I see desert based concentrating solar thermal with storage barely makes the cut yet the International Energy Agency thinks it will save us by 2050. Apart from the energy trickle down effect in the pyramid so-called renewable energy seems to need power dense inputs. For example most sub-electronic grade silicon is apparently made by mixing sand with coal derived coke and zapping it in an arc furnace with electricity mostly made by burning coal. If silicon panels lose performance after 20-25 years that process has to be repeated.

Another big hope is that PV + batteries will power suburban homes and electric cars. I guess there are no poor people or rainy weeks in that vision of the future. A lot of our realtime or embodied energy will have to come from large, high yielding plants like smelters and power stations. As the years go by we'll have to ask why most of them don't go away.

"Alternative energy is so expensive that it can barely pay for itself, let alone support a civilisation."
You're dead right there, Do. Luckily, people are starting to realise.

My paper here: compares the costs of a mostly nuclear power versus mostly nuclear energy electricity system for eastern Australia: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf
See Figure 6 for a summary cost comparison. It compares four renewables scenarios and on nuclear scenario on the basis of capital cost, wholesale cost of electricity, and CO2 abatement cost. Figure 5 shows that the mostly nuclear option would avoid about 90% emissions from electricity (same as France), whereas the mostly renewables option would avoid about 70% - but at about 2 to 3 times higher cost then the mostly nuclear option!

The CSIRO 'MyPower' calculator and the CSIRO eFuture' calculators allow people to confirm the huge cost of renewable energy. They also confirm that nuclear power is by th cheapest way to reduce emissions.

Of course, as many who read the posts and comments on Online Opinion would know by now, nuclear energy is also the safest way to generate electricity and would save over a million avoidable fatalities per year is it replaced coal fired generators now.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html
Also Wade Allison's excellent articles on Online Opinion, and this excellent video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6aL3wv4v0

A good article. Whatever the criticisms of the particular options, it is clear that, in order to have a *rational* discussion of whether alternative energy is worth it, there need to be a comparison of the *ratio* of inputs to outputs.

This question of rationality is basic and should be obvious in the current debate over renewables, although I am constantly surprised at the number and proportion of people pushing renewables who obviously either don't understand or don't care about the need for rationality in order to make sense.

Too many vague unsubstantiated assertions Don. You havent spent much time on research. Re electric cars it took me about 10 minutes to google this one from a US university:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702178s
It says plug in Hybrids (PHEV's) are about 30% less carbon emissions intensive than petrol powered cars assuming an electricity emissions intensity of 670 g CO2/ kWh. But if you charge them using your own PV panels (emissions intensity less than 100 g CO2/ kWh), then of course it's a different story - they would emit less than 15% of the CO2 of an equivalent IC car over its lifetime. Incidentally Li Ion battery is less than 5% of the embodied emissions of making the PHEV

Good to have an article highlighting the importance of EROI. But once again, do some better research, Don. This table is from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested

EROI of PV is 6.8, wind is 18, hydro 100 - all non-polluting renewable resources. The high values for coal and nuclear of course do not reflect the fact that non-renewable polluting resources are being used. Note also how the figures for oil and gas are rapidly declining as they become harder to extract; tar sands only 3. Note also that fuels are only 25-35% efficient in converting their thermal energy to mechanical energy whereas electricity is >85%.

EROI (for US) Fuel
1.3 Biodiesel
3.0 Bitumen tar sands
80.0 Coal
1.3 Ethanol corn
5.0 Ethanol sugarcane
100.0 Hydro
10.0 Natural gas 2005
50-75 Nuclear (with centrifuge enrichment)
10.0 Nuclear (with diffusion enrichment)
30.0 Oil and gas 1970
14.5 Oil and gas 2005
8.0 Oil discoveries
35.0 Oil imports 1990
18.0 Oil imports 2005
12.0 Oil imports 2007
20.0 Oil production
6.8 Photovoltaic
5.0 Shale oil
1.6 Solar collector
1.9 Solar flat plate
18.0 Wind

Embrace it or there won`t be a civilisation.

