Does the Energy Balance/EROEI Matter?
It depends. A society that operates with a high average EROEI is going to look quite a bit different from a society that doesn’t. In the former, a relatively small proportion of the overall economy can be involved in the production of energy which drives the rest of society. But as the EROEI of a society decreases, the energy production of the society must increase. Society becomes more dependent upon energy production. For instance, the world uses 85 million barrels of oil a day. If the EROEI of society is 10/1, then 8.5 million of those barrel equivalents were used to produce the oil. For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume that oil was used to make oil. That leaves us with a net of 76.5 million barrels. Now, drop the EROEI of that same society to 1.3 to 1. Now, in order to net 76.5 million barrels of oil, we have to consume 76.5/1.3, or 59 million barrels per day. In the high EROEI society, it takes 85 million barrels of total production to sustain it. In the low EROEI society,
