[p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] Fwd: there is no energy crisis

[marc fawzi]

Dear Tere,

You mention that "all other forms of large-scale energy production
fall a lot lower" in terms of return on energy.

I want to thank you for focusing the debate on the math part. :-)

Let's think of hybrid cars...

They're significantly more expensive than regular cars. Yet as oil
prices rise more people buy hybrid cars.

This means that people consider the upfront cost of a hybrid car as a
sunk cost and the fuel cost as the recurring cost.

Same way, people would consider the upfront cost of solar panels as a
sunk cost and the cost of energy as the recurring cost, which in this
case is near $0 (I am 'guessing' that it takes a fractions of a cent
per kw/h to maintain the panels and electric storage [supercapacitor
or whatever kind of battery])

Having said that, if the price of hybrid cars was too expensive, not
many people would get them. But when it's brought down to an
acceptable threshold, people will start buying them and the more
people buy hybrid cars the lower their cost becomes (economies of
scale and improvement in production efficiency over time)

Same with solar panels. If their price can come down to a certain
threshold that makes them justified investment then more home owners
will buy them.

I understand that if it takes too much energy to produce the panels
their price would be more costly than 40 years of paying for
electricity at today's rates. The break even for the homeowner should
be within the first 5 years, IMO, for it to be justified to most
people.

The paradigm I'm working with is p2p energy, not centralized energy.
For centralized energy, we'd be talking hydro power, nuclear,
geothermal and wind.

Marc

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:31 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Tere meant to reply to all, so here it is.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tere Vadén <tere.vaden at uta.fi>
> Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:29 AM
> Subject: Re: [p2p-research] [Open Manufacturing] Fwd: there is no energy        crisis
> To: marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> in my mind the crucial issue is not the absolute availability of
> scarce resources but the large-scale EROEI (energy return on energy
> investment) of a given mode of energy production. The problem is that
> oil has a wonderful EROEI (see attached picture), while all other
> forms of large-scale energy production fall a lot lower (see also the
> discussion in: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910). So the question
> becomes how much energy (infra, work, raw materials, etc.) does it
> take to produce the amount of alternative energy that would equal the
> amount of energy we get from oil. Unfortunaltely, that energy
> investment is, even in very conservative estimates, huge.
>
> T:T
>
> marc fawzi wrote:
>>
>> Dear Michel,
>>
>> We know that oil is running out. But the oil companies are funding
>> fusion research and all types of other alternatives, including solar.
>>
>> So "energy sources" will not run out. Oil will run out. The sun won't
>> run out, not any time soon.
>>
>> My point is that it's funny to say that the solar industry is screwed
>> because it relies on rare substance. If there is money to be made
>> there will be a variety of alternatives.
>