Abiotic ressources

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• Heterogeneous rise of world consumption for base metals: by a factor from 1,5 (Lead) to 3 (Alumunium)

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• Recycling rates not progressing as much

[7] ROGISH, D.G., and MATOS, G.R., 2008, The global flows of metals and minerals: USGS Open-File Report 2008–1355

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Figure 18. Consumption and extraction in the European Union group of 15 countries (EU-15). A, Base metals. B, Iron and steel.

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Figure 20. Consumption and extraction in South America. A, Base metals. B, Iron and steel.

• A lot of operations involved

  • Extraction, mineral processing, metal working

  • 1^st order transformation: smelting and refining

  • Transport between steps

  • This raw metal undergo varied 2nd order transformations to become raw products with diverging final energetical footprint

  • Copper example: tubes 20-30% higher footprint than foils

• Uncertainties in data

  • Diversity of production sites (mineral concentration, efficiency of processes)

  • Varied studies perimeter (no standard approach, weigh of hypothesis)

  • Disparities in sources of information available

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Extracted from ^[3]

• Extraction & Refining of metals

  • Less & less concentrated mineral resources -> more & more energy

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Extracted from ^[24]

[24] PRIOR, T et al., 2012. Resource depletion, peak minerals and the implications for sustainable resource management.

[16] ELAW, 2010. 1st Edition: Guide pour l’évaluationde EIE de projetsminiers [online].

[17] Hydraulic Fracturing 101. Earthworks [online].

• Loss of habitat

  • Excavation or accumulation of waste -> mobile species (birds and some mammals)are hunted out + sedentary species (little mammals, reptiles, invertebrates) are killed

  • Acid drainage or dewatering -> severes impacts on surrounding aquatic life

  • These 2 points -> perturbation of trophic chains (diminution of food for the higher- level predators)

  • Disparition of vegetation

• Fracture of habitat

  • Large portions of land occupied

    -> perturbation of migrations or local isolation of species

Specifics to oil (again):

• Hydraulic fracturing & Oil spills contaminations

• Details in ^[17]

[16] ELAW, 2010. 1st Edition: Guide pour l’évaluation de EIE de projets miniers [online].

[17] Hydraulic Fracturing 101. Earthworks [online].

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. ,2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

• Human migrations

  • Displacement & reinstallation of communities (expropriated or not) -> resentment + power perturbations -> local conflicts

  • New high economic activity -> arrival of new populations -> new pressures on land, water or waste management -> tensions & potential conflicts with original inhabitants

    Ex of Grasberg Mines in Indonesia: From <1000 (1973) to 110 000 (1999) ; violent conflicts during 1970-1990

  • New needs of infrastructures -> urbanization -> wide-ranging effects

• Loss of drinkable water access

  • Due to uncontrolled exploitations & industrial pollutions

• Pressures on means of existence

  • Mining activities not correctly managed -> economic cost on other sectors (agriculture & fishing in particular)

• Public health consequences

  • Potential sanitary risks are often seglected

    -> example of improvised mining towns are been shown to threaten food security and availability

  • Indirect effects of exposition to mining activities are higher incidences of tuberculosis, asthma, chronic bronchitis, etc.

  • A review of metals direct toxicity impacts can be found in a dedicated chapter of ^[3]

• Cultural & Esthetics

  • Destruction of cultural resource by surface perturbation or excavation

  • To pographical or hydrological changes

  • Higher access to previously inacessible locations

    -> theft or vandalism of cultural artifacts

  • Visual impacts due to deforestation& presence of infrastructures

[25] HUISMAN, J., PAVEL, C., et al. 2020. Critical Raw Materials in Technologies and Sectors -Foresight [online].

