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California Uses More Gas than China
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Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world’s most populous country is hogging all the world’s resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.
But, at least with transportation fuel, you’d be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)
That’s according to the California Energy Commission’s State Alternative Fuels Plan, which was posted online last Christmas Eve (pdf). The whole report makes for some fascinating reading because it’s a blueprint for a low-carbon and renewable transportation fuel future. The dominant takeaway: it ain’t going to be easy.
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On Monday, President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling for oil in most U.S. coastal waters. The only barrier to exploiting these resources now is a congressional ban.
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CNN reported Monday that there are 18 billion barrels of oil off the U.S. coast that are not currently available because of the congressional ban.
A separate restriction on drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) protects fragile lands that sit on 12 billion barrels of oil.
All together, that’s 30 billion barrels of oil.
That may sound like a large figure, but, as of 2005, the world used crude oil at a rate of 83.6 million barrels a day. We now use more than that.
If every single barrel of U.S. oil in currently restricted offshore and ANWR regions were recovered and sold it would meet world energy demand for only one year.
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