Don, you're supposed to be some sort of intellectual giant/university Chancellor, yet you seem to have simply based your article on assumptions and a few cherry picked outdated facts!?
You have completely ignored recent discoveries.
One being the fact that CHEAPER THAN COAL, THORIUM is now a self sustaining reaction, thanks to the thorium isotope 230.
So we've finally been able to disconnect thorium reactions from oxides, or any of their derivatives.
Moreover, thorium reactors are able to be mass produced and then trucked on site.
That fact that they're comparatively small at around 50 MW max?
Means they're not useful for a GOLD PLATED national grid system. PHEW!
Consequently, they need to be very local, and connected to micro grids, which more than halves the cost less than a grid dependent hydro, and around half what we pay for coal fired power!
PHEW!
And indeed, makes providing power for far flung communities and remote locations finally feasible!
And sure to warm the cockles of your old heart!
Mass production and bolt on modules, means that the life can be extended indefinitely, with the old replaced units, able to be recycled!
Meaning, so called decommissioning is simply not a factor!
Also ignored, with zealotry fossil fueled fervor, is locally manufactured and used onsite, biogas; made from millions of tons of waste currently contaminating our oceans.
Used to light up ceramic fuel cells, this combination, with a energy coefficient of 80%!
Beats coal fired power with an energy of around 20% 4 times over, or put another way, is four times less expensive.
And given solid state technology, no moving parts to wear out!
Every system has a use by date, and one with no moving parts to wear out, pushes that date way out!
Continued, Rhrosty.

In the news lately, was a practical electric car powered by a fuel cell!
This means, we make the electricity on board, and given fuel cells work nearly as well powered by NG/biogas; even then the exhaust product is mostly water vapor!
Sort of destroys your maths, and comparative electric car Co2 emissions graph, (thinking within a bubble) doesn't it Don?
By the way, GM have produced a prototype battery, that may extend the useful range of the electric car, beyond 600 kilometres.
Recent advances in solar thermal technology means, it must now be included; albeit with economies of scales and robot welded and assembled/mass produced solar arrays.
This brings the infrastructure cost way down to more than compete with coal; otherwise private enterprise, would continue to look the other way, instead of building one in the Californian desert!
The moving, computer controlled, solar arrays are focused daylong on a single tower! And just heats, thorium fluoride salt.
This salt heat to molten white hot, and the thorium reacts "moderately", to help retain useful power generating heat, for up to seven+ days?
Meaning, solar thermal also copes well, with all envisaged base load applications.
And given construction costs more than now match that for coal based generators!
The undeniable fact is, that this is also cheaper than coal, given the heat source is forever free.
And or, the heat retaining salt, measures in just tens of tons, during the useful life of the solar thermal plant; whereas, coal fired power, burns millions of tons of (exponentially expanding expenditure) coal, in any comparative period.
As a very knowledgeable Peter Lang would attest, [based on historical fact,] coal is far and away, more dangerous, with more lives taken, than the combined nuclear accidents the world over, since we first began to use Nuclear power.
Lift it up and look around Don!
Rhrosty.

How could anyone with any intelligence call the chaotic mess that our world is in a CIVILIZATION.

It may have been a civilization during the time of Ancient Greece but then it stopped. Seven billion people now go to bed each night wondering if the world will be there next morning.

Yeah, nukes have changed everything, them and the predatory capitalist system so loved by the U.S. which, built on permanent war, funnels most of the world's wealth upwards to wealthy Oligarchs and Corporations.

Civilization it's not. A Warring Rabble, a Greedy Cesspool, an Insane Menagerie, a Lunatic Asylum, The Planet of the Apes, a Psychopathic Jungle, take your pick!

This article: http://www.clca.columbia.edu/241_Raugei_EROI_EP_revised_II_2012-03_VMF.pdf
explains how 'apples must be compared with apples' i.e. wind and solar give electrical output and nuclear, coal gas and oil give heat output. Converting that heat content in a thermal power station produces only about 1/3 as much electrical energy. So in the table I posted previously the fuel (coal oil nuclear gas) EROI figures need to be divided by 3 to give electrical EROI's. The renewable energies are already electricity and do not need to be altered

Another crucial point to take into account is that an EROI of 8 is only 87.5/50 = 1.75 times as good as an EROI of 2; not 4 times as the EROI numbers suggest.

