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A comment on The Cost of Gasoline. Parent comment

Re:The Cost of Gasoline by akiselev on Sunday June 25, 2023 @06:09PM (#36473116)
That's called the "energy return on investment" [1] and it's a critical factor in how profitable a fossil fuel source is.

An easily acccessed oil field can easily have an EROI of 20-50, so they spend a gallon worth of energy to extract 20-50 gallons. Shale oil has a EROI as low as 1-1.5 and it's sometimes only worth it when burning the accompanying natural gas for free energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment

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Re:The Cost of Gasoline by ZeroGravitas on Sunday June 25, 2023 @06:30PM (#36473322)
Eroei analysis usually doesn't go very far down the production process.

What you want is Well to Tank calculations, which suggest that the process of making gasoline accounts for 15-20% of the total GHG emissions, so add 25% onto the number you get from burning the fuel in your car.

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