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. ,2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

• Emerging geopolitical stakes for metals

  • As for oil, the main consumer countries are also the ones with the smallest reserves

  • Understanding of these problematics is more recent for metals and is parallel to the recent rise of metals prices in the 2000s

  • The EU Commission now regurlaly pubish reports on the matter^[25]

  • Strategical stocks of metals constituted during Cold War, dismantled after the 90s, are back since15-20 years

• Capitalistic concentration of compagnies :

  • in 2008, 4173 compagnies in mining but 149 majors (3,6%) were controlling 83% of the market^[3]

  • Power to initiate struggles with states over natural resources and their exploitation, in order to maximize private profits and mutualize losses or environmental externalities

  • Complex conflicts with explicit and implicit actors

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. ,2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

• Armed conflicts already existing

  • Not as visible as oil conflicts yet

  • DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) being the richer african country in metals, its history since mid-XXth is a paradigmatic example

• Crossings with colonization & neocolonization

  • 1961 Defense agreements between France, Niger, Dahomey & Ivory Coast garantee limitation of exportations to other countries than France in case of needs

  • 2007 contract of China & RDC: heavy construction work (6 billions $) in in exchange of metal mining authorizations (10 Mt of Cu, 200 000 t of Co, 372 t of Au)

    • With explicit intention of asking land if the metal provisionning does not meet expectations

    • Direct implication in local economy

No need to developp on the well known history of oil geopolitical conflicts since mid-XXth!

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. ,2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

[18] RITCHIE, Hannah and ROSER, Max, 2017. CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Our World in Data[online].

[19] BONNEUIL, C., FRESSOZ, J-B., 2016. L’événement anthropocène: la Terre, l’histoire et nous.

Zoom	Developed countries did develop themselves on the exploitation of countries now productors & consumers Between 1815-1880, 5/6 of British investments were outside their empire, chiefly to develop mining (coal, in particular) and transport of ores by rail in dominated countries [19]

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20th century have mainly reorganized exploitation, but it continued on USA based its economic rise on intensive use of its own resources during 1870-1940 Supported decolonization mainly to gain access to material resources of newly independant countries Conversely, East block exploited its own environnment above all Emerging trend -> Reappropriations of national resources & path of developpmen Setting of export restrictions [3]

[6] BP, 2020. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. [online].

[20] EIA, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016. Carbon Dioxide Emissions Coefficients. [online].

[21] IPCC. 2018. Mitigation Pathways Compatible with 1.5°C in the Context of Sustainable Development. . P. 82.

• Oil emissions of current reserves

  • Proven reserves :

    -> 1733,9 billions barrels ^[6]

  • 53750,9 billion gallonsAverage on varied oil uses gives ≃ 10 kg CO2 emitted per gallon ^[20]

    -> 537,5 Gt CO2

• World CO2 eq budget, current estimations : ^[21]

  • 1170 Gt CO2 eq to stay <2°C of global warming

  • 420 Gt CO2 eq to stay <1,5°C of global warming

• Consomption of all current proven oil reserves is half of our total 2°C world budget and more than our total 1,5°C budget!

  • Without even considering natural gas, coal, or other emissions (CH4, for example) contributing to radiative forcing...

  • This considered, without changes, the 2°C threshold should be crossed in about 26 years

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. ,2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

[10] Data & Statistics,. IEA[online]. Available from : https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics

And mining is very dependent of highly carbonated, non renewable energy vectors

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Adapted from ^[3] .The values for World averages of Electricity origin were replaced by updated data rom ^[10]

[6] BP, 2020. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. [online].

[15] JANCOVICI, J-M, 2019. Les Energies fossiles. Ecole des Mines [online].

[22] World Energy Outlook 2018. IEA –International Energy Agency.

• Hypothesis: we don’t mind CO_{2 eq} emissions

  • Either we consider it’s not a problem

  • Or we think innovation or start-ups will solve that

  -> Exhaustion of Reserves through Production will still occur!

  • R/P ratio: most simplified model

  • Considering current reserves ^[6]

  • And 2019 rate of consomption ^[6] taken as constant for the years to come (quite unrealistic hypothesis of no flow reduction)

    -> No oil remaining in ≃ 50 years

[23] CALVO, G. et al.., 2017. Assessing maximum production peak and resource availability of non-fuel mineral resources.

