Tar Sands, Oil Shale, And Heavy Oil

As we as a species continue to exploit energy resources that are more and more energy-intensive to extract, we will find out the true meaning of "net energy." That is the energy left over after we find, extract, refine, and deliver energy to its user. Net energy is what everything in society except the energy industry runs on. Right now in the United States, if the 40 to 1 ratio for EROI is correct, then about 2.5 percent of our energy is spent getting energy. That leaves plenty for all the other things we want to do.

But if we come to rely on an array of low EROI fuels, we may soon find that vast portions of our economy must now be occupied with energy gathering. A drop to a 10 to 1 average EROI implies that 10 percent of the economy would be devoted to energy extraction. That's four times the current size of the energy sector in the United States. A drop to 5 to 1 implies that 20 percent of the economy would be involved in energy extraction. This progression is called the "net energy cliff", and it augurs enormous changes in the way we structure our economy and our lives if it comes to pass.

Those changes are, in fact, already happening as we realize that unconventional oil won't be cheap. It's unlikely to be plentiful either because unconventional oil will be challenging to produce at the same high rates we've been producing conventional oil. And, the low EROI of unconventional oil should tell us that we cannot count on it to provide as much energy to society as we are used to from much higher quality fuels.

All of the foregoing flies in the face of the (wildly misleading) conventional wisdom about unconventional oil. But if we are to make intelligent policy and personal decisions about energy, we will be better prepared if we work with the available evidence rather than relying on the oil industry's pronouncements of wonders yet to come.