Anyone ever seen a study that shows what percentage of oil consumption is due to autos?

[Cant trust em]

Gasoline is only one of the uses for petroleum, right? It's also used to create plastics and numerous products.

How else could we cut back on our consumption that would make us less dependent on outdated fossil fuels? I'd be really interested in seeing something quantitative on this.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I think most of petroleum is used as fuel.

But a minority for transportation. More goes towards power plants, heating oil, etc. Plastics, I think, are a pretty small fraction.

I could be way off. I'm going off a vague memory of a chart I saw a long time ago.

[Oceansaway]

2. military uses alot too....nt

[arbusto_baboso]

3. If the U.S Military were regarded as its own nation...

it would be the single largest petroleum consumer on the planet.

[unhappycamper]

4. I think they used 4.2 billion gallons of avgas last year. n/t

[sandnsea]

9. Per Capita, 4th largest, if these "facts" are right

http://askville.amazon.com/percent-Oil-cars-planes-military-trucks-electricity-production/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=14157202

FACT 8: According to 2007 CIA World Fact Book there are only 35 countries in the world consuming more oil than DoD. Guess how many countries consume more oil per capita than the DoD? Only three.<13>

Another statistic says they use 150 thousand barrels a day.

[arbusto_baboso]

14. Ah, but does that factor in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

After all, those wars were pretty much "off the books" in 2007 financially. I wouldn't puch it past the DoD to cook petro use figures, since they already lie their asses off about being the world's worst polluter (though to be fair, BP probably is now).

[sandnsea]

15. 1st or 4th, it's enormous

And the irony of using so much oil to fight wars for oil...

:crazy:

[arbusto_baboso]

19. No argument there.

[sandnsea]

5. Passenger Cars - 40%

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/fensec.asp

Here's some more good info on where crude goes

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=oil_home-basics

[Cant trust em]

6. You get the gold star for the day!

[sandnsea]

8. More stars - More stars! lol DOD "facts"

I don't know anything about the credibility of these "facts", but they're very interesting all the same and seem quite well researched.

http://askville.amazon.com/percent-Oil-cars-planes-military-trucks-electricity-production/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=14157202

[Cant trust em]

11. Well aren't you just a go-getter.

[JackRiddler]

13. The 40 percent figure at NRDC is cited to a study...

Friedman, David et al. "Drilling in Detroit: Tapping Automaker Ingenuity to Build Safe and Efficient Automobiles," Union of Concerned Scientists, June 2001, p.15, Table 4.

Which I can't find on Web yet, so can't see what Table 4 is, and so I can't see how it accounts for all the energy costs beyond mere fuel entailed by cars, their infrastructure and externalities. (See Post 7 for an outline I brainstormed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8432649&mesg_id=8432854)


Prima facie it sounds about right.

EDIT

I misunderstood this graphic. It obviously ain't percentages, but gallons out of a barrel.



So gasoline alone is about a fifth of the barrel, and you STILL have to account for all the other oil inputs that go into automotive production and infrastructure, its materials, building and operation, plus dealing with externalities.

Now much of that energy is from other sources (power plants running the car factories = coal, mostly). How should that be counted, given that more coal consumed means probably translates into more oil consumed elsewhere. Oof, my problem got all the more complex.

[JackRiddler]

7. When considering "autos," don't forget the full materials cycle and support structure

1) Production of the cars - all inputs. Account for energy use in mining, refining, components, plastics (also oil) shipping, factory, etc.

2) Production and materials of the infrastructure. How much energy to build a highway? How much petroleum goes into the highway as tar? Streets and roads, traffic systems, road lights, parking lots, gas stations, everything required by the automotive transport system -- what's the energy input and the oil used as material, over the full lifetime of each, prorated by year.

3) Fuel - including the whole system involved in creating it. Refineries, pipelines, tankers.

4) Based on the total share of the first three items in the overall use of energy, do you add a share of the military costs of maintaining the oil empire?

5) How much of the externalized costs? Dealing with environmental pollution, injuries and deaths, emergency services... all of these can be translated into units of energy consumption.

[Lorien]

10. People hate hearing this:

* Intensive animal agriculture uses a dis proportionate amount of fossil fuels. Supplying the world with a typical American meat-based diet would deplete all world oil reserves in just a few years.
* It now takes the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline to produce a pound of grainfed beef in the United States. The annual beef consumption of an average American family of four requires more than 260 gallons of fuel and releases 2.5 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, as much as the average car over a six month period.

Going veg will also do more the slow climate change than any single act you can take. More than riding a bike instead of taking the car, more than ending home heating and air conditioning-but is life on earth worth giving up burgers to most Americans? doubtful.

http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html#3

[Cant trust em]

12. Yes. I do hate hearing that.

I walk to work and only drive my car on occasion, but eating meat is a tough one for me to give up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Been making that point for a while

it is not just feed animals, all of our food industry depends on it

I posted the 2008 use breakdown, but that use breakdown does not take into account how much of that gasoline, for example, goes into agricultural production,

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. For some answers

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp

Petroleum products include transportation fuels, fuel oils for heating and electricity generation, asphalt and road oil, and the feedstocks used to make chemicals, plastics, and synthetic materials found in nearly everything we use today. About 72% of the 7.14 billion barrels of petroleum that we used in 2008 were gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel.

Petroleum products and their relative share of total U.S. petroleum consumption in 2008:
Gasoline 46%
Diesel Fuel1 18%
Jet Fuel (Kerosene) 8%
Propane/Propylene 6%
NGL & LRG2 5%
Still Gas 3%
Residual/Heavy Fuel Oil 3%
Petrochemical Feedstocks 3%
Heating Oil3 3%
Petroleum Coke 2%
Asphalt and Road Oil 2%
Lubricants 1%
Miscellaneous Products 0.3%
Special Naphthas 0.2%
Aviation Gasoline 0.1%
Kerosene 0.1%
Waxes 0.05%

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp#products_and_uses

[tranche]

18. It can all be replaced with Hemp.

[Dr Morbius]

20. How else could we cut down on consumption?

Lots of ways, few popular.

Increase the gas tax, and put the additional funds raised into public transit.

Tax disposable plastic bags and containers. This should encourage environmentally friendly packaging.

Reduce speeds across the nation to a maximum of 60 (from 65). This may reduce the national gas and diesel consumption by two or three percent. Two or three percent doesn't sound like much, but that's nearly half of what we get from the middle east.

Reduce speeds in urban areas to 45. It will take many people longer to get to work, but this will save more than reducing the national speed limit (as much more driving is done in urban areas). Implementing these last two should eliminate the need for Saudi oil entirely.

Go green. Renewable energy from wind and solar and hydro and thermal. Yeah, it's an obvious one but I am Rear Admiral Obvious after all.

Pass a law that all electronic items, from DVDs to televisions to computers, use almost no power when switched off and are as efficient as possible. This will reduce the need for electricity.