Wednesday, August 17, 2005

25. OIL RATIONING

What if we rationed each year's oil production evenly to all nations, on a per capita basis, so each person got the same amount of oil?

Oil production/day = 80 million barrels
Oil production/year = 29.2 billion barrels
Oil production/year/capita = 29.2/6.4 = 4.5 barrels/year/capita

Looking at this chart, we see that 4.5 barrels/year/capita would put everybody at a level right between CU (Cuba) and ZA (South Africa). Each person would receive roughly two quarts of crude oil per/day.

Naturally, the oil hog US is at the top of the list, using about 26 barrels/year/capita, or about 3 gallons of crude oil per day per person. So if you're using more than 3 gallons of gasoline a day, you're really out of control!

4.5 barrels/year/capita still isn't that bad. The countries at the bottom of the list appear to be: AF (Afghanistan) at 0.08, and UG (Uganda?) at 0.11.

Aghanistan is incredible. Each Afghani is getting by with about 2 tablespoons of crude oil per day. It's doled out in cough syrup quantities. They're already deep into post peak oil conditions. They're not experiencing a die-off, however, and agriculture is booming:
Opium production in Afghanistan has doubled every year since 2001 and is expected to continue this exponential increase over at least the next two years.
Source

2 comments:

  1. ZA=Zuid Afrika, aka South Africa.

    ReplyDelete
  2. you ever thought about the differences between poppies and food ? one needs fertilizer, one doesn't, just to name one...

    ReplyDelete

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