The reason is that EROI relates to a ratio or fraction. EROI 50 means 1/50th or 2% of energy is used to make the fuel; EROI 8 means 1/8th or 12.5% is used to produce the energy output. EROI 2 means 1/2 or 50% is used.

It is explained by Murphy here: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8625

There are other ways to create free energy.
Look up the Stirling Engine for example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdqDQwehlk
Why cant they invest a few dollars and figure out how to make these things viable to put in everyones homes?
I saw something a few years back on a free energy forum but cant remember what it was called.
I wish I could because I dont like bringing up things which I cant provide a link to.
It was a small round metal canister about a foot or so long and had some kind of heat exchangers inside it. The engineer who worked on creating it said that you would input like 100watts or power and it would output like maybe 150watts of power. These aren't the actual stats, just an example but the point is that the output was more than the input.
So they are creating ways of better power creation its just that there isn't a lot of interest or investment into these kinds of ideas.
I'm still all for solar power and hydro-electric. I used to be pro-nuclear but I have turned against it in recent years as I think it just creates too many dangers to human life from radiation and used fuel.
Heres a link to a piece that discusses free energy.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/10/11/multiple-scientists-confirm-the-reality-of-free-energy-heres-the-proof/

You say that the car would have to travel 80,000 kilometres to recoup the CO2 used in building it. Yes, but it would also apply to fossil fuel car. Yes, that one would increase the CO2 in every kilometre driven. On comes far out ahead with the electricity car.

@ Roses you're the one who gave a list of high EROEIs then wanted to retract them. A list of unbuffered electrical EROEIs is here
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-07-18/eroei-electricity-generation
which are somewhat lower than the Wikipedia values. While it shows PV ahead of coal I wouldn't like to rely on PV to cook breakfast on a chilly Canberra morning. I have to presume the Weissbach study used electrical output in order to cover CHP and hybrids like solar thermal with a winter gas boost.

Interesting the use of ratios of net energy fraction. If EROEIs of two forms of generation were 2 and 0.75 the ratio would be
[(2-1)/2]/[(.75-1)/.75] = - 1.5 What does that mean?

As nuclear energy is THE way for Real Men who are ambituous engineers to be allocated taxpayer money I have 3 nuclear Laws.

LAW 1
All countries that are devoted to nuclear power reactors also have nuclear weapons programs. Hence Germany and Japan with no such weapons are dropping their power reactor programs because of the many downsides of nuclear.

LAW2
Decommissioning nuclear power reactors is costing the UK and Japan 10s of $Billions - a cost not mentioned by the author.

LAW3
A rapid release of nuclear energy would solve the over-population+excessive energy use problem overnight.

That is nuclear weapons used judiciously over some other peoples' countries would resolve all their problems.

BTW it has just been reported that heaps of bused-in cops have turned up to the Hong Kong protests http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-01/hong-kong-protests-bus-loads-of-police-arrive/5782050.

Pete

surely the discussion should be a nuclear. non uranium

ben

What the Author also studiously overlooks, is the fact that when dams are decommissioned, the sites usually remain viable!
And as a dam is decommissioned, those with real smarts, would ensure that another new one, with a life of around a hundred plus years, replaced it.
After all, most of the often expensive earthworks would have been already done!
And given concrete reaches its maximum strength in around 80 years, worthwhile long term investments!
Moreover, the flood or drought/feast or famine nature of our local climate, is all the reasons we need, to build many more income earning dams!
Thousands of which should be small upland dams that actually force billions of tons of water into the landscape, that after forcing the salt table lower, massively improving fertility and production as well as flood mitigation, then allows this stored but hardly ever evaporated water, to slowly weep back out during any extended drier period.
These seriously extended flows, would mitigate against inevitable future droughts. As well as seriously improving the feasibility of new if often modest hydro schemes; and a seriously better option, than even more costly transmission towers and their averaged 50% energy losses, traversing the countryside!
And contain much of the alluvium, now finding it way onto our reef systems, with disastrous consequences.
Moreover, provide reliable usable flows, where none now exist, as well as mitigate against further erosion.
Still water being almost the most inert substance on the planet!
And think, a two metre high 10 metre wide weir, could power up to thirty homes.
And weirs can be constructed of much of the alluvium that currently clogs our waterways, and makes flood events, far more dangerous and disastrous, than they need be!
The fact that these modest schemes can earn handy long term incomes, is all that is needed to finance them!
And indeed, gives credence to the term, think globally, act locally.
Rhrosty.

