Folks:

Based on discussions here on the EnergyResources Group and
elsewhere, as well as recent publications like Daniel T. Spreng's
"Net energy Analysis and the Energy Requirements of Energy
Systems," I would like to offer the following as an interim
definition of what "net energy analysis" is and could be expected
to do for our society.

I expect to get refining commentary and editing as well as the
extension of this initial definition, particularly in directions
suggested by (and not limited to) Gene Tyner's analytical
framework and Ted Swarts's outline of necessary elements for the
execution of a working analytical process.

Goals

Net energy analysis, by being a public analytical process,
publicly applied, is intended to reduce the uncertainty and bias
associated with energy resource/technology development, thereby
allow for the making of better public and private decision
making.

Purpose.

Net energy analysis is intended to support the democratic process
of governance across the entire spectrum of human cultures by
providing the means to build a complete, coherent, accurate, and
objective methodology for assessing and creating effective
measures--within the larger systems in which cultures
function--of the relative physical merit of options in energy
resource/technologies and their implications related to time and
location.

In this definition, "the larger systems in which cultures
function" can be seen as composed of the physical-chemical and
ecological domains which extend out to the full universe and act
as the perpetual and final influence on all that human societies
are and can be.

In context with the above, the concept of "culture" can be seen
as the aggregate of human abstractions and symbols, and includes
the diverse and often integrated attributes of: economics and
finance; politics and governance; science and technology;
production, trade and markets; arts and humanities; education and
entertainment; and other value processes including religion.

Objective

Net energy analysis will provide, through a robust and
sufficiently agreed upon methodology, a calculated ratio of the
physical energies invested in particular energy
resource/technologies at a certain time and place to a similar
unit of physical energy output.

A critical aspect of the net energy analysis process will be
public access to the analytical methodology used in net energy
analysis so that it can support a constant process of learning,
testing of what is known, and as a result, methodological and
application improvements.

With such a ratio, it will be possible for the public and their
leaders to assess the relative physical merit of energy
resource/technology options in accord with the needs of their
society over time and as influenced by changes in the
physical-chemical, ecological, and cultural systems in which
their societies live and work their way into the future.

Comments:

In the commission of net energy analysis, it is worth considering
several factors.

The findings of net energy analysis are but one of a number of
circumstances that must be considered in the evaluation of energy
resource/technologies. To the extent such analysis is
incorporated into the circumstances of the larger
physical-chemical, ecological, and cultural systems in which a
people live, it can be expected to not only reduce uncertainty
and bias, but also allow a more effective means of dealing with
whatever circumstances the future may have to offer.

Increasing experience in the implementation of net energy
analysis methodology will discover improvements in a range of
factors, from increasing efficiency in doing the analysis itself,
to more effective interpretation of results.

Most important is the fact that as a sufficient number of energy
resource/technologies are subjected to net energy analysis with
just about any form of consistent methodology, very solid
patterns of net energy ratios emerge.

In general, applications of net energy analysis will show that
the more concentrated energy resource/technologies which
currently form the foundation of power for our society will
have relatively high net energy ratios and all the
alternatives will have relatively low ratios.

The main implication of these tendencies will be a warning; both
of what is being lost as conventional energies decline in
availability and the need to be very careful in the development
of alternatives, so where possible the replacements for
conventional energies are as beneficial as possible and the
full consequences of such changes are as well anticipated as
possible, thus reducing shocks due to negative shifts
in energy-related social capability.

Net energy analysis, and its complements involving more
comprehensive systems understanding, including aspects of
cultural circumstances as defined above, becomes increasingly
important as there is a decline in the availability of the more
concentrated energy resource/technologies upon which our current
society has been able to almost take for granted over most of its
history.

Given the nature of the lower concentration energy
resource/technologies, the role of net energy analysis becomes
increasingly important as such resource are called upon to meet
social needs. Net energy analysis, combined with larger systems
analysis such as could be provided by Systems Ecology models,
provides a way to profitably, (in both energy and money terms)
fit low yield energy resource/technologies into localized
operations.

The most effective and quick way to get the data for calculating
net energy ratios will often be through the use of monetary
prices for goods and services in markets, adjusted for price
signal distortions such as inflation and other factors. While
this may seem to be a contradiction to an energy-based
measurement system, it has proven to provide sufficiently
accurate data for at least initial use. As the methodology is
increasingly used, it will be refined and adapted for increasing
accuracy and ease of use.

The main point to be stressed in the development, testing, and
improvement of net energy analysis methodology is that the only
folks not likely to benefit from the most accurate analysis
possible are those who are pushing on options for their own
exclusive benefit. All others will gain by reducing uncertainty,
learning what is most likely to work best, and seeing how it is
possible to do a better job of knowing circumstances and
tendencies.

Tom Robertson