[15] JANCOVICI, J-M, 2019. Les Energies fossiles. Ecole des Mines [online].

[22] World Energy Outlook 2018. IEA – International Energy Agency.

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A slightly better estimate: the Hubbert peak model (1956) We know there is no production at t = 0 and t = t final The area below the production curve must be equal to the reserve Regarding conventionnal oil, several countries seems to have peaked already. A review can be found here [15] It is commonly believed that world production peak of conventionnal oil already happened, in 2008 [22] Extracted from [23]

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Reliability is influenced by several parameters Uncertainty regarding reserves information Particular environmental issues: health, water use, ore grade Sociopolitical issues: new objects, changes of regulation, or armed conflicts Interdependencies of byproducts Substitution & recycling That said, influence of reserves’ variation is limited when rapported to the current trends in production and growth of production -> Li case study: estimated reserves x 8 only delayed the peak by 46 years Extracted from [23]

• This recent try of systematic assessment is quite interesting to read^[23] and accessible!

  • The time scaling is quite short, even for base metals

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Extracted from ^[23]

• Expected peak in the next 50 years : 12 metals over 47 studied: As, Bi, In, Li, Mn, Mo, Ni, Ag, Ta, Te, Zn

• 30 metals over 47 have their expected peak in the next 100 years

• Gold & Antimony peaked arround 2015 (agreement for Gold with ^[3])

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Extracted from ^[23]

• Taking into account the interdependencies of metals

  • Bold indicates it is the main production process of said metal

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Extracted from ^[3]

[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. 2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

• Nearly a half of metals today exploited are interlinked

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Extracted from ^[3]

[26] GRAEDEL, T. et al., 2015. Criticality of metals and metalloids. DOI 10.1073/pnas.1500415112.

• Notion related to the attempt to assess the relative risks concerning the availability of resources

  • Relatively recent preoccupation

  • As availability is an already complex notion, its risk analysis is also complex

    • Geological abondance & concentrations

    • Potential for substitution

    • State of the art of mining technology

    • Amount of regulatory oversight

    • Geopolitical initiatives

    • Governmental instability

    • Economic policy

  • As reserves are part of the assessment, it is also dynamic

• Several methodologies

  • At different scales of organizations

  • For different scales of time

  • With then varied results difficult to compare between each other

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Extracted from ^[26]

• Criticality space: a first step is to get an overall idea

  • A number of metals are concentrated on the middle: moderately high on at least 2 axis (rare earths, Cr, Te, etc.)

  • Some are regrouped toward lower left: relatively low criticality (Fe, Mg, Ni, Mn, etc.)

  • The right side: high supply risk (In, Ag, Tl, As, Sb)

  • The particular case of Au & Pt

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Extracted from ^[23]

This methodology allow the comparison of varid elements for (here at global level) : Supply risk Environmental implications Vulnerability to supply restriction Keep in mind it is a relative assessment Per kg comparison Results may be underestimated Database of 2008 (they were in the process ofupdating up to 2012 at publication in 2015) As data revisions are not frequent & major technology changes occurs slowly, they recommand reassessment on a 5 years basis

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Extracted from ^[23]

[25] HUISMAN, J., PAVEL, C., et al. 2020. Critical Raw Materials in Technologies and Sectors - Foresight [online].

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[3] BIHOUIX, P., GUILLEBON, B. 2010. Quel futur pour les métaux?

• Major difference between oil (energy resources) and metals (mineral ressources) :

  • Oil, Coal & Natural Gas -> mostly burned -> The flow is not retrievable

  • Metals -> mostly materially conserved -> The flow is retrievable + there is a stock in circulation!

