climber99 wrote:
Firstly, I wrote a comment on a previous thread saying basically, because shale oil makes a loss that must means it is an energy sink. I never got a reply saying either I'm correct or wrong. Come on guys, put me out of my misery, what am I missing?
Secondly, who are these investors? They are either stupid or they know something we don't, like they know that the government have their back ie. they keep collecting the interest and their capital will be bailed out by the US tax payers ultimately.
Alternatives to traditional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale (Lambert et al., 2012) deliver a lower EROI, having a mean EROI of 4:1 (n of 4 from 4 publications) and 7:1 (n of 15 from 15 publication) (Source)The few studies I've read put shale oil at somewhere between 1:1 for the truly marginal parts of the play to as high as 10:1 for the sweet spots. Hard to say where the average is because the studies are so few, the methodologies so inconsistent, and many of them using dollar proxies (vs. direct measurements and/or interpolations). Again quoting Charles Hall, I like this summary:
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. (Source)My best guess is that sweet spot and "average spot" shale can support its own activities, but that we won't be able to support education and health care (let alone rebuilding from catastrophic storms) on it. For that you need the stuff that Saudi Arabia and Russia are exporting. Unfortunately for the US, our foreign policy towards Russia is rooted in a really, really ancient and broken neocon dream of being the uncontested world military superpower. (And here's a source for that Wolfowitz quote) The neocons are so blinded by their lust for power (a bloodthirsty one at that) that they are completely unaware of EROEI and the reason that we should be almost desperately courting Russian oil rather than driving it elsewhere. Oh well. This is how history is made.