RE: Natural gas: The fracking fallacy

Sat, 03 Jan 2015 21:40:42 -0800 

 

 

From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2015 9:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Natural gas: The fracking fallacy

 

 

 

On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 8:31 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote:

>> If that is the correct way to calculate EROI, and assuming you think the 
>> first law of thermodynamics is valid please explain how the  EROI of 
>> ANYTHING is EVER greater than 1. Perhaps I shouldn't have made that 
>> assumption, do you believe the law of conservation of energy is wrong, 
>> Wikipedia says it's correct but you say they don't know anything. 

> The difference is that if you treat kerogen as a primary energy source it 
> takes energy to get it, unlike sunlight.  

 

To convert kerogen to crude oil you must first start to heat it with outside 
energy and you have to pay for that energy and so it must be included in 
calculating EROEI. However that initial heat causes chemical changes in the 
kerogen that also releases a substantial amount of heat, and that heat came 
from the chemical self-energy of the kerogen itself, and that energy you did 
NOT pay for and so it would be ridiculous to include it in calculating EROEI.

What magical exothermic chemical reaction are you speaking of? You cook the 
shale rock bearing kerogen and by doing so you chemically change some of the 
hydrocarbon resource into an oil and also release some gas volatiles. You can 
decide to use some of this cooked out potential energy and BURN it in the 
presence of oxygen (so you first need to get it out of the shale rock matrix 
before you can burn it because burning --e.g. oxidation -- requires oxygen)

There is no magic in situ exothermic chemical reaction going on. A portion of 
the extracted and produced usable energy product can be removed from the net 
yield to be re-invested back into the process in order to keep it sustaining. 
But that invested energy could just as well come from another source of heat as 
well and the valuable liquid hydrocarbon could be sold on the market.

That is a financial business decision and does not alter the fact that the 
extraction process requires considerable Energy investments. It does not change 
the EROI. Calling it “self-energy” is obfuscation; it is energy that has been 
extracted and is being re-invested in order to maintain the extraction process.

-Chris

That is why Wikipedia says:


"A 1984 study estimated the EROEI of the various known oil-shale deposits as 
varying between 0.7–13.3. More recent studies estimates the EROEI of oil shales 
to be 2:1 or 16:1  depending on whether self-energy is counted as a cost or 
internal energy is excluded and only purchased energy is counted as input."

  John K Clark


 

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