Could the plaintive cry that alternative energy is not worth it be because the greedy power companies are feeling the pain from loss of profits?
Solar has been taken up quickly by the uninformed householder who does not realise that the power he is producing is not being sold for a profit so it must be no good at all.

Solar power is growing so fast that older energy companies are trying to stop it
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/29/6849723/solar-power-net-metering-utilities-fight-states

Robert

You are right that growth in solar has dented demand and profits for conventional electricity. The trouble is, a lot of that demand for solar was fuelled by subsidies though high feed in tariffs, assistance with capital costs etc. There is also an implicit subsidy because electricity tariffs don’t fully recover fixed costs such as transmission and distribution networks, which most solar generators need when the sun isn’t shining.

Now that solar is becoming cheaper and more efficient it may be able to compete with coal and gas fired electricity, but unless we get cheap and efficient storage, most users will also need the network as backup.

The “death spiral” mentioned in the article is unlikely, but not impossible. It is a good reason to stop subsidising solar, whether the net metering used in the US, or the over-generous feed in tariffs in Australia.

Rhian,

You are correct. The Labor-Green carbon restraint policies were costing $20 billion per year and legislated to escalate. The carbon price was part of that and that has been removed. But most of the rest remains. It's an enormous waste. Just think what could be done with $20 billion a year if not being wasted on useless policies that will not make an iota of difference to the climate or sea levels.

For those interested in what the cost means per person or per family, see: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/in-the-next-37-years-labor-will-spend-60000-per-australian-to-change-the-weather/

Taswegian, many thanks for pointing to the article by J.Bull on the 'Resilience' website; it provides a more realistic list of EROI's, quite different to the crude and poorly qualified graph Don used in his article and also from the table I got from Wiki.

Bull's article highlights the points that in calculating meaningful EROI's:
- a consistent methodology has to be used
- the same form of energy output (electrical not heat) has to used
- The huge range of EROI's from many examples of plants for each technology should be taken into consideration.
- EROI's for gas and coal generation are diminishing whereas for wind and solar it is increasing as new technologies increase efficiency.

Re your point about EROI 2 compared to 0.75 would give a negative comparable value of -1.5 what to make of that? I suggest that negative comparable values are meaningless because:
As as EROI approaches 1, ie. output = input, the net output gets closer to zero. That makes anything with a higher net output than zero infinitely better than one with zero net output. Anything with negative net output is 'even worse' than one with zero, but it's not possible get worse than infinitely worse. This means that such a situation would never arise in a 'sane, logical' world. Such a plant would never be built.

As for my apparently 'wanting to retract' the original list from Wiki, this is because reading Don's article resulted in my doing about four hours of desktop research into EROI, which I have summarized in my previous posts. I have found that there are many EROI tables, most of which are wrong or misleading. I hope Don simply was not aware of this and that his article is merely ignorant rather than mischievious.

Readers, roses and ghosty,

I'm a reporter and commentator here. I found an article that led me to another article, and those articles are the basis of my essay. If you disagree, your target is Morgan/Weissbach. Show how they must be wrong, not how I must be deluded!

Don,'Thank you for this and your previous articles. They are almost always well written, balanced and highly informative, as the large amount of discussion they generates shows. Clearly, they are educating others, whether they choose to admit it or not.

