In Perspective - Oil Consumption
One of the questions that is asked is why should we care about fuel efficiency? There are numerous reasons such as national security, peak oil, climate change or just plain old save money that answer that question.
For those of us that are 40 or older, we remember the oil embargos of the 1970's. Depending on imported oil leaves the country vulnerable to another crippling shortage. We have experienced small shortages with wars and hurricanes in the recent past but we are very susceptible to another embargo which would devastate the national economy. Right now the world is pumping oil almost as fast as we are consuming it leaving small disruptions in oil flow creating large swings in oil prices. We spend $400 billion to import oil and oil products each year. While there are a number of reasons for the deficit increasing, the flow of dollars for oil is at the top of budget drains.
Peak oil is a concept that is getting more attention these days. Peak oil is the concept that we have reached the halfway point of our total oil reserves. When you consider that we have been using oil for over a hundred years and at this moment we are consuming oil at the rate of 40,000 gallons a second it isn’t hard to grasp the concept. Another point to be made is that China, the second largest consumer of oil, has increased there demand by 7.5% every year for a decade. They are also expected to increase their consumption by 150% in the next decade.
The total global oil production is right at 85 million barrels while the consumption is right at 84 billion barrels per day. With the growth in population and growth in consumption this number is going to start affecting the prices. Looking at NY gas prices over the last 6 years prices have increased 40%.
The climate change argument is also related to oil. One barrel of oil is linked to 1000 lbs of carbon dioxide. If we are using 84 billion barrels per day then it is likely we are putting 84 trillion pounds of CO2 per day and this doesn’t include coal, wood, or natural gas. Another point that never gets talked about is that for every gallon of gasoline (or heating oil) burned you are also burning 19 gallons of air. In the U.S. we use 873.6 million gal/day of oil and 16.6 billion gal/day of air. It is just a little chemistry problem of combustion.
The last point is the cost. Americans pay has been flat for a decade, but the cost of energy has increased almost 50%. If that trend continues energy costs will take more of everybody’s pay check until people spend more on energy than home mortgages or food. It is likely that home heating oil will top $5.00 per gallon by 2012 and gasoline will be close to that mark. It is easy to calculate the impact by looking at last years heating bills and then doubling it.