homers, and all the electric bikes that get the service employees for all the Homers (Moe at the bar, Apu at the QuickieMart, etc.) are powered by the nuke plant, so it affects the ER/EI of the nuke plant, but certainly less than if they had plug-in Priuses.
You get the picture - calculating the ER/EI of a given energy technology is not an exact science, and that is why I wonder if it isn't something of a red herring.
Basically, I think the question of ER/EI is critical in a general sense, but I do not believe ER/EI can ever get beyond a general or vague number, due to the dynamism and vagaries of its component structures and subsystems.
I may be an artist, and I may be insane, but I am enough of a scientist to appreciate being wrong. Please prove me so.
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hi Mr Studebaker. I am a long time friend of Henry's & keeping up with your blog.
I recently bought the movie "the end of suburbia" and have 4 people coming over tonight for a viewing.
I rode a vespa for 2 yrs and it was very feasible in my small town just outside of Houston. However, suv's and suburbia started crawling in like vipers.
I try to be positve about the future.. but its tough nowadays; My daughter is studying pre med and says that her chemistry/ organic chem. teachers are begging the kids to get into chem., not medicine, so that they can keep up with researching the state of this world as far as creating biofuels etc.
My brother lives in Alaska and has a lab on his land where he converts french fry oil to diesel. cool eh ?
NINA
check my blog....
I recently bought the movie "the end of suburbia" and have 4 people coming over tonight for a viewing.
I rode a vespa for 2 yrs and it was very feasible in my small town just outside of Houston. However, suv's and suburbia started crawling in like vipers.
I try to be positve about the future.. but its tough nowadays; My daughter is studying pre med and says that her chemistry/ organic chem. teachers are begging the kids to get into chem., not medicine, so that they can keep up with researching the state of this world as far as creating biofuels etc.
My brother lives in Alaska and has a lab on his land where he converts french fry oil to diesel. cool eh ?
NINA
check my blog....
Thanks for writing Nina!
It is hard to be positive about the future, but it is important. Giving in to the negativity only makes the worst possible outcome more likely.
I tihnk your brother in alaska is goign to have a harder time keeping warm than fueling his car, although, if he lives in lower Alaska, it's actually almost temperate there.
Your daughter's chem teachers are corect, however, we will need doctors too! Especially in her generation, as the loss of petroleum will have a devastating effect on modern medicine, and there will be a greater need for doctors in local communities. She should look into becoming familiar with less high tech medicines - natural sleep aids are good, MRI's are not so good.
best,
S2
It is hard to be positive about the future, but it is important. Giving in to the negativity only makes the worst possible outcome more likely.
I tihnk your brother in alaska is goign to have a harder time keeping warm than fueling his car, although, if he lives in lower Alaska, it's actually almost temperate there.
Your daughter's chem teachers are corect, however, we will need doctors too! Especially in her generation, as the loss of petroleum will have a devastating effect on modern medicine, and there will be a greater need for doctors in local communities. She should look into becoming familiar with less high tech medicines - natural sleep aids are good, MRI's are not so good.
best,
S2
I am building a wind turbine from mostly timber construction and some scrap steel for increased magnetic flux, scrap washing machine for copper wire from the motor. I DO drive an SUV, a diesel and am using 20%biofuel mix which is commercially available from the Gull fuel station locally here in Western Australia. There is a plant under construction here which will make 55 million litres of biodiesel from surplus animal fat.... We can and will change it just takes clever people to see the opportunity
Cool stuff Szaba!
Out in Western Oz, you probably need an SUV. I never had a problem with eople driving them who really need them. Like those people doing documentaries chazing gazelle across the fields of Tanzania. Yes - they need an SUV. But Mrs Wuddles taking muffy to soccer practice or Mr Wuddles sitting in some traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike *does not* need such a vehicle.
I admire your drive to build a turbine! Good on ya, mate!
best,
S2
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Out in Western Oz, you probably need an SUV. I never had a problem with eople driving them who really need them. Like those people doing documentaries chazing gazelle across the fields of Tanzania. Yes - they need an SUV. But Mrs Wuddles taking muffy to soccer practice or Mr Wuddles sitting in some traffic jam on the New Jersey Turnpike *does not* need such a vehicle.
I admire your drive to build a turbine! Good on ya, mate!
best,
S2
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