[SustainableTompkins] EROI and investment

[northsheep at juno.com]

Another conclusion in the article that I found shocking but useful,
especially for us in the Northeast: Based on an exhaustive EROI analysis,
the only energy alternative to fossil fuel that the authors could
recommend for its long term investment value was wood. I think investment
value will be a good indicator of use value, at least for wood in our
environment. 

Assuming the above, an important question becomes: How do we manage and
protect the long term public interest in this resource whose value will
begin to skyrocket? I am reminded of the firewood crisis circa 1600 in
Europe that more that anything else drove emigration to the New World.
Religious and socio-economic problems were often ripple effects of
population outstripping the carrying capacity of the main energy resource
of that era: wood. 

The firewood crisis repeated itself in the New World Northeast in the
1700s as wood disappeared around population centers to a distance that
made it uneconomic to harvest, given the contemporary poor state of land
transportation. In today's energy language, the EROI of wood in the
Northeast diminished toward zero. At one point the value of wood in
population centers was so great that it became economic to pave roads
with part of it just to make them passable for the rest of it. Think of
the energy cost of that. Our roads are paved with oil; what does that
mean?

As we retreat from an oil civilization toward increasing reliance on
wood, how do we avoid Marx's maxim: history repeats itself, once as
tragedy, again as farce? These crises of key resources in history have
all too often been blamed on a "tragedy of the commons", as if commoners
had any real say in the management of forests and other resources, when
real control was in the hands of a land owner aristocracy or royalty.
Commoners often had no other management choice but re-appropriation, a la
Robin Hood. 

This suggests that we need to reintroduce to common discourse the literal
meaning of 'commonwealth', retiring it from vacuous terms like "British
Commonwealth" or "Commonwealth of Massachusetts", and use the concept of
'a common wealth' to formalize and enforce public rights and
responsibilities in such key resources as wood will be in our future. 

Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
     www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying


On Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:57:10 -0500 Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org> writes:
> People who were interested in last year's discussion of EROI
> (energy returned on energy invested) may find this analysis
> illuminating:
> 
>     http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3412#more
> 
> The diagrams toward the end illustrate graphically what TCLocal
> folks have been trying to say about the effect of declining EROI
> on "discretionary consumption."
> 
> Jon
> 
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