What do we use oil for?

What sector of the United State economy consumes the highest percent of petroleum?  Commercial and Residential? Electricity? Maybe industrial? The answer is transportation. Approximately 70% of the petroleum consumed every day is used to transport people and products.

What does this mean for each of us? From one point of view, it might seem that our individual efforts to reduce the amount of oil we use in our daily lives or our efforts to lobby for changes in the way oil is consumed by our local community are insignificant. After all, reducing the amount of petroleum we use to power our home or our workplace across the entire nation would only affect a small percentage of total oil use.

To me, this fact about oil consumption points to the need for real change to happen in the transportation sector if we are serious about reducing total consumption.  How can we accomplish this?  I would encourage you to consider the ‘transportation cost’ in oil when going about your daily life. For example, where did the food you are eating come from? Did it have to travel a long distance by way of an oil inefficient method such as a truck?

It may be tempting to think that oil consumption will naturally drop over the next several decades simply because we are going to run out.  However, oil is going to be around for a lot longer. The United States has an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the form of oil shale formations. To get an idea of how much oil this is, it is more oil than everything used by humans in all of recorded history. There is no danger of running out of oil anytime soon.

Does this mean we are hopelessly doomed to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere until the climate changes drastically on this planet?  That is a definite possibility. There is another way though. Becoming aware of all the different products oil is used in, especially in the transportation sector, and improving efficiency or finding alternative sources of fuel is a good first step.