Oil consumption and global warming

Oil – a necessity of our daily lives, yet seemingly the cause of many of our most pressing global problems, including global warming. Nearly 40% of ALL energy consumed in the US comes directly from oil, pumped out of the ground and refined into the many fuels we consume as energy or as a critical raw material of everything from plastics to fertilizers. The US imported over $243 billion of petroleum products in 2005 (excluding natural gas), representing nearly 15% of our TOTAL imports of all goods. That works out to be almost $800 for every man, woman and child in the US.

Not a day goes by where we don’t hear that a) the world as a whole is running out of oil, but b) we can make a dent in our oil imports by opening new (and sadly pristine) domestic areas to oil production. Which is true? And, are there other options to quench our insatiable thirst for petroleum?

Today, oil and other petroleum liquids make up 40% of the US energy supply, dwarfing coal at 23%, the next largest source. Where do we get our oil from? Over 50% still comes from North America (US, Canada, Mexico). OPEC countries (including Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) supply 30%, and the remainder comes from non-OPEC countries such as the UK, Norway, and Russia.

What is oil used for in the US? The vast majority of petroleum consumed in the US is used for transportation – two thirds of the petroleum consumed in the US goes to fuel our cars, trucks and airplanes. The remainder is used to create the many oil-based products used in industry and our houses such as lubricants and plastics, to generate electricity, and to heat our homes in certain parts of the country.

There are several primary environmental impacts of using petroleum products: air emissions, including both greenhouse gases (which contribute to global warming) and air pollutants, spills, and the land disturbed and altered by oil drilling, pipelines, storage tanks and processing plants.

Oil and its associated products are composed of complex molecules that, when burned, produce relatively high levels of carbon dioxide and air pollutants like sulfur dioxide (a key cause of acid rain) and nitrogen oxides (a key component of smog). While fuel oil (used in heating) and gasoline emit less pollutants than coal, they contribute approximately 33% more carbon dioxide than does natural gas. Each gallon of gasoline we burn contributes over 19 pounds of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. And, burning gasoline produces five times more nitrogen oxides, and 1,000 times more sulfur dioxides than does burning natural gas.

In total, the burning of oil products produces 40% of United States carbon dioxide emissions!!!

Last edited by greenerplanet (29-12-2009 16:58:30)