Plus do not forget that for every calorie of food consumed it took 7 to 10 calories of oil to make it.
Petroleum Products
We find petroleum products in every area of our lives. They are easily recognized in the gasoline we use to fuel our cars and the heating oil we use to warm our homes. Less obvious are the uses of petroleum-based components of plastics, medicines, food items, and a host of other products. Petroleum products fall into three major categories: fuels such as motor gasoline and distillate fuel oil (diesel fuel); finished nonfuel products such as solvents and lubricating oils; and feedstocks for the petrochemical industry such as naphtha and various refinery gases. Demand is greatest for products in the fuels category, especially motor gasoline.
In 2004 petroleum products contribute about 40.2 percent of the energy used in the United States. This is a larger share than any other energy source including natural gas with a 23 percent share, coal with about a 22 percent share, and the combination of nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal and other sources comprising the remaining 14 percent share. 1 It is projected that petroleum consumption in the United States will increase by 1.5 percent annually, reaching 27.9 million barrels per day by the year 2025. Although petroleum consumption will continue to increase overall, its share of total energy use has shrunk over the past several decades as a result of conservation efforts, fuel efficiency improvements, and growing use of alternative sources of energy. While petroleum will undoubtedly remain the Nation's leading energy source for some time, the need to balance environmental, economic, and energy security objectives has led policy-makers and planners to seek means of diversifying the sources and reducing the role of this resource in our overall energy supply.
Petroleum products, especially motor gasoline, distillate (diesel) fuel, and jet fuel, provide virtually all of the energy consumed in the transportation sector. Transportation is the greatest single use of petroleum, accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all U.S. petroleum consumed in 2004. The industrial sector is the second largest petroleum consuming sector and accounts for about 23 percent of all petroleum consumption in the U.S. Residential/Commercial and the electric utility sectors account for the remaining 8 percent of petroleum consumption.
Demand for petroleum products in the United States averaged 19.7 million barrels per day in 2004. This represents about 3 gallons of petroleum each day for every person in the country. By comparison, petroleum demand averaged about 2 gallons per person per day in the early 1950's and nearly 3.6 gallons per person per day in 1978.
Estimated Petroleum Demand by End Use Sector, 2000
Price levels, economic growth trends, and weather conditions influence the demand for petroleum products. For example, oil prices affect a consumer's willingness to use petroleum instead of other fuels such as natural gas. High prices relative to other fuels tend to encourage fuel-switching, especially at electric utilities, in industrial plants having dual-fuel boilers, and in households that have wood- burning stoves and electric heaters available. High prices also provide incentive for individuals to adopt short-term conservation measures, such as adjusting thermostats and reducing discretionary driving. High prices stimulate long-term measures as well, such as design changes that increase fuel efficiency in automobiles, improved insulation in newly constructed and existing buildings, and design changes in appliances to improve energy efficiency. Once in place, these long-term conservation measures continue to affect fuel use regardless of subsequent price fluctuations.
Low oil prices tend to stimulate demand. Demand also increases during periods of economic expansion, particularly in the industrial and transportation sectors, as increases in the production of goods bring corresponding increases in transportation of raw materials and deliveries of finished products. Lower prices coupled with economic expansion consumption during periods in the mid-1980's mid-1990's.
Weather extremes (winters that are colder than normal or summers that are warmer than normal) also increase petroleum demand for heating or electricity generation for air- conditioning purposes. Milder weather than normal tends to reduce heating and air conditioning-related demand for petroleum fuels. Weather can also contribute to the seasonal variations in demand for transportation fuels such as gasoline.
Petroleum demand illustrated the effects of these factors several times during the 1990's. For instance, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, caused petroleum demand to sink to under 17 million barrels per day, its lowest level since 1987. The slowing economy and mild weather had weakened demand early in the year. Then, following the invasion, prices climbed rapidly in response to uncertainty over future supplies, with motor gasoline and jet fuel prices registering dramatic increases. Shortly after the United Nations Security Council approved an embargo against oil exports from Iraq and Kuwait, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) adopted a resolution allowing member countries to exceed their production quotas to make up the difference. As production increases from OPEC and other countries began to offset the loss of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil, petroleum prices subsided.
