Here is another good take on EROI (Energy Return On Energy Invested). This video is very interesting and enlightening.

EROI equals the energy it takes to get that energy. That net energy that results, less the energy it takes to produce food, equals our lifestyle.

I wrote the other day that in the 1930s, the EROI (the amount of oil it took to extract more oil) was 100 to 1; it took one barrel of oil to get 100 barrels. A few years ago it was 10-15 to 1. This number is steadily declining because oil is increasingly becoming more difficult to obtain.

When it gets to 1 to 1 there is no sense in continuing. Some folks estimate that in 30 years, most exporting countries will no longer be exporting oil. Maybe we should plan now for the worse.

We don’t need to be engineers to know that the EROI for geothermal is high and that it will stay high. And it will be stable for as long as we can possibly imagine. The odds are much better that oil will become unaffordable much sooner (in less than 30 years) than lava will run over the geothermal wells.

We have an obligation to move toward geothermal now. What will our grandkids and their kids think of us if we don’t?

It is in the best interest of the stockholder that the utility switch to geothermal, too. As all types of oil prices rise, there will be a point of no return when individual alternate energy will be cheaper than oil. When that happens, the electric company’s customers will leave in droves. And they might not have the capital to recover.

The utility customers need a stabilizing force for electricity generation. So it is in the best interest of all of us that the utility protects us from high oil prices.