The United States of America imports 13,468,000 barrels—565,656,000 gallons—of petroleum products. Every day.
America imports 2,163,000 barrels of oil and petroleum products from Persian Gulf countries. Every day.
America imports 5,980,000 barrels of oil and petroleum products from OPEC countries.
Every day.
America sends $150,256,400 to the Persian Gulf countries and $424,231,167 to OPEC countries. Every day.
I’ll save you the math. That’s $53,491,278,400 and $151,026,295,333 to the Persian Gulf and OPEC countries respectively per year. That’s 53 and 151 billion, with a b.
Doug:
I agree with you: we’re funding our own destruction (which, unfortunately, is not all that unusual among prosperous countries). Our nation has been built on the assumptions that oil is (a) plentiful – i.e., never ending and (b) cheap. Today, the weaknesses inherent in those assumptions are being proved wrong. Petroleum is a finite resource and most of what remains of it is not within our own borders. So, what the USA really, really needs to do is genuinely explore alternative and renewable sources, such as wind, solar, and hydrological generation.
As for nonrewable sources, I’m a lonely fan of fission power. The biggest problem with nuclear energy is, of course, what to do with the radioactive wastes. At present, one such storage system is in place near Carlsbad, NM. The stuff is put underground in a geologically stable formation near a salt dome. So far, at least, it’s working out. Whether anyone will be able to say the same thing in, let’s say, a hundred years from now remains to be seen.
We need to figure out how to reduce this outflow of our money. Not sure how we will every get off oil, but we need to…Thanks for the stats, your posts are always so interesting.
Hayden
Doug,
Your assumption is flawed by the math. A barrel of oil consists of 42 gallons, not 55 gallons. (Consult Webster”s Dictionary on this…)
JB Ranney
Reader JB Ranney and my engineer friend Craig Bibeau pointed out that while a common barrel is 55 gallons, a petroleum barrel is 42. I thank them both very much for this correction. I have corrected the post and the document.
This error affected one (1) number in the post, “The United States of America imports 13,468,000 barrels—565,656,000 gallons—of petroleum products. Every day.”
An additional item that Doug is eluding to is the reason behind the U.S. importing so much oil. The “proven reserves” in the U.S. are 21,317 Mbbl of oil. (Mbbl is Millions of barrels, Bbbl would be billion etc…) with the petroleum usage in the U.S. at 22 Mbbl per day those proven reserves 21,317/22 that is less than 1000 days or less than 3 years.
Scared yet. Our biofuels aren’t much help here either. Corn ethanol (which is 300% less efficient than crude due to all the processes) can supply less than 20 days of fuel if every single kernel of corn is used. Sugar Ethanol, is good for about 2 days if every calorie is converted to fuel. Fryer oil as biodiesel, good for about 5 days. Cellulosic ethanol on a sustainable level is good for about 34 days. Not looking good is it. One promising note is the research done for algae biodiesel/butanol. It is estimated that 15,000 square miles (about half of lake superior or 2.37 billion Fuso units) could grow enough algae to produce fuel for 238 days. MIT is also researching using a similar algae idea. The other potential with algae is it may scrub more CO2 from the atmosphere than you and I pump into it. Nonetheless, if we are truly going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Nuclear power has to be on the table. The Swiss embrace nuclear power. Plants are built near town, the water used to cool the reactor changes to steam and is pumped beneath the city to heat it. Power and heat from the same source. Also if the politicians keep pushing for plug-in electric vehicles PEHV or PEV then we will start consuming more power than the grid can currently produce. And don’t believe the term “clean coal technology.” It is a lie. Coal power plants put out more CO2 than all of the U.S. autos. And the coal ash has to go somewhere. Ask the residents in Tennessee about “clean coal.”
have a great day!