"I think if you correct the U.S. GDP for debt—in other words, the debt is some kind of not-real growth—then I think the GDP hasn't grown at all since 2005. It's just grown through debt. I think clearly growth has declined; it's possible that growth has either stopped or may soon stop."
> *Will Fossil Fuels Be Able to Maintain Economic Growth? A Q&A with > Charles Hall* > The inventor of the energy return on investment (EROI) metric argues > that economic growth could soon stop—and that we need to get smart about > incorporating the true cost of fuel in energy policies > > By Mason Inman | Thursday, March 21, 2013 | 31 > > “Drill, baby, drill” has become a slogan of those who want to produce more > oil and gas and who scoff at alternatives to petroleum. But rarely > mentioned is the expense required to get that oil and gas—and still more > rarely mentioned is the energy required to access those resources. > > Charles Hall, an ecologist at the State University of New York College of > Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, has spent most of his long > career trying to get fellow researchers and the public to take a serious > look at the energy required to get the energy we use. He is given credit > for creating a measure known as the energy return on investment, or > EROI—the ratio of energy output over energy input. (With oil, for example, > the energy output would be the crude oil produced, and the energy input > would be all that required to find the oil reservoir, drill the well and > pump the oil out of the ground.) EROI is a crucial metric, Hall argues, > because it helps us see which energy sources are high quality and which are > not. > > Hall and his students did pioneering work in this area, including a 1984 > paper on the cover of Science. For many years, however, interest in the > topic languished. But recent soaring oil prices and increasing difficulty > of accessing new supplies have helped create economic hardships, leading to > resurgent interest in EROI. Scientific American asked Hall to explain the > basis of the EROI and how it pertains to our economy. > > [An edited transcript of the interview follows.] > > You’re a self-described “nature boy” who became an ecologist. So how did > you create the idea of energy return on investment (EROI)? > > I had this unbelievable doctoral advisor, H. T. Odum of the University of > North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He said, “Well, Charlie, I don't think > anyone has thought about fish migration from a systems perspective.” > > I went down to the coast of North Carolina, looking for a place where I > could do this research. And I found one: in this freshwater environment, > where fish weren't supposed to be migrating, they were migrating like crazy. > > And you approached this migration mystery from an energy-use perspective. > How did you do that? > > I measured the ecosystem productivity by the free-water oxygen technique. > I measured it at five different places, upstream and downstream, and found > some very clear patterns. The energy available to the fish was much more > concentrated as you went upstream, and I developed this theory that the > fish would migrate to capitalize on the abundance of energy for the first > year or two of the life, and then the young fish would migrate downstream > into a more stable but less productive environment. > > The study found that fish populations that migrated would return at least > four calories for every calorie they invested in the process of migration > by being able to exploit different ecosystems of different productivity at > different stages of their life cycles. > > So from studying fish migration, was it a big leap to think about people > and fossil fuels? > > No, probably because Howard Odum was evolving in his thought processes. He > wrote a book Environment, Power and Society at about that time. An amazing > thing working with Odum was, for him, there are just systems. It doesn't > matter if it's a forested system or a stream system or an estuarine system, > or whether people are there or not. It's just a system—and systems have > many similar patterns and many similar processes of consumption and > production, and they often even have similar controls on them. > > So, it was not difficult for me, because I was trained that way from > Howard Odum. Also, when I was a graduate student there were a lot of very > exciting things going on. Ecologists were much more involved—not just in > biodiversity, which is where much of the focus is today, but in dealing > with important issues of the relation of humans to resources. Paul Ehrlich > [author of The Population Bomb (1968)], Garrett Hardin [known for his 1968 > Science paper “The Tragedy of the Commons”], George Woodwell [founder of > the Woods Hole Research Center], many other people—these were very > influential to me as a graduate student. > > For society's energy sources, is it important to consider EROI? > Is there a lot of oil left in the ground? Absolutely. The question is, how > much oil can we get out of the ground, at a significantly high EROI? And > the answer to that is, hmmm, not nearly as much. So that's what we're > struggling with as we go further and further offshore and have to do this > fracking and horizontal drilling and all of this kind of stuff, especially > when you get away from the sweet spots of shale formations. It gets tougher > and tougher to get the next barrel of oil, so the EROI goes down, down, > down. > > Is there some minimum EROI we need to have? > Since everything we make depends on energy, you can't simply pay more and > more and get enough to run society. At some energy return on investment—I'm > guessing 5:1 or 6:1—it doesn't work anymore. > > What happens when the EROI gets too low? What’s achievable at different > EROIs? > > If you've got an EROI of 1.1:1, you can pump the oil out of the ground and > look at it. If you've got 1.2:1, you can refine it and look at it. At > 1.3:1, you can move it to where you want it and look at it. We looked at > the minimum EROI you need to drive a truck, and you need at least 3:1 at > the wellhead. Now, if you want to put anything in the truck, like grain, > you need to have an EROI of 5:1. And that includes the depreciation for the > truck. But if you want to include the depreciation for the truck driver and > the oil worker and the farmer, then you've got to support the families. And > then you need an EROI of 7:1. And if you want education, you need 8:1 or > 9:1. And if you want health care, you need 10:1 or 11:1. > > Civilization requires a substantial energy return on investment. You can't > do it on some kind of crummy fuel like corn-based ethanol [with an EROI of > around 1:1]. > > A big problem we have facing the alternatives is they're all so low EROI. > We'd all like to go toward renewable fuels, but it's not going to be easy > at all. And it may be impossible. We may not be able to sustain our > civilization on these alternative fuels. I hope we can, but we've got to > deal with it realistically. > > Do you think we're facing limits to growth now? > > I think if you correct the U.S. GDP for debt—in other words, the debt is > some kind of not-real growth—then I think the GDP hasn't grown at all since > 2005. It's just grown through debt. I think clearly growth has declined; > it's possible that growth has either stopped or may soon stop. > > We know that the middle class has not increased its income now for 20 > years. Behind that—not always the immediate cause, but looking over the > shoulder of the causes—I find the decline in the availability of energy. > > It's terrifying to people—politicians and economists—who base everything > on growth. I think they won't talk about it because the concept is > terrifying. > > Most economists think economic growth can continue indefinitely, right? > > It was easy to make economic theories that worked while we pumped more and > more oil out of the ground, because whether you're a capitalist or a > communist or a this-ist or a that-ist, they'd work—because there was more > oil to make them work. We could afford all the corruption and > inefficiencies in the past and still have quite a lot trickle down. > > But now the pie is not getting that much bigger. Now, it's pretty clear > that there's a lot of economic theories that aren't working very well. > > How do these economic arguments relate to people’s day-to-day lives? > > Doesn't it mean food on the table, a roof over your head, gas in your > car—a car itself? So economics isn't really about money. It's about stuff. > We've been toilet trained to think of economics as being about money, and > to some degree it is. But fundamentally it's about stuff. And if it's about > stuff, why are we studying it as a social science? Why are we not, at least > equally, studying it as a biophysical science? > > Hall recently co-authored a book on this biophysical perspective with > economist Kent Klitgaard, Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding > the Biophysical Economy (Springer, 2011). > > *** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this > material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational > purposes only. *** > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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