• Each year, stocks of metals :

  • Increases of the producted quantity

  • Decreases of the lost quantity

    • Dispersive uses (metals used as dyes or fertilizers)

    • No recycling (incineration or landfill disposal)

• Current recycling

  • Precious metals (Au) or with moderately high value (Cu): few losses

  • Less noble metals (Al, Zn) have more important loss rates

  • No data for a lot of metals used in specific applications (electronics...)

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• Metals are one of the most interesting category of materials for recycling

  • Theoretically recyclable an infinite amount of time without diminishing their properties

  • Have high yield for stock preservation

    • 40% recycling rate -> 80% recycling rate <-> Reserves x 3

    • 50% recycling rate -> 99,9% recycling rate <-> Reserves x 500

• Rich countries show that recycling rate can reach high levels for base metals

  • France (2010): 85% for Fe ; 80% for Al & Cu ; 70% Pb ; 50% Zn ^[3]

• But it cannot do everything

  • No industrial process have a 100% efficiency -> same for recycling (remelt Al generate a dispersed loss of 1-2%)

  • A lot of our uses are not compatible with recycling

• The trend of higher complexity

  • > 30 metals in a computer

  • > 10 alloys of Steel in a car

  • Prevent us from retrieving the resources: not easy and sometimes techically impossible to detect or separate metals of an allow

• This phenomena exist for a lot of our metarials

  • Glass: mix of transparent & colored glasses -> no more use in most of construction or cars, only bottles

  • Plastic: often reused in less demanding uses (technically or aestetically)

-> Important to rethink life-cycles of products, raw materials, and mostly uses

• -> Integrate less performant or pretty materials & more recycled materials

• -> Organize recovery channels to boost recycling rate

• -> But also question the trend of high tech solutions instead of low tech ones

• -> That is, question the needs

• The trend of direct dispersive uses

  • Dyes (98% of Ti used as TiO₂ for white dyes)

  • Fertilizers (P, Zn, etc.)

  • Additives (Cr in Glass)

  • Pesticides (CuSO₄ in some organic farming plants)

• And « indirecty » dispersive uses (very difficult to recover)

  • 33% of Sn is used in welding

  • 50% of Zn is used in galvanizing

• Some metals like Co or Mb are nearly exclusively used in dispersive uses or alloys

• The socioeconomic limits

  • Economical incentives to constructors are not present or sufficient

  • Lack of reglementation and means to enforce it

  • Complexity of products and recovery channels does not help

• Limit the use in rare or noble metals in favor of abondant metals

  • Critical lens on « innovation »

  • Aim to maximize a low tech approach as much as possible at the level of product and technology

  -> For inorganic solar pannels, Si should be prefered to GaAs, CIGS, and others, even if the conversion efficiency is less important

• For critical cases, possibilities needs to be carefully explored :

  • Cr nearly indispensible for anti-corrosion

    -> Ti can replace Cr in certain cases but its energy footprint is 4-5 times higher

  • Cu nearly indispensible for electrical applications

    -> Al can replace Cu in certain cases but its energy footprint is 2-3 times higher

• Substituate oil by electrification? ^[27]

  • Li-ion batteries represented 37% of Li consumption in 2016 (and 40% of Co)

  • Batteries for electric vehicules were only 10% of Li-ion consumption in 2018

  • Most elements at disposal indicates that strong choices of resources’s uses will have to be made in the years to come :

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[27] Responsible minerals sourcing for renewable energy, 2019. University of Technology Sydney [online].

[28] ABDALLA, A. et al., 2018. Hydrogen production, storage, transportation and key challenges with applications: A review. DOI 10.1016/j.enconman.2018.03.088

[29] SCHMIDT, O., et al., 2017. Future cost and performance of water electrolysis: An expert elicitation study. DOI 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.10.045. 

• Substituate oil by « hydrogen »?

