DECLINE OF THE U.S. EMPIRE: Due To The Worst Oil Productivity In The World
By: Steve St. Angelo, SRSrocco Report
GoldSeek.com
Friday, 6 February 2015
The U.S. Empire continues to disintegrate from within due to the worst oil productivity in the world. This collapse is due to a falling EROI – Energy Returned On Invested. While this has been a long and ongoing process, the rate of decline is speeding up as the U.S. Shale Oil Industry is in deep trouble.
Unfortunately, most investors are clueless to the falling EROI and its impact on the U.S. and Global economies. The (EROI) Energy Returned On Invested is the fundamental driving force behind the world’s financial and economic system. However, you won’t find one word about it from any economist, analyst or MSM talking head on CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business.
The basics of the EROI are easy to understand. It takes energy to produce energy. If the energy cost to produce energy is very low, then we have a HIGH EROI. This was true in the United States during the early 1930’s. The U.S. oil and gas industry had an EROI of 100/1. Thus, 100 barrels of oil were produced for market from the cost of only one barrel of energy.
Then by 1970, the U.S. oil and gas EROI fell to 30/1, and at last study was about 10/1. Now, some readers may think this huge fall in the U.S. Energy EROI was due to the collapse in value of the Dollar. While this seems like a valid assumption at face value, the collapse in the Dollar’s value did not cause the huge decline in the U.S. energy EROI.
It just takes more energy today to produce energy… especially in the United States. It took a barrel worth of energy to produce 100 U.S. oil barrels in the 1930’s and today we only get 10 barrels of oil. And it’s even worse than that. The typical Shale Oil Well has an EROI of 5/1. No one in their right mind would produce North Dakota (ND) Bakken shale oil in the 1930’s….even if the technology was available. Why would a company produce 5 barrels of oil for the cost of one barrel of energy in the ND Bakken when they could produce 100 barrels in such states such as Texas, Oklahoma and California?
The Rest…HERE