I't's unfortunate that the level of much of the discussion is so juvenile and uninformed. Most of the commenters don't have a clue about the subject or energy, or policy analysis, and haven't even bothered to read the research you referenced. One commenter told you to :do your research" then cited a Wikipedia article to try to refute the references you cited. How pathetically hypocritical is that?

Don, thanks for your thoughts on my article. Most of the discussion about energy system transformation for emissions reduction does not appear to be mindful of net energy and EROI. If the intention is a wholesale change to the way we power society - and it should be - these considerations appear to block off many of the pathways for deep decarbonisation. Its important to factor these constraints into any energy policy that envisions change.

My article was also incidentally published at The Energy Collective:

http://theenergycollective.com/barrybrook/471651/catch-22-energy-storage

There is some very well informed commentary, nearly 300 comments between them, which raise all the objections that have come up here. The central thesis has stood up well to that debate. Most of the "author is crazy" have been comprehensively addressed and I'd refer others to those discussions to see how.

I work with the idea of a minimum societal EROI of about 7. In fact, its probably much higher than that. The work of Lambert, Hall and others puts a society operating at EROI of 7 as a marginal society capable of feeding itself, and not much more. For the amenities of modernity, health care, education, and leisure, its probably double that, which further excludes various energy sources.

I'll point out that Weissbach was not my sole reference. I also use the work of renewable energy researchers from the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project, from solar researchers Prieto and Hall who have studied the Spanish solar development, and the biophysical economics community, such as Lambert et. al. Their conclusions are all consistent with the view my article presents. The finding is not controversial and the scramble to present it as such would probably leave those researchers bemused.

These studies can be expanded and refined, but as Don says, most of the objections are at the margins. The central idea seems sound, and a wholesale transition of societal energy to low EROI sources, particular ones that require storage (or its converse, redundancy) doesn't appear possible. For climate change, that means pursuit of nuclear power as the central plank of decarbonised energy.

Thank you, John. I could have stated that you used other sources, but the Weissbach paper was so powerful that I saw it as the basis.

Let me preface my remarks by revealing, I come form a science background/analyst/chemical engineer, with my last paid employment, a local power generating authority.
Many of those commenting here come from academia, and have absolutely no practical hands on experience inside a power authority.
And as seems usual, cherry pick examples, that seem to agree with often highly theoretical conclusions/bias conformation!
And seem reluctant to look at any examples that take us away from a national grid, and price gouging centralized power?
If we had our enemy attacking our shores, the national grid would be their first and our most vulnerable/least defensible target.
Which among a number of other thing, would shut down the eyes and ears of the country; radar, reporting and emergency responses; and most military bases!
Thorium power is old 50's technology, junked simply because there was no weapons spin off! (neither new nor untried)
And waste to methane to electrical energy, is being used in many places around the globe, (just not here?) like Norfolk Island, where the local power supply is diesel dependent, and therefore, increasingly expensive.
However, the methane burning diesel engines can and should be replaced by locally invented, ceramic fuel cells, which then not only double the available energy coefficient from around a best previously available 40% to 80%, or a doubling of the power; from the same gas flow; and what's more, producing mostly water vapor, as the principle exhaust product!
Perhaps Don could point to his own research, where he has uncovered practical working examples, with a better energy coefficient than 80%?
No? Exactly, because there just isn't one, and because he couldn't bother to do his own exhaustive research, when all he needs do, is wave his reputation and after name alphabet soup around!
4 whole hours research!? WOW!
Compares very favorably with over twenty years inside the industry and at the coal face, doesn't it!?
A less than subject knowledgeable, Don's clever, getting all those other "free volunteers", to do his critical research for him, for a profitable paper, lecture or book perhaps?
Rhrosty.

Rhosity,

Clearly you never learnt a thing about costing and policy analysis during your career.

"And seem reluctant to look at any examples that take us away from a national grid, and price gouging centralized power?"

That demonstrates your bias. You simply haven't a clue about what is relevant - i.e. the economics and the ability to meet the key requirements of the system: energy security, power quality, reliability of supply, cost.