  • Currently > 90% of H₂ is produced by steam reforming (10 kg CO₂ per kg of H₂ produced) ^[28]

  • Water electrolysis / fuel cells have problems of their own ^[29]

    • Alkaline electrolysis is not adapted for electric cars

    • New technologies currently depends either on Pt and are not industrially mature (PEM) or rare earths and are at the state of demonstrators (SO)

• In need of a big & new infrastructure for supply of cars

-> We are back to the vicious circle of energy & material footprint

[30] BIHOUIX, Philippe, 2014. L’Age des low techs : vers une civilisation techniquement soutenable. Seuil.

• The often most efficient stategy to preserve abiotic resources stock

  • House thermally isolated + put on a sweater >>> room heating technical solution

  • Most transport on bicycle (short distance) + train (long distance) with minimal use of a car (occasional rental) >>> electric cars replacing current diesel and petrol cars

  • Simple dismountable and repairable electronics >>> computer assembly with glue with digital prints technology

• It is the first of the 7 principles of low-techs [30]

  1. Challenging needs

  2. Design and produce truly sustainable

  3. Orienting knowledge to resources’ savings

  4. Striking a technical balance between performance & conviviality

  5. Relocalize without losing the right scale effects

  6. De-machinizing services

  7. Knowing to remain modest

• Indeed this kind of transition imply numerous socioeconomical consequences

  • As any kind of transition, it is also a matter of flows and their evolution

[31] IPCC. 2014: mitigation of climate change: Working Group III contribution to the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC.

• Trajectories mitigating climate change all require a global limitation of material & energy flows

  • Even with the hypothesis of a high developpment of the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies

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[32] HCC, 2020. Maîtriser l’empreinte carbone de la France. Haut Conseil pour le Climat [online].

• The French carbon footprint

  • A large part of our carbon footprint comes from importations

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• The French situation

  • Mineral resources: metals & cement

  • Energy resources & chemical products: oil

  • Abiotic resources are a large part of it, metals in particular!

  • In terms of weight of abiotic resources in domestic emissions: oil is dominant through transport (direct emissions), followed by metals & cement (indirect and distributed emissions)

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• High mitigation potential in transport <-> Combination of varied measures ^[31]

  • Low-carbon fuels -> higher flows of metals & lower flow of oil

  • Lowering vehicules energy intensities -> lower flows of oil & metals

  • Encouraging modal shift to lower-carbon passenger & freight systems

    -> lower flows of oil + short-to-medium term higher flows of metals for infrastructure investments

  • Avoid journeys where possible -> lower flows of oils

• This kind of configuration apply generally

  • Specific augmentations in flows of metal are required to lower oil flows

  • Competition between uses requiring metals -> priorities will need to be established

[15] JANCOVICI, Jean-Marc, 2019. Les Energies fossiles. Ecole des Mines [online].

[34] HABERL, H., et al, 2020. A systematic review of the evidence on decoupling of GDP, resource use and GHG emissions, part II : synthesizing the insights. DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ab842a.

[33] HCC, 2020. Rapport annuel - Redresser le cap, relancer la transition. Haut Conseil pour le Climat [online]. 2020.

• At world scale, there is a historical link between primary energy & material consumption, and economic production (as measured by GDP) ^{[15] & [34]}

  • There is no consensus on the exact nature of the relationship nowadays ^[33]

  • But we know that energy & material availability enables GDP growth

  • And GDP growth, by anticipation of economic growth causes energy & material use

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• A lot of ambitious climate target rely on the concept of « decoupling » ^[34]

  • Promotion of economic growth while reducing material & energy footprint (EMF)

  • When theorized as absolute -> EMF reduction & GDP growth

  • When theorized as relative -> EMF slow growth & GDP high growth

• Recent systematic review clarifies that :

  • Relative decoupling is frequent for material use, GHG emissions, but not exergy

  • Relative decoupling of GDP and primary energy use can be caused by energy efficiency (higher ratio of exergy / primary energy use)

  • Absolute decoupling situations are very rare and are related to small short-term reductions of emissions

  • No evidence that absolute decoupling can be generalized

• Degrowth/Sufficiency currently seems indispensible to meet climate target and sustainable use of abiotic resources:

  • Require a contraction of current economics functionning

  • And even fundamental changes in its functionning too

  • A byproduct of this scientific inquiries is that GDP is more & more considered as an irrelevant indicator for these problematics

[35] ECORYS, 2012. Mapping resource prices: the past & the future [online]. Final report to European Comission.

