CRUDE NUMBERS

Date: Wednesday January 11, 2006 09:58:00 am
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    Crude numbers
    Americans
    are energy gluttons. We comprise less than 5 percent of the world’s
    population, but consume 25 percent of all oil produced daily, about 20
    million barrels or 840 million gallons.
    We burn oil like there’s no
    end to the stuff, though experts estimate we’ve got 80 years’ supply
    left at current consumption rates.
    Is it time for an oil change?
    98
    It takes 98 tons of prehistoric plant material to produce one gallon of gasoline.
    13,300
    Since
    the Industrial Revolution began in 1751, the amount of fossil fuels
    burned is equivalent to all plant growth on Earth for the last 13,300
    years.
    0.7 percent
    At
    full production in 2020 or beyond, proposed drilling in the Arctic
    National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is estimated to produce 800,000 barrels
    of oil daily, 0.7 percent of global production.
    .50 cents
    Opening ANWR to oil production would reduce the price of a barrel of oil (currently at $60) by an estimated 50 cents or less.
    30
    It
    took 125 years to consume the first trillion barrels of oil. It’s
    estimated that the next trillion will be used up in just 30 years.
    3rd
    The
    United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world after
    Russia and Saudi Arabia, generating 7.5 million barrels a day.
    62 percent
    Sixty-two
    percent of our oil is imported; 25 percent comes from Alaska; the rest
    comes from Texas, California, Louisiana and other states.
    3
    On
    average, every man, woman and child in the United States uses three
    gallons of oil daily. Transportation accounts for two of those gallons.
    1/6th
    One-sixth of the world’s oil production is used for transportation purposes in the United States.
    300 million
    Almost 300 million barrels of oil could be saved each year by raising U.S. auto-efficiency standards by 2.75 miles per gallon.
    2 billion
    If the tires of all cars on U.S. roads were properly inflated, it would save an estimated 2 billion gallons of gas each year.
    32 million
    If every car carried one additional passenger on its daily commute, 32 million gallons of gasoline would be saved daily.
    27 million
    An estimated 27 million gallons of gasoline are wasted each day in U.S. traffic jams, enough to fill 134 supertankers.
    100
    A 150-watt personal computer left on continuously for a year consumes the electricity equivalent of 100 gallons of oil.
    820 million
    The amount of energy leaking from American windows each year is equivalent to 820 million barrels of oil.
    750,000
    In 1995, the city of Stockholm purchased 750,000 gallons of red wine for conversion into ethanol to fuel its public buses.
    0.56 mpg
    A M1 Abrams main battle tank gets 0.56 miles per gallon of fuel.
    2
    An F-16 warplane consumes more fuel in one hour than an average car does in two years.
    390
    It takes 390 gallons of oil to produce one ton of paper.
    197
    Recycling one ton of plastic saves, on average, the energy equivalent of 197 gallons of gasoline.
    1:1
    One
    barrel of crude oil produces 21/2 quarts of virgin motor oil. One
    gallon of used motor oil can be recycled into one gallon of usable
    motor oil.
    1
    If
    every household in the United States replaced one package of 20-count
    trash bags made from virgin plastic with 100 percent recycled plastic
    bags, it would save 101,500 barrels of oil – enough to heat and cool
    5,800 American homes for a year, reduce landfill space by 1.8 million
    feet (the equivalent of 2,700 filled garbage trucks) and eliminate
    37,800 tons of pollutants.
    20
    When the lunar module of Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, it had just 20 seconds’ worth of fuel left.
    60
    Roughly
    60 percent of Americans change their own motor oil, but many simply
    dump the used oil down drains, sewers or into the trash, an amount
    equal each year to the Exxon Valdez spilling its full load five times.
    48
    One
    gallon of recycled motor oil generates 38 kilowatts of electricity,
    enough to power an average household almost 24 hours, cook 48 meals in
    a microwave oven, blow hair dry with a dryer 216 times, vacuum a house
    for 15 months or run a TV for 180 hours.
    250,000
    One quart of motor oil can pollute 250,000 gallons of water.
    6 million
    Roughly 6 million tons of petroleum products end up in the world’s oceans each year.
    1 billion
    In the last 10 years, more than 1 billion gallons of oil have been spilled in the oceans worldwide.
    3
    It takes approximately three quarts of oil to produce one new printer ink cartridge.
    4 billion
    Converting
    all agricultural waste in the United States into oil and gas would
    yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels annually.
    38
    A
    175-pound man can be converted (via thermal depolymerization, a process
    that uses pressure and heat to reduce complex organic materials) into
    38 pounds of oil and 7 pounds of gas, plus minerals and water.
    Oil facts were drawn from:
    Environmental
    Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy; Jeff Dukes,
    University of Utah; American Petroleum Institute; U.S. Department of
    Energy; Safe Energy Communication Council; Harper’s; Natural Resources
    Defense Council; University of Colorado Environmental Center; Texas
    Transportation Institute; Tank Automotive Command, U.S. Army; Newdle
    Strategic Media; NASA; A.H. Rosenfeld, UC Berkeley; Stockholm County
    Council; Planning for Higher Education Journal, 2003; Ohio Department
    of Natural Resources

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