I thought an engineer would appreciate small force x long time = large force x short time. Carbon abatement won't get off the ground under your scenario.

Isn't it so typically hypocritical of the RE proponents that they spent many years trying to assert the importance of considering ERoEI because they thought it supported their advocacy of their passionate but irrational and unjustifiable support for RE. However, now that's it turned around and bitten them hard on the back side - by demonstrating that RE is not sustainable - they want to try to dismiss its relevance. Typical!

Luciferase, an engineer would appreciate small force x long time only has the same effect as large force x short time when no other forces are involved.

My scenario was not about getting carbon abatement off the ground, but rather to alert you and Peter to the absolute idiocy of the claim about minimum EROEI requirements. You seem remarkably eager to avoid thinking about the real implications of the scenario I supplied. Why do you have so much blind faith in the overwhelming importance of EROEI?

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Peter Lang, I see you're exhibiting more signs of intellectual dishonesty, ignoring my explanation of why the claims about minimum EROEI requirements are so idiotic, and instead taking a swipe at renewable energy advocates. But that too appears very dishonest for multiple reasons.

Who are these RE proponents who "spent many years trying to assert the importance of considering ERoEI because they thought it supported their advocacy of their passionate but irrational and unjustifiable support for RE"? It's not something that I've ever encountered. EROEI has been very important for renewable enery advocates for precisely the opposite reason: they knew the very low EROEI of early solar panels limited their ability to address the problem. But those problems have been overcome; the technology's rapidly advancing and their EROEI's much higher and rising. And now that it's no longer a problem you make bogus claims of unsustainability based on dubiously alleged inability to meet standards that were never genuine requirements anyway!

"My scenario was not about getting carbon abatement off the ground...". That's clear, it doesn't.

"Why do you have so much blind faith...." You have no grasp of the impact of EROEI, as all you have said about it demonstrates. Clearly my analogies haven't helped, so here's another go.

If there existed only RE and its storage systems, it would not meet the minimum EROEI needed for first world civilization, nor meet the growth of the third world towards emulating the first. How could adding more RE infrastructure alter this incontrovertible fact?

This being so, why should we invest now in RE and its storage? Shouldn't we wait, while trusting in the advancement of the technology to raise its EROEI to the necessary minimum before investing? Investing now is money down the drain. Meeting RET targets is just a pointless, luxury expense. Early adopters always pay dearly for the feeling of superiority.

We already have the answer at hand, nuclear, which you said should have been pursued twenty years ago, but not now because of your faith that RE and its storage will quickly overcome all obstacles, which must necessarily include reaching the minimum EROEI target. In what is that faith based?

The same faith should extend to overcoming nuclear's man-made obstacles, which are all that is holding up progress.

Incontrovertible fact, huh? You could say "the moon's incontrovertibly made of green cheese" but that doesn't make it true. I say it's incontrovertibly false!

And if you still think otherwise, I'll ask you again:
Hypothetically if EROEI itself was the limiting factor
and a minimum of 7 was needed to support a society
why could the society not be supported by twice as much infrastructure with an EROEI of 4?
The net energy would be the same.

And remember, if you can't provide an answer that's true in all circumstances, the claim can not possibly be incontrovertible.

The real purpose of this scenario is to get you to realise how ludicrous your claim is. Society's demands are constrained by cost and sometimes by land use. A higher EROEI helps overcome those constraints, but there is no possible mechanism for the EROEI itself to be the constraint.

To a very large extent we HAVE waited, trusting in the advancement of the technology to make renewable energy more economically viable. That's why its market share is so low. But the time for waiting is over! The best thing we could do now is to remove the systemic economic barriers that are holding it back.

Renewable energy technology that greatly exceeds your irrelevant target has already been invented and will soon be ubiquitous. And there is no evidence to suggest the technological advances will suddenly stop.

Nuclear obstacles should be overcome too, but not to the extent they compromise safety.