What kind of energy sources are compatible with our modern way of life?
...
For much of human history, education, arts, and sciences have been an indulgence of a privileged few and associated with wealth. These activities could be thought of as supported by the excess production of the bulk of the population, which was primarily growing food. Some historical schools of economics, initially in China and later imported to France by its Sinologists, recognised this connection and conceptualised agriculture the basis of national wealth—a free gift of nature, which could be transformed by human activity but stays essentially fixed, at least from the point farming labour onward.
The industrial revolution is one reason that changed, by incentivising the labour theory of value, i.e. all labour rather than either a transformable free gift of nature or only agricultural labour. But there could be another direction to generalise: if one thinks of agriculture as a form of exploitation of solar energy (producing food that powers humans), at the base level industry added other forms of energy, chiefly fossil fuels, and the activities of society are still powered by excess energy in some form.
Hence although one doesn't have to develop or take seriously a general energetic theory of value, it's natural to ask the following question: just how much energy returned on investment does it take to support developed society in its modern form?
Some people have attempted to answer that question, in terms of a Maslow-like societal hierarchy of needs, which shouldn't be taken as notably accurate, but the exercise with oil as the basis is interesting enough by itself:
The undisputed EROI king is hydroelectric, with typical published values in the 80-100 range, but is obviously only situationally useful. Historical oil has approached 50 but is now closer to 20 or so for world average, while poly-Si solar photovoltaics aren't too hot but rapidly improving (meta-study of 2000-2013 published values [pdf]: ∼10 average, but with a very noticeable upward trend throughout the years that probably didn't stop in 2013). Wind seems to be doing better in terms of this metric.
One problem with renewables, however, is that at this rate of adoption, maybe they can serve a quarter of the world energy usage... in half a century or so.
But what can be done about this?
...
For much of human history, education, arts, and sciences have been an indulgence of a privileged few and associated with wealth. These activities could be thought of as supported by the excess production of the bulk of the population, which was primarily growing food. Some historical schools of economics, initially in China and later imported to France by its Sinologists, recognised this connection and conceptualised agriculture the basis of national wealth—a free gift of nature, which could be transformed by human activity but stays essentially fixed, at least from the point farming labour onward.
The industrial revolution is one reason that changed, by incentivising the labour theory of value, i.e. all labour rather than either a transformable free gift of nature or only agricultural labour. But there could be another direction to generalise: if one thinks of agriculture as a form of exploitation of solar energy (producing food that powers humans), at the base level industry added other forms of energy, chiefly fossil fuels, and the activities of society are still powered by excess energy in some form.
Hence although one doesn't have to develop or take seriously a general energetic theory of value, it's natural to ask the following question: just how much energy returned on investment does it take to support developed society in its modern form?
EROI = (amount of energy obtained by energy-gathering activity)/(amount of energy expended by energy-gathering)
If it takes more energy to extract and refine oil than one gets from using it, there's not much point in doing it anymore. (Except possibly as a kind of battery due to its convenience, but then this activity should be supported by some other power source anyway.)Some people have attempted to answer that question, in terms of a Maslow-like societal hierarchy of needs, which shouldn't be taken as notably accurate, but the exercise with oil as the basis is interesting enough by itself:
The undisputed EROI king is hydroelectric, with typical published values in the 80-100 range, but is obviously only situationally useful. Historical oil has approached 50 but is now closer to 20 or so for world average, while poly-Si solar photovoltaics aren't too hot but rapidly improving (meta-study of 2000-2013 published values [pdf]: ∼10 average, but with a very noticeable upward trend throughout the years that probably didn't stop in 2013). Wind seems to be doing better in terms of this metric.
One problem with renewables, however, is that at this rate of adoption, maybe they can serve a quarter of the world energy usage... in half a century or so.
But what can be done about this?