Net energy...what's off the cliff?

[suspectnumber961]

Net Energy, the Key to Energy Investing







Long Term:

Net Energy is the best long-term guide for energy investing. Unfortunately, few energy companies publish the Net Energy of their reserves. Investors should demand such disclosure and the rate at which those resources are depleting.

Fracked oil exemplifies risk of Net Energy and depletion. Net Energy is estimated at about 3:1; off the Energy Cliff. A typical well looks OK as it produces about 86,000 barrels the first year. But then it depletes by about 46% the second year.

Solar and Wind have excellent Net Energies, over 20:1. Unfortunately, no solar company I know of has found their Crossing the Chasm market niche. As railroads were the catalyst for the shift in energy systems from biofuels (hay and wood) to fossil fuels between 1860-1880, I believe transportation will be the catalyst for shifting from fossil to solar.

My investment is in Personal Rapid Transit (PRT); computer networks integrated with ultra-light urban railroads to move people, cargo and trash using 1/10th the energy of highways. Solar/wind collection integrated into the rail infrastructure gather 5,000 to 30,000 vehicle-miles of power per mile of rail per day. PRT networks can afford the high cost of solar/wind because mobility efficiencies approach the 480 ton-miles per gallon of freight railroad. Integrating solar/wind makes transportation durable against blackouts from grid failures.

[niky]

Not much new there, but I kind of agree. Too difficult to integrate solar into a car-based transport grid, but rail, definitely possible. Also working at better economies of scale that way.

[jamesqf]

Some good points, but ignores one important factor, which is that it's often not the amount of energy, but the portability/transportability of it that's the critical factor. For instance, it's fairly easy (at least in the sunnier parts of the country) to use solar power to produce all the energy a typical home requires. It's not at all easy to get that energy into a form that lets you drive more than say 70-80 miles (Nissan Leaf). So if you need to travel longer distances (on routes that aren't heavily-travelled enough to make investment in e.g. rail practical), then you need to convert that energy into a more portable form, say ethanol, even if the conversion is inefficient.

[niky]

Hence light rail. Since they need their own power network, anyway, you can integrate the solar and wind stations into the system.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by niky

Hence light rail.

But there are a large number of places where it's simply not practical or cost-effective to build a light rail line.