Reply #19: Oil EROEI numbers

[NickB79]

"Wang showed that the energy balance for gasoline is actually negative (.81 : 1 ) i.e. for every 1 unit of energy you put into drilling for, transporting and refining the oil you get out .81 units of energy in the final product."

If that's true, what keeps the system going? If we've been losing energy with every gallon of gasoline refined for the past century, what other energy source has been making up the difference?

While it is true that refining oil at the refinery into gasoline is a net energy loser, the initial EROEI of crude oil is something like 30:1; ie one barrel's worth of energy can pump 30 barrels worth from the ground. 0.8:1 is only for the refinery portion of oil-to-gasoline production, not the entire drilling-to-pumping-to-gas station chain of events. The extremely positive initial EROEI offsets the negative EROEI in the final few steps.