Whether humanity will die in "heat death"? Bashny.Net

Scenarios "myvseumrёm" have always been and will be popular. At least, this is a convenient way to attract attention and make the reader groan and gasp. Subjects energy is no exception, and here there are two main apocalypse - one of them is peak oil. The concept of peak oil became widespread when oil prices are high and goes into oblivion low. So, back in 2008, all written about peak oil in 2012, and later it came and in RuNet. Fortunately, world oil production from those years are still growing, so proponents of the theory had to reduce his theory of "peak oil at all" to particulars: "production peak easily accessible oil" or "peak production of conventional oil." The reason for mentioning "easy availability" is the second "apocalypse" - in reducing the rate of energy profitability (EROEI), by analogy with the economic profitability (ROI). About him and talk.

What is EROEI? Imagine a cheetah for hunting antelope. Antelope meat contains protein and fat, which give the cheetah energy, so necessary for existence. If a cheetah owned thermodynamics, before each hunt he should calculate how much energy he spent on chasing antelope and how much it will receive from the meat. If he is going to hunt antelope, and catch a result, only the mouse, which can not even compensate for the loss of energy to hunt, it is obvious that it was better that day did not hunt.

The ratio of produced energy to the cheetah spent and will be called the coefficient EROEI. If a cheetah antelope meat will get 20 joules, and spend 1, the EROEI hunting cheetah will be equal to 20: 1. It is obvious that EROEI = 1 is a critical value below which the energy source, in fact, no longer a source of energy, and even becomes a burden.

If there is a cheetah antelope, then we have oil, gas and coal. They meet the needs of mankind in energy by 92%, ie almost entirely. And if the extraction of energy resources and the rest will be spent more energy than they concluded, then mankind will be without power for their existence and condemned to eternal torment growth of entropy and death, according to the second law of thermodynamics. Generally, an allegory of this article goes to аналогичному scenario for the universe. Therefore, the second apocalyptic scenario implies a decrease EROEI energy to one or less. To deal with this scenario should refer to the actual values ​​EROEI, but the thing - EROEI calculation quite laborious, vague, and most importantly - does not accept any commercial value. Outcome is predictable - there are many estimates of economic profitability of anything, and the energy involved in only a few researchers around the world.

Since we are talking about "myvseumrёm" that should be explored EROEI most developed energy resources. It is best to consider the US oil and gas sector - in the middle of the 20th century there was mined a huge amount of oil and gas, even by today's standards, the peak of conventional oil was passed back in the 70s. It is difficult to imagine something more exhausted, and that's why the local oil and gas industry moves from traditional production of hydrocarbons on the "shale" gas and oil.

Past studies EROEI h4> Because:
1) Research EROEI US oil and gas can be counted on the fingers of one hand;
2.) The theme of "shale" holivarna little more than full;
3.) apokatipticheskie forecasts popular much more optimistic;
will be useful to plunge into the existing results to understand that in general it is known about the oil and gas EROEI USA. But very little is known, at least, far less than what they say about him.

Studies in recent years only two. Первое dated 2005, and second 2011 and the second in EROEI it is calculated from 1919 to 2007 years. That is, the newer 2007 data are not available, and it is in its infancy 2007-2009 The most interesting question in EROEI oil and gas resources - "shale revolution" and that is why about EROEI "shale" is almost no data. With great sorrow for those who believed EROEI "shale" equal to five (very common opinion) reported that these data are taken from the ceiling, and the figure is the result of errors and manipulation .

Methodology ESTIMATE h4> All studies were performed EROEI US oil and gas group of researchers under the leadership of or participation ideological mastermind - Charles Hall as the "inventor" of the concept. Of course, I want to be able to compare the results of different studies in the context of the United States and around the world, and it requires the same methodology - how and what to consider and take into account? Collective chops with shoulder - introduces 15 different EROEI , giving each its own index. Approach, in our opinion, is logical and they can portray this table:





We are most interested in EROEI (stnd) - "standard". It takes into account costs of up to indirect and measures the energy extracted directly on the site, that is, without processing, for example, crude oil into gasoline and without transportation of finished gasoline to gas stations, cutting off too much - not associated with production. The authors of the methodology adopted it as the most suitable for calculating and comparing, hence the corresponding index. The first line, EROEI (1, deo), added to us and will be useful in the following article. Therefore, to obtain a meaningful value EROEI and be able to anything to compare it, it is necessary to perform the calculation according to the table above, and it is desirable to calculate the EROEI (stnd). The methodology for calculating EROEI (stnd) for oil and gas in the United States has above-mentioned study from 2011. - We will not reinvent the wheel and use it, substituting new data for 2013. If you remove all non-essential, the formula looks like this:



(For more information about the methodology can be found here ) i>

The result is this:



What is clear:
a) EROEI (stnd) traditional oil and gas falls from 1997 to 2008, which in principle is natural.
b) Since the beginning of shale revolution EROEI (stnd) begins, in general, to grow.

From 2008 to 2013 "slates" made a breakthrough in the production of a near-zero proportion to half, "shale" oil (oil NPC) now accounts for about half of the total US production, and production of shale gas has recently exceeded half. Therefore, these data are interpreted as logical:

a) EROEI (stnd), even in developed countries such as the United States is not so low and is now about 11. No apocalypse and does not smell.
b) EROEI (stnd) "shale" is likely higher than the traditional oil and gas and the United States because EROEI (stnd) not only broke the trend of falling, but began to rise with the beginning of shale revolution.
a) EROEI (stnd) = 10, 5 it is only "average in the hospital" American oil and gas. Of course, there is a spread of values. Given the above, EROEI traditional oil and gas is somewhere around the middle and lower, and the "shale" - about average and above. According to our assumptions EROEI (stnd) "shale" is in the range of 8 ... 25

This fits in with what is happening in the US oil and gas industry and explains why the industry is a massive shift to the "slate" hydrocarbons. The fact is that between energy and economic profitability, there is, of course, a certain correlation and "shale" is more profitable in the production not only energy, but also economically.

Well worth quoting reference EROEI US oil and gas production over the last 100 years for the curious. To do this, combine the above-mentioned study and our continued:



To summarize, the debate format "apocalypse" vs "bright future" in the context of resources is always a question of "nature" vs "knowledge." Attempts to imagine that a person is facing a resource crisis in the world where resources regarding our needs from a practical point of view are endless, stem from an erroneous assessment of our knowledge. People always think that we are already very close to the peak of knowledge, and in fact we actually only just begun to ascend to it. Therefore, it is incorrect to static world without extensive progress and intense breakthroughs, though the latter, of course, impossible to predict. That generates the error.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/242953/