• Base metals’ prices are historically quite constant relatively to each others but individual resource’s price is highly volatile ^[35]

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[6] BP, 2020. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. [online].

• Oil’s price is highly volatile too^[6]

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• Resources’s prices underlying determinations

  • Percieved availability through control of producers

  • Degree of substitutability

• Resources’s prices mecanisms of formations

  • Over-the-counter (OTC) markets: traditionnal mecanism

  • Annual or multi-year supply contracts: mainly, Fe and Fe allows

  • Pricing on forward markets

  • Special case of precious metals: considered as quasi-money or OTC.

• Historically, numerous resources exchanges were operated by intermediates

  • Contemporary period: developpment of financialization

  • Alignment of Raw materials on securities -> far less intermediaries

  • Developpment of financial product derivatives + capitalistic concentrations of producers

    -> overvalued prices and speculations

[36] MITTEAU, Gilles, 2018. Economie et finance du pétrole - Heu?reka. [online].

• Financial markets’s specific effects

  • Efficiency of market -> Trends of prices themselves tend to diseapear

  • Short-term interest of traders -> Short-term volatility

  • Complexity of the product and implications of prices variations on the economy

    -> Long-term volatility + impossibility to know for sure the causes of prices variations

  -> There is no « natural price-signalling » mecanism that makes a non- renewable resource progressively more expensive overtime

  -> The « natural » functionning of Financial markets seems to impply that the reduction of energy & material flows lead to higher volatility, or maybe higher « volatility of volatility »

For detailed reasonning, strong recommendation of Youtuber Heu?reka on Economy & Finance of oil

• Like recycling, energy efficiency is necessary

  • Allow to reduce flows for a given performance

  • 25% energy yield -> 30% energy yield -> 1/6 of oil flows spared per year

  • 25% energy yield -> 50% energy yield -> 1/2 of oil flows spared per year

  • Same goes for « material efficiency » (diminshing the quantity of material needed to achieve a given functionnality)

• But it is not sufficient, and could even be harmful on the global scale

  • Energy efficiency, when only measure applied, have mainly cost reduction effects

  • Cost reduction could then lead to democratize preexisting uses or create new ones

  • This then would lead to an overall increase in energy consumption

[37] SORRELL, Steve, 2007. The Rebound Effect: an assessment of the evidence for economy-wide energy savings from improved energy efficiency. [online]. UKERC

• This would be called a « rebound effect » ^[37]

  • The « economy-wide » rebound effect is of combination of direct and indirect rebound effects that can interact with each other

• Some basic examples of direct rebound effect :

  • If fuel-efficient vehicules make travel cheaper -> Consumers may choose to drive further / more often -> Offsets the energy savings

  • If a factory uses energy more efficiently -> Becomes more profitable -> May generate further investments -> More production

• Some basic examples of indirect rebound effect :

  • Drivers of fuel-efficient cars may spend the money saved bying petrol on other energy intensive goods or services (ex: overseas flight)

[38] JEVONS, William Stanley, 1865. The Coal Question. . 1865. P. 213.

• Rebound effect concept coms back to the XIXth century

  • Firstly known as « Jevons paradox » from W. J. Jevons ^[38]

  • Steam-engines’ efficiency had been increased by 10-fold at least in a century

  • Consumption of coal had greatly increased anyway (x 6 in 50 years)

• The same considerations could be made about today :

  • Energy efficiency of cars’ engines have never been better

  • Our oil cosumption dedicated to it have never been higher

  -> Could be explained by:

  • The growth of car use driven by low cost of oil

  • And spared cost of cars invested in high-tech supplementary functions which increase car’s weight and maintain oil consumption

  • The increase in heavy vehicules like SUVs

[39] STERN, David I., 2017. How accurate are energy intensity projections?. DOI 10.1007/s10584-017-2003-3.

