World News Trust World News Trust
World News Trust World News Trust
  • News Portal
  • All Content
    • Edited
      • News
      • Commentary
      • Analysis
      • Advisories
      • Source
    • Flatwire
  • Topics
    • Agriculture
    • Culture
      • Arts
      • Children
      • Education
      • Entertainment
      • Food and Hunger
      • Sports
    • Disasters
    • Economy
    • Energy
    • Environment
    • Government
    • Health
    • Media
    • Science
    • Spiritual
    • Technology
    • Transportation
    • War
  • Regions
    • Africa
    • Americas
      • North America
      • South America
    • Antarctica
    • Arctic
    • Asia
    • Australia/Oceania
    • Europe
    • Middle East
    • Oceans
      • Arctic Ocean
      • Atlantic Ocean
      • Indian Ocean
      • Pacific Ocean
      • Southern Ocean
    • Space
  • World Desk
    • Submit Content
  • About Us
  • Sign In/Out
  • Register
  • Site Map
  • Contact Us
  • Russia's War and the Global Economy | Nouriel Roubini
  • U.S. Considers Radical Rethinking Of Dollar For Today's Digital World | David Gura
  • Why is Israel Amending Its Open-Fire Policy?: Three Possible Answers | Ramzy Baroud
  • WATCH: Republican National Committee Abandons America
  • ‘Previously Unknown Massacres’: Why is Israel Allowed to Own Palestinian History? | Ramzy Baroud
  • The Revolt of the Imagination, Part One: Notes on Belbury Syndrome | John Michael Greer
  • Human gut bacteria have sex to share vitamin B12 | University of California - Riverside
Star InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar Inactive
 

Net Energy and Jevons' Paradox (John Michael Greer)

More items by author
Categories
Edited | Commentary -- WNT Selected
Tool Bar
View Comments

  (Archdruid Report) -- As last week’s Archdruid Report post suggested, a difficult paradox lies in wait for attempts to bail industrial society out of its peak oil predicament by bringing new energy sources online. To build the infrastructure to produce a new energy source in meaningful quantities, a great deal of energy will be needed. If the new source can’t be shipped via existing distribution networks, or used in existing end-use technology, more energy will have to be invested to provide these as well.

  Until much of the new infrastructure is in place, though, the energy needed to develop it will have to come from existing sources. This is where the jaws of the trap open wide, because in a world already on the far side of Hubbert’s peak, existing energy resources are fully committed. Thus the immediate effect of launching a project to make energy more available will be to make energy less available, driving up prices even faster than they would rise under the pressure of resource depletion.

  One conclusion worth drawing from what I’ve called the “paradox of production” is that some recent debates over net energy may need reassessment. Net energy or EROEI (energy return on energy invested), for those who haven’t been following these debates, is the energy that can be obtained from a given resource, minus the energy that has to go into providing that resource to users. Just as net receipts, rather than gross receipts, determine whether a business prospers or goes bankrupt, it’s the net energy available to our society, rather than the total amount of energy it consumes, that determines whether something like today’s industrial civilization can survive.

  At the same time, as the paradox of production points out, the energy costs that have to be factored into net energy are not limited to those needed to produce energy from a given source in the first place. The energy cost to get it to the end user and to convert it into useful work at that point also have to be taken into account. Thus it’s important to distinguish production costs –- the direct and indirect energy inputs needed to turn a natural resource into useful energy ready for distribution -- from system costs -- the direct and indirect energy inputs needed to apply that energy to its end use, whatever that happens to be. Both have to be accounted for, but each has its own distinctive features.

more

READ MORE: The Archdruid Report

back to top
  • Created
    Thursday, April 03 2008
  • Last modified
    Wednesday, November 06 2013
  1. You are here:  
  2. Home
  3. All Content
  4. Edited
  5. Net Energy and Jevons' Paradox (John Michael Greer)
Copyright © 2022 World News Trust. All Rights Reserved.
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.