"Are you saying that 1 barrel in to get 30 barrels of Saudi crude out, EROI 30 for example, will, after transportation and refining, only give an EROI for gasoline of less than one?Sounds reasonable for tar sands oil, but not for Saudi oil IMO."
EROEI for Saudi Crude would be energy in one gallon of crude - transportation and refining energy cost. EROEI is the cost of converting one form of energy to another, in this case crude oil to gasoline.
I only know what I read, and it could well be wrong. But consider the cost in fuel to run a tanker. Had a 36ft Cris Craft in Alaska, twin diesels, got about 1 mile per gallon of diesel. How many gallons per mile for an Oil tanker? A guess, perhaps a few hundred gallons per mile?? How far from Saudi to the US? 7000 miles. lets say 14000 barrels of diesel to transport 100,000 barrels of crude should be conservative, there is 14% of your 27%, .73-1. Don't forget the return empty trip. Half of the full trip? now we are at 21% energy just in Middle East oil transportation.
I found two estimates for switch grass, 4.4-1 and 8.3-1. Take you pick, they are both better than gasoline.
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