Petroleum Products Supplied, 1984-2000
Petroleum Fuels
Fuel products account for nearly 9 out of every 10 barrels of petroleum used in the United States. The leading fuel, motor gasoline, consistently accounts for the largest share of petroleum demand. Demand for motor gasoline alone accounts for more than 44 percent of the total demand for petroleum products. Other petroleum fuels include distillate fuel oil (diesel fuel and heating oil), liquefied petroleum gases (LPG's) (including propane and butane), jet fuel, residual fuel oil, kerosene, aviation gasoline, and petroleum coke.
Motor gasoline is chiefly used to fuel automobiles and light trucks for highway use. Smaller quantities are used for off- highway driving, boats, recreational vehicles, and various farm and other equipment.
A number of factors influence the demand for motor gasoline. For example, rising gasoline prices in the 1970's encouraged consumers to reduce discretionary driving and stimulated consumer demand for smaller, more fuel efficient automobiles. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) Standards established by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 set mileage standards for new cars that helped reduce gasoline demand even more as new, more fuel efficient cars replaced older, less efficient cars. The effects of the market shift to smaller cars and the fuel efficiencies resulting from the CAFÉ standards continued to restrain growth in gasoline demand through the 1980's. However, by the mid-1990's, fuel efficiency growth slowed considerably as low gasoline prices and rising disposable income spurred consumers to buy less fuel efficient light trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles.
Environmental concerns have brought about a number of changes in gasoline composition. To meet emission standards specified in the Clean Air Act of 1970, automobile manufacturers introduced catalytic converters requiring un- leaded fuel beginning in the 1975 model year. The Environ- mental Protection Agency (EPA) issued regulations in 1973 establishing requirements for the availability of unleaded fuels and, as the new cars entered the fleet, unleaded gasoline began to displace leaded fuel. EPA continued the lead phase-down, further restricting the lead content of motor gasoline in 1982, 1985, and 1986. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 banned lead use entirely, effective January 1, 1996.
As lead was eliminated, the use of other components, such as butane, aromatics, alcohols, and ethers, to boost gasoline octane increased. Some of these additives like butane increase the volatility, or evaporative tendency, of gasoline. As gasoline evaporates, contaminants are released into the atmosphere. EPA and several States have issued regulations to restrict gasoline volatility in the summer months when the problem is more severe. Federal regulations restricting gasoline volatility took effect in 1989. Several States and localities have also begun to require the use of other additives termed "oxygenates" in gasoline to reduce carbon monoxide emission levels during the wintertime. These restrictions and proposals to amend the Clean Air Act encouraged the industry to develop and market new "reformulated" gasolines. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 set standards for re-formulated gasoline and mandated its use in several U.S. cities beginning in 1995. A number of "alternative" fuels have been developed for automotive use. Methanol (an alcohol produced from natural gas, coal, or biomass) and ethanol (an alcohol produced from biomass) are two alternative fuels that may be viewed as potential replacements for petroleum products or as additives for use in present or future gasoline formulations.
Compressed natural gas, electricity, propane, liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and solar energy are other transportation fuel alternatives under consideration and in various stages of development.
Distillate fuel oil includes diesel oil, heating oils, and industrial oils. It is used to power diesel engines in buses, trucks, trains, automobiles, and other machinery. It is also used to heat residential and commercial buildings and to fire industrial and electric utility boilers. Specifications differ for heating oils and diesel fuels based primarily on the sulfur content of each fuel.
Diesel fuel accounts for about three-fourths of refinery first sales of distillate fuel oils. 8 Most diesel fuel is used for transportation purposes: highway diesel fuel represents more than half of distillate fuel sales. Residential heating, the next largest end-use category, represents about 12 percent of annual distillate use, but is concentrated in the winter months.
Environmental concerns also extended to diesel fuel. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 mandated standards, effective October 1, 1993, for diesel fuels designated for on-highway use to a maximum sulfur content of 0.05 percent by weight.
Liquefied petroleum gases (LPG's) rank third in usage among petroleum products, behind motor gasoline and distillate fuel oil. LPG's are used as inputs (feedstocks) for petrochemical production processes. This is their major nonfuel use. LPG's are also used as fuel for domestic heating and cooking, farming operations, and as an alternative to gasoline for use in internal combustion engines.
