Statistical Grok on Oil: A 'Crude' Awakening?

Let's say you could choose where to get additional oil from. And let's say your choice was between three sources. Which would you choose? The option that got you more or less?

Here's a quick comparison of the amounts of oil Americans can expect to gain or save between now and 2030 from three well-touted options:

Total crude oil from opening lower 48 outer continental shelf: 
up to 1.8 million barrels

Total crude oil from opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR):
up to 2,600 million barrels

Total crude oil saved by keeping tires properly inflated:
up to 3,555 million barrels

Assumptions

Used mean oil production scenario for ANWR figure.

Keeping tires properly inflated improves gas mileage by three percent (www.fueleconomy.gov). The average car gets 25 mpg and is driven 13,000 miles annually. Number of U.S. cars and light trucks is 235 million based on 2006 data from U.S. Bureau of Transit Statistics. Assumed the number of vehicles grew by 1.5 percent annually between 2009 and 2030. If number of cars and light trucks is held constant at 2006 numbers, keeping tires properly inflated would save up to 2,875 million barrels of oil. Assumed each barrel of crude translates into 26 gallons of gasoline. ANWR numbers refer specifically to Area 1002.

Sources

Energy Information Administration - Analysis of Crude Oil Production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/index.html

Energy Information Administration - Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf - www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html

Dr. Bill Chameides is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. He blogs regularly at www.thegreengrok.com.

Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/theGreenGrok

Comments

[Bill Chameides - Huffpost Blogger]

Folks, I was not suggesting that we only do one thing and that being keeping your tires inflated. I was merely trying to illustrate the small amount of oil to be gotten from drilling. If you had to choose between drilling in ANWR or keeping your tires inflated, which would you choose? And inflating tires is about the most minimal of actions we have available in our automobile­-efficienc­y toolbox.

[NL207]

Why are you even concerned about offshore drilling?

Just because the Congressional Ban has lapsed does not prevent various enviro-wackos from filing suits seeking injunction prohibiting new drilling in the most liberal Federal Courts. It will take years before any actual drilling takes place in response to the ban lifting and that assumes the Democrats fail to capture the White House or gain a super majority in the Senate. Should either of these events occur, there may never be any drilling in these offshore areas by Americans. It will be interesting to see what the Democrats do when the Chinese Communists set up shop in offshore areas outside US territorial waters.

[noneIn2008]

Why pick ONE? Nothing requires the choice of only one. For energy independence, we need all the above and more.

[Bcorgan]

Amen to that. There are probably 10 things that each of us could do to make things better. No need to pick and choose only 1 or 2.

[ErnestineBass]

Energy independence means freeing ourselves from oil. Period.

[IamMalcolm]

It occurred to me some time ago that an even better idea would be for the federal government to require all new cars and trucks to provide a dashboard readout of fuel efficiency (e.g., mpg), either in real-time or averaged.

My car has this feature and I don't doubt for a minute that it's improved my car's fuel efficiency by its effect on my driving style or by alerting me to engine problems that might be affecting the fuel efficiency.

Would one expect vociferous resistance from the auto industry? Or even more from the petroleum industry?

[KillTheMessenger]

The cruel joke is that all new cars seem to be required to provide the information on a dedicated interface to their engine control electronics. So the hard part of measuring the consumption is actually there! But manufacturers seem to shun putting a display in.

In a typical SUV that kind of display would be rather uncomfortable to look at because once you push the accelerator, the engine might actually get only 3mpg, even though the average is closet to 12mpg or so.

Let's do an even worse example. Let's say somebody is running a 300hp engine at full rev. e.g. while accelerating in an RV to overtake another vehicle on the highway. So that RV engine would generate 300hp*0.75­kW/hp*3600­s=810MJ in one hour of continuous operation. If the engine efficiency were 15%, the necessary energy input would be 5.4GJ. Since one gallon of gasoline contains 130MJ, a total of 41 gallons of gasoline would be consumed per hour! And while the full engine power is only needed for maybe ten to fifteen seconds, at a speed of 60mph the mpg display would then show 60mph/41gallons/h = 1.5mpg!

Not a pretty sight.

[KillTheMessenger]

This Prius owner got a 50% reduction the day he purchased his new car. It is more than just silly to discuss 1% solutions when the 50% solutions are sitting around at the car dealerships.

[BlackbirdHighway]

You won't find a Prius sitting around at a dealership these days. They sell as fast as the dealers can get them!

I completely agree with your overall point though.

[codesuidae]

It seems that another assumption is that 100% of cars can gain the 3% improvement.

That 3% figure from fueleconomy.org is based on a single car with tires underinflated by 11 psi. What percentage of cars on the road have underinflated tires, and what is the average number of psi by which they are underinflated?

Several sources put the amount of gasoline per barrel closer to 19.5 gallons, on average than the 26 cited here. Changing that puts the figure at 4,740 million.

[TxAggie]

It is not one thing or the other, we need to do everything we can to increase supply, improve efficiency and come up with alternatives. My tires are inflated, thank you.

[Bill Chameides - Huffpost Blogger]

codesuidae: Two good points.
1. Technically, you do get about 20 gallons of gasoline from a barrel, but you also get about 6 of diesel. We used 26 to keep things simple and on the conservative side. Using 20 actually strengthens the point of the post.

2. Yes, the 3,555 million barrels is based on an assumption that all cars' tires are under-inflated. That's why we used "up to 3,555 million barrels" i.e., an upper limit. Using under-inflation statistics from a 2001 Department of Transportation study of about 12,000 vehicles, the amount of crude that could be saved (all other assumptions unchanged) is roughly between 900 and 1,700 million barrels. Still a fairly significant amount for just taking care of one's tires.