• Quantified contemporary estimations are complicated :

  • There is indeed a correlation between various measures of energy efficiency and continuing growth of overall energy consumption

  • But the causal links between these trends are not clear

  • Difficulty to assess other things than direct rebound effects

• That being said, evidence suggest that : ^[37]

  • It has the potential to widely vary between technologies, sectors, income groups

  • In OECD countries, automotive transport, household heating & cooling can relatively robustly be considered subjects to a direct rebound effect of 10-30% (microscale)

  • Current energy or material efficiency policies are not up to the task (macroscale)

• Predictions of energy footprint decline itself are generally too optimistic ^[39]

[40] HALL, Charles A. S., et al., 2014. EROI of different fuels and the implications for society. DOI 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.05.049.

• Material & Energy flows will decline anyway due to the physics underlying the production peak

  • We’ve seen that the decline in ores’s grade do lead to an exponential demand in energy for base metals extraction, and that a mineralogical barrier can happen for rarer metals

  • But oil itself needs energy to be extracted!

• Last notion of this course : EROI – Energy return on investment

  • Ratio of energy delivered by a specific energy vector and the energy invested in the capture & delivery of this energy

  • Measures the relative quality of energy vectors

• Varied possible choices of boundaries in systemic assessments, so as much EROI calculations: standard ; point of use ; extended ; societal

  • Estimates re complicated due to oil compagnies low level of transparency

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• As oil is often extracted together with natural gas, calculations can be tricky

  • But all estimates tend to show a progressive decrease in EROI for every place where data is available : here in USA

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• Is there a trend for oil already?

  • It seems so

  • All estimates tend to show a progressive decrease in EROI for every place where data is available : here in USA

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• Is there a trend for oil already?

  • Pretty much so!

  • All estimates tend to show a progressive decrease in EROI for every place where data is available : here in Canada

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• Is there a trend for oil already?

  • Undeniably so!

  • All estimates tend to show a progressive decrease in EROI for every place where data is available : here in various other countries

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• It is logical from what we’ve seen about the concentration of resources in general. But why does it especially matter here?

  • The decrease of the EROI of conventionnal oil means we’ll need to set aside a growing share of the oil flows just to continue to have a flow

  • This share of oil « lost » will no longer be used to supply other sectors ^[36]

  • Non conventionnal oils have a base EROI quite lower than conventionnal (and will also decrease with their further exploitation) ^[40]

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[36] MITTEAU, Gilles, 2018. Economie et finance du pétrole -Heu?reka. [online].

[40] HALL, Charles A. S., et al., 2014. EROI of different fuels and the implications for society. DOI 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.05.049.

[33] HCC, 2020. Rapport annuel -Redresser le cap, relancer la transition. Haut Conseil pour le Climat [online]. 2020. 

• As there is no absolute decoupling, a contraction & instability of economy and as we know it seems unavoidable in the medium-term, regardless of climate change ^{[36] & [40]}

  • By « economy », here, we mean that all socioeconomical & geopolitical relationships will be impacted

  • Social acceptability of dynamics created by contracting flows will be a key component of the success ofmitigating policies ^[33]

  -> Ecological transition is also a social one

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• This is were we, as engineers & citizens, have apart to play

• We would gain a lot to take inspiration from the 7 principles of low-techs ^[30]

  1. Challenging needs

  2. Design and produce truly sustainable

  3. Orienting knowledge to resources’ savings

  4. Striking a technical balance between performance & conviviality

  5. Relocalize without losing the right scale effects

  6. De-machinizing services

  7. Knowing to remain modest

[30] BIHOUIX, Philippe, 2014. L’Age des low techs : vers une civilisation techniquement soutenable. Seuil.