Individual LPG products have distinct uses. For example, propane is widely used as a fuel in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. It is also important as a petrochemical feedstock. Ethane is used primarily as a petrochemical feedstock. Butane is used as a gasoline blending component, although volatility regulations for gasoline have limited its use. Butane also has many domestic and industrial uses.
Most jet fuel is a kerosene-based fuel primarily used in commercial airlines. It requires a higher temperature to ignite and is safer for commercial use than naphtha-based fuel. Naphtha jet fuel meets the specifications required for certain military aircraft. It has a lower freezing point than commercial fuel and a lower flash (ignition) point. However, from October 1, 1993, through 1995, the U.S. military essentially converted most of its jet fleet from naphtha-type jet fuel to kerosene-type jet fuel.
Kerosene-type jet fuel is sometimes blended into heating oil and diesel fuel during periods of extreme cold weather. This is done to help alleviate viscosity (thickness), handling and performance problems associated with cold weather.
Electric utilities use residual fuel to generate electricity. Although this sector uses relatively little petroleum compared with the transportation and industrial sectors, the electric utility sector depends on petroleum for about 5 percent of its total energy requirements. Much of the surplus capacity for electricity generation is oil-fired, so petroleum use by utilities is expected to increase along with electricity demand. Residual fuel oil is also used as bunker fuel (fuel for ships), industrial boiler fuel, and heating fuel in some commercial buildings.
Kerosene is used for residential and commercial space heating. It is also used in water heaters, as a cooking fuel, and in lamps. Kerosene falls within the light distillate range of re- finery output that includes some diesel fuel, jet fuel, and other light fuel oils.
Petroleum coke can be used as a relatively low-ash solid fuel for power plants and industrial use (marketable coke) if its sulfur content is low enough, or used in nonfuel applications (catalyst coke), such as in refinery operations.
Nonfuel Products
Nonfuel use of petroleum is small compared with fuel use, but petroleum products account for about 89 percent of the Nation's total energy consumption for nonfuel uses. There are many nonfuel uses for petroleum, including various specialized products for use in the textile, metallurgical, electrical, and other industries. A partial list of nonfuel uses for petroleum includes:
• Solvents such as those used in paints, lacquers, and printing inks • Lubricating oils and greases for automobile engines and other machinery • Petroleum (or paraffin) wax used in candy making, packaging, candles, matches, and polishes • Petrolatum (petroleum jelly) sometimes blended with paraffin wax in medical products and toiletries • Asphalt used to pave roads and airfields, to surface canals and reservoirs, and to make roofing materials and floor coverings • Petroleum coke used as a raw material for many carbon and graphite products, including furnace electrodes and liners, and the anodes used in the production of aluminum. • Petroleum Feedstocks used as chemical feedstock derived from petroleum principally for the manufacture of chemicals, synthetic rubber, and a variety of plastics.
Petrochemical Feedstocks
Petroleum feedstocks have been used in the commercial production of petrochemicals since the 1920's. Petrochemical feedstocks are converted to basic chemical building blocks and intermediates used to produce plastics, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibers, drugs, and detergents. Naphtha, one of the basic feedstocks, is a liquid obtained from the refining of crude oil.
Petrochemical feedstocks also include products recovered from natural gas, and refinery gases (ethane, propane, and butane). Still other feedstocks include ethylene, propylene, normal- and iso-butylenes, butadiene, and aromatics such as benzene, toluene, and xylene. These feedstocks are produced by processing products such as ethane (separated from natural gas), distillates, naphthas, and heavier oils.
Industry data show that the chemical industry uses nearly 1.5 million barrels per day of natural gas liquids and liquefied refinery gases as petrochemical feedstocks and plant fuel. 10 Demand for textiles, explosives, elastomers, plastics, drugs, and synthetic rubber during World War II increased the petrochemical use of refinery gases. Gas byproducts from the production of gasoline are an important source of many feedstocks.
More information on this subject can be found in the following EIA publication: Petroleum: An Energy Profile
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