Putting oil comsumption into perspective

rs · Post by rs » 16 Sep 2005, 10:29

When I chat to other non-PO aware people, one thing I usually mention is that the world is currently using approx 84 million barrels of oil per day.

While it sounds a lot, it is difficult to visualise just how much oil that is and so the importance of it is lost.

Is anyone aware of some examples e.g. 84 million barrels = x thousand swimming pools, or = a whole in the ground x by y etc..

Something that they can imagine or relate to something they already know.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 16 Sep 2005, 13:09

6.3 barrels = 1 cubic metre.

84 M barrels a day = 153 cubic metres a second

= twice the average flow rate of the River Thames at Kingston.
Environment Angency

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 16 Sep 2005, 13:18

A cube with the side of 5.4 meters every second.

A cube with the side 21 meters every minute

A cube with the side 82 meters every hour

rs · Post by rs » 16 Sep 2005, 13:33

Just need to transfer those amounts to some landmarks now e.g. Lakeside, Thurrock (yes I know, but there are thousands of retail worshippers who pray there!).

Or how many Canary Wharf towers would we fill a day etc ?

Pete_M · Post by **Pete_M** » 16 Sep 2005, 19:12

RalphW wrote:6.3 barrels = 1 cubic metre.

84 M barrels a day = 153 cubic metres a second

That is staggering.

Anyone know how many joules there are in a barrel of oil?

Pete M

Post by **clv101** » 16 Sep 2005, 21:03

84,000,000 barrels is 5.14x10^11 MegaJules, 4.8x10^14 Btu. Hardly easy numbers! But how about this, a 1GW nuclear power station operating for 24 hours generates 24GWh. 1GWh is 3.6x10^6 MJ so in one day generates 8.64x10^7 MJ.

So, 5.15x10^11 / 8.64x10^7 = 5960.

So there you have it, our oil consumption is equivalent to ~6000 nuclear power stations in energy terms. Well, maybe divide that by two since the efficiency of electrical power use is better than oil use. So maybe we derive the same energy as 3000 nukes from oil. We currently have about 440 nuclear power stations in the world.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts ... lator.html

(Check my calculations if you intend to use that figure anywhere!)

EmptyBee · Post by **EmptyBee** » 16 Sep 2005, 21:39

There's 5,800,000 Btus in one barrel of Crude.

If you go on American consumption of around 20million barrels a day and a population of around 300 million that's 1 barrel per person every 15 days.

If you take 1 hour of physical toil from a human being as being equivalent to 100 watts/hour* or 0.1kilowatt hours then as 1 kilowatt hour =3413Btu then 1 barrel of crude contains the equivalent of 16,994 man hours work.
Divide that into 15 (1 barrel every 15 days) then you get 1133 man hours each day. Divide that by 24 and you get the equivalent number of 'energy slaves' you are getting (assuming they're working every hour of the day) that makes the equivalent of 47 slaves. That's just the energy from oil. I think once you take into account electricity useage you're looking at more like 100 energy slaves (according to Colin Campbell I think).

If you took the daily total world oil consumption that would be 16,993 man hours or 708 man days in each barrel. 708 x 84,000,000 = 59.5 billion energy slaves working their little socks off every day.

I'm no mathematician mind you, so I'm probably way off somewhere here.

*I'm not 100% on that statistic - I think skeptic brought it up in this thread: http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=504

EDIT:http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Research.html has a bunch of calculations. My 0.1 killowatt hour was based on what electrical energy you could get from someone working on a treadmill, which appears to be a much higher efficiency rate than Matt Savinar's. Even so, that figure was based upon a human doing an 8 hour day going on Skeptik's quote, so you could multiply all my figures by 3 for a more 'realistic' number. Even so, the inefficient way we use oil probably makes all this a little meaningless

.

SherryMayo · Post by **SherryMayo** » 17 Sep 2005, 00:06

Here in Australia, when Bruce Robinson gives his talks on oil depletion he uses this image rendering annual aussie oil production as a cube on a familiar skyline (Perth in this case). He also adds the Chinese and USA consumption cubes when doing a powerpoint presentation - I believe the US cube is 1km on a side.

[/img]

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 17 Sep 2005, 08:58

Is this depiction of oil consumption as a huge cube supposed to shock? To me it seems surprisingly small - the opposite effect than intended!

EmptyBee · Post by **EmptyBee** » 17 Sep 2005, 13:26

I think Colin Campbell said his estimation of remaining recoverable oil (around 1 trillion barrels) would fill Lake Geneva.

1 cubic metre = 1000 litres
1 cubic kilometre = 1 billion cubic metres or 1 trillion litres.
1 barrel of crude = 159 litres.
159 x 1 trillion = 159 trillion litres.

So the estimated total recoverable conventional crude oil in the world = 159 cubic kilometres, being consumed at a rate of 4.87 cubic kilometres a year going on 84 million barrels a day currently.

When you compare it to things like amount of the Greenland ice sheet melting each year (50km3?) it seems pretty trivial.

MacG · Post by **MacG** » 17 Sep 2005, 20:21

Tess wrote:Is this depiction of oil consumption as a huge cube supposed to shock? To me it seems surprisingly small - the opposite effect than intended!

*Ahem*

Please remember that those buildings are HUGE. They might look small on the picture, but the picture is very small on our computer screens.

Now please remember that I'm a barbarian from the north without fine-tuned social skills often found on the British Isles - I might suggest that you might be trapped in megalomaniac delusions - that bloody cube is not small!

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 17 Sep 2005, 21:12

MacG wrote: that bloody cube is not small!

Seconded. When I first saw it I thought it must be a mistake... far too BIG!

I mean.. a few Aussies use THAT much!!!

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 17 Sep 2005, 22:29

MacG wrote: Please remember that those buildings are HUGE. They might look small on the picture, but the picture is very small on our computer screens.

Now please remember that I'm a barbarian from the north without fine-tuned social skills often found on the British Isles - I might suggest that you might be trapped in megalomaniac delusions - that bloody cube is not small!

Maybe it would work better spread out as a surface area. Still looks tiny to me if it's supposed to represent the energy use of a whole continent -for a whole year too - I thought at first it must be daily use!

beev · Post by **beev** » 18 Sep 2005, 16:22

Tess wrote:Still looks tiny to me if it's supposed to represent the energy use of a whole continent -for a whole year too - I thought at first it must be daily use!

I had exactly the same thought. Maybe it is just because it's a small picture.

Incidentally, I was chatting to a friend who recently spent a year driving around Australia and he told me how surprised he was at the amount of people using LPG in their cars.