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The EROI of Conventional Canadian Natural Gas Production

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  • Jon Freise

    (Principal Engineer, 3501 Cedar Ave So, Minneapolis, MN 55407, USA)

Abstract

Canada was the world’s third largest natural gas producer in 2008, with 98% of its gas being produced by conventional, tight gas, and coal bed methane wells in Western Canada. Natural gas production in Western Canada peaked in 2001 and remained nearly flat until 2006 despite more than quadrupling the drilling rate. Canada seems to be one of many counter examples to the idea that oil and gas production can rise with sufficient investment. This study calculated the Energy Return on Energy Invested and Net Energy of conventional natural gas and oil production in Western Canada by a variety of methods to explore the energy dynamics of the peaking process. All these methods show a downward trend in EROI during the last decade. Natural gas EROI fell from 38:1 in 1993 to 15:1 at the peak of drilling in 2005. The drilling intensity for natural gas was so high that net energy delivered to society peaked in 2000–2002, while production did not peak until 2006. The industry consumed all the extra energy it delivered to maintain the high drilling effort. The inability of a region to increase net energy may be the best definition of peak production. This increase in energy consumption reduces the total energy provided to society and acts as a contracting pressure on the overall economy as the industry consumes greater quantities of labor, steel, concrete and fuel. It appears that energy production from conventional oil and gas in Western Canada has peaked and entered permanent decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Jon Freise, 2011. "The EROI of Conventional Canadian Natural Gas Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(11), pages 1-25, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:3:y:2011:i:11:p:2080-2104:d:14661
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    Cited by:

    1. Alexandre Poisson & Charles A. S. Hall, 2013. "Time Series EROI for Canadian Oil and Gas," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(11), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Raugei, Marco & Sgouridis, Sgouris & Murphy, David & Fthenakis, Vasilis & Frischknecht, Rolf & Breyer, Christian & Bardi, Ugo & Barnhart, Charles & Buckley, Alastair & Carbajales-Dale, Michael & Csala, 2017. "Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation: A comprehensive response," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 377-384.
    3. Louis Delannoy & Pierre-Yves Longaretti & David. J. Murphy & Emmanuel Prados, 2021. "Assessing Global Long-Term EROI of Gas: A Net-Energy Perspective on the Energy Transition," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-16, August.
    4. Fizaine, Florian & Court, Victor, 2015. "Renewable electricity producing technologies and metal depletion: A sensitivity analysis using the EROI," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 106-118.
    5. Noah Ver Beek & Elvin Vindel & Matthew Kuperus Heun & Paul E. Brockway, 2020. "Quantifying the Environmental Impacts of Cookstove Transitions: A Societal Exergy Analysis Based Model of Energy Consumption and Forest Stocks in Honduras," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-22, June.
    6. Victor Court & Florian Fizaine, 2014. "Energy transition towards renewables and metal depletion: an approach through the EROI concept," Post-Print hal-01411803, HAL.
    7. Ke Wang & Harrie Vredenburg & Jianliang Wang & Yi Xiong & Lianyong Feng, 2017. "Energy Return on Investment of Canadian Oil Sands Extraction from 2009 to 2015," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-13, May.
    8. Chen, Xuejun & Lu, Hailong & Gu, Lijuan & Shang, Shilong & Zhang, Yi & Huang, Xin & Zhang, Le, 2022. "Preliminary evaluation of the economic potential of the technologies for gas hydrate exploitation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    9. Guay-Boutet, Charles & Dufour, Mathieu, 2024. "Estimating the relationship between EROI and profitability of oil sands mining, 1997–2016," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    10. Hall, Charles A.S. & Lambert, Jessica G. & Balogh, Stephen B., 2014. "EROI of different fuels and the implications for society," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 141-152.
    11. Bo Xu & Lianyong Feng & William X. Wei & Yan Hu & Jianliang Wang, 2014. "A Preliminary Forecast of the Production Status of China’s Daqing Oil field from the Perspective of EROI," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(11), pages 1-21, November.
    12. Roman Nogovitsyn & Anton Sokolov, 2014. "Preliminary Calculation of the EROI for the Production of Gas in Russia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(10), pages 1-15, September.
    13. Hiroaki Yaritani & Jun Matsushima, 2014. "Analysis of the Energy Balance of Shale Gas Development," Energies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-21, April.
    14. Charles Guay-Boutet, 2023. "Estimating the Disaggregated Standard EROI of Canadian Oil Sands Extracted via Open-pit Mining, 1997–2016," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 1-21, March.

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