Re: SC14

The " energy returned, on energy invested " ( EROEI ) for the biofuels is generally even, to negative, depending on which ones you are refering to. The EROEI for the endeavor of producing, and making available, all the various range of hydrocarbon products, has been steadily diminishing as the decades roll by. Around 30 years ago, it was around 25 to 1, and now, I read recently, it is down to 2 to 1. So it currently takes one barrel of oil in energy, to get two barrels worth in production. When it reaches 1 to 1, its a wash. You get out, what you put in. This concept is one of the main big problems, with the viability of the various alternative schemes out there which have been proposed as replacements for lost hydrocarbon energy sources. When you calculate out all the energy, and resources required to develop the various infrastrutures systems, on scales massive in size, which would be required, the EROEI doesn't add up to anything remotely close to a significant addition to energy, that could realistically fill the gap of what will be lost because of the depleting hydrocarbons. Our society, this country, has over the recent decades invested itself almost completely in a system that utterly depends on, and maintains itself with, cheap, affordable hydrocarbon energy. Now this arrangement is facing the inevitable depletion of the " life blood " that has fed the system. So what happens to a body when a gaping wound, depletes in rapid, and irreversable fashion, its supply of blood? That, IMHO, is akin to what we are now facing, when it comes to the " fluid ", that has kept the body of our nation, alive and intact.