Yeah, actually when you put it that way I’d agree… the EROEI doesn’t matter as long as the price is still acceptable.

The amount of energy going in only matters in terms of cost and the cost of both panels and turbines has become quite reasonable. And will continue to fall.

At a EROEI of 2 for panels we could still grow our supply of panels exponentially.

EROEI is an issue with finite energy sources. It’s a way of tracking the point at which the game is up.

An EROEI of 6 is still fairly disappointing as that means for every panel made we can only make 6 panels for a net increase of 5 panels… but I suspect that number is significantly out of date. (They may also be assuming net lifetime of 20 years like most of the more conservative estimates – which means we can fairly safely double it based on what we are seeing in the actual market.)

I did dig further. Got stopped by the $35.95 fee required to read the source.

The article author does state that the EROEI for solar at 6 is likely outdated and low.

Anyway, what does the EROEI matter if the input energy can be 100% renewable? Cost, of course, counts. But in the case of fossil fuels we are using fossil fuels, a finite commodity, to obtain more fossil fuels. We can build solar panels and wind turbines for the new few billion years with energy from the Sun.

Since 2003 the price of NG for electricity has been almost always above $5/tcf except for the ‘supply glut’ period starting in July ’11. Most recent reported price is $4.59/tcf and it looks like the price is working its way back over $5.

Looks to me as if the market is going to improve for storage and more renewable installations.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9190us3m.htm

I see calls for the current price to go up to make it economical.

I think that estimate is fanciful.

Great production for the first year and soon after the flow drops to a very small percentage of what originally came out.

The information is mixed.

In 2010 the DoE and natural gas industry (Potential Gas Committee (PGC)) agreed that we had 1578 tcf of known, proven, and possible reserves. 842 tcf in the ‘known and proven’ categories.

in January 2012 the US Department of Energy lowered the 842 tcf ‘known and proven’ to 482 tcf based on more detailed information provided by gas explorations in shale deposits in the preceding year. Wells are slowing production much faster than was expected. That’s a 43% drop.

Then the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) increased their estimate from 2192 tcf to 2,384 tcf at year end 2012. (The higher 2192 tcf number includes “speculative” gas.) That’s 25% (486 tcf) more than the previous record-high assessment 2 years earlier.

So the DoE is saying 43% less and the NG industry is saying 25% more.

http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/04/pgc–us-natural-gas-resource-estimate-rises-25–in-2-years.html

Then I found this…

“Hughes, who recently published his findings alongside an analysis by the Energy Policy Forum‘s Deborah Rogers of Wall Street’s role, calculated that nationwide, 7,200 wells will need to be drilled annually, at a cost of more than $42 billion each year, simply to keep shale gas production from falling. But last year, drillers didn’t even make enough money to cover that $42 billion, Hughes discovered.

“In 2012, US shale gas generated just $33 billion (although some wells also produced substantial liquid hydrocarbons, which improved economics),” Hughes wrote in a February 21 article in the journal Nature.”

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/05/01/1946781/faster-drilling-diminishing-returns-in-shale-plays-nationwide/

If the last report is the correct one then it sounds like the EROI could be quite low. If it’s a EROI based on unrealistic production expectations, then it’s not very useful.

Aside from that, natural gas burning puts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Not ruining the planet for human life is probably a bit more important than getting a nice, high EROI number.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/apr2013/eroi

It has a table of the following EROIs for renewables (+ nuclear)
Energy Source EROI
Hydroelectric 40+
Wind 20
Coal 18
Natural gas 7
Solar (PV) 6
Nuclear 5

Here’s the table for liquid fuels (not including distribution costs)
Fuel Type EROI
Conventional oil 16
Ethanol from sugarcane 9
Biodiesel from soy 5.5
Tar sands 5
Heavy oil from California 4
Ethanol from corn 1.4

“We found two general patterns in the relation of energy gains compared to energy costs: a gradual secular decrease in EROI and an inverse relation to drilling effort. EROI for finding oil and gas decreased exponentially from 1200:1 in 1919 to 5:1 in 2007. The EROI for production of the oil and gas industry was about 20:1 from 1919 to 1972, declined to about 8:1 in 1982 when peak drilling occurred, recovered to about 17:1 from 1986–2002 and declined sharply to about 11:1 in the mid to late 2000s.”

For those not familiar with EROI/EROEI, it’s Energy Returned On Energy Invested. The ratio between the amount of energy it takes to find or extract energy and the amount obtained.

If we look at solar panels they pay back the energy it takes to manufacture them in two years (less than one year with thin-film). They produce electricity for 40+ years, best we can tell. So a 40+:2 or 20+:1 EROEI.

Wind turbines take 3 to 8 months, depending on the quality of the wind site where they are installed. Newest technology should produce electricity for 30+ years. A 30+:5.5 month or 65:1.

That makes wind and solar a lot more attractive than the ~10:1 EROEI with gas and oil.

But wait, there’s more!

The big reason that EROEI is so important with fossil fuels is that we are using up some of our finite supply in order to obtain a larger amount. We’re using up what we want just to keep our supplies flowing. At an EROEI of 1:1 we’re out of business.

Solar panels and wind turbines can be built with 100% electricity. There’s no fuel limit for panels or turbines, or at least no limit for a few billion years. EROEI for panels and turbines built with renewable electricity is irrelevant.

In 2012 we had more electricity going on the grid from solar panels than we used to manufacture that year’s solar panels. We must have hit that point a lot time ago with wind turbines.

For a truly sustainable future we need to electrify the rest of the material extraction/refinement process for panels and turbines. At that point the ERO(finite)EI becomes gazillions:zero.

A New Long Term Assessment of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for U.S. Oil and Gas Discovery and Production http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1866/pdf

There are some nice graphs in there showing how the EROI for finding and exploiting oil and natural gas have plummeted and the trend is continuing down.

We didn’t do that. So what is happening, IMHO, is that the “invisible hand of the market” is taking us to a renewable future via the natural gas route.

Luckily for us, natural gas got very cheap and because people in the electricity business want to make money it’s getting used a lot.

And luckily for us, the price is unlikely to stay cheap which will mean that as we get better storage solutions we’ll be able to push NG to the curb.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/23/investment-in-renewable-energy-set-to-triple-by-2030-costs-plunging/

We’re going to win this one despite not having a level playing field.