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0 pointsbeefield9y ago0 comments

> if you correctly calculate the energy cost needed.

I thought EROEI was supposed to be fudge-free? If you really calculate EROEI as the nature wants it, you are never reaching EROEI of one unless you are breaking thermodynamic laws.

> - you're not assigning price in energy for those additional means of production

There are non-energy factors of production. If you disagree with that, there is no point continuing this discussion. If you agree, don't you see that your argumentation is flawed, because I was specifically arguing about non-energy production factors and now you claim that I do not assign correctly the energy cost of a production factor that does not have energy cost?

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js89y ago

> If you really calculate EROEI as the nature wants it, you are never reaching EROEI of one unless you are breaking thermodynamic laws.

This is actually true for ROI too, if you price everything correctly (so that all the participants would agree), there could hardly be any income from investment alone.

> There are non-energy factors of production.

If you assume something is in large enough supply, then it's always, from physics, a matter (pun intended) of having enough energy to obtain it.

But OK, let's say there are non-energy factors. It's really not that different from the claim of some economists (which I agree with) that there are things that you cannot put monetary price on, such as human life. So I say again that ROI suffers from the same problem, if you have investment that for example kills people, you cannot calculate its monetary ROI in a meaningful way.

Really think about it, EROEI and ROI is a similar concept, with similar flaws, just different units.

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