Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: pierceamanda on 13/11/2009 22:30:02
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Amanda Pierce asked the Naked Scientists:
How much oil is used to feed the world for one day?
What do you think?
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That is an excellent question. I cannot answer it but would really like to have a ball-park number for that as well.
It is complicated. Food involves fertilizers, transportation, agricultural machines, food processing equipment, cooling, heating, storage, lighting, watering, construction of buildings, travel for employees, etc. Lots of things.
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It's hard to find 2009 data, but for 2006;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Demand_for_oil
The demand side of peak oil is concerned with the consumption over time, and the growth of this demand. World crude oil demand grew an average of 1.76% per year from 1994 to 2006, with a high of 3.4% in 2003-2004. World demand for oil is projected to increase 37% over 2006 levels by 2030 (118 million barrels per day (18.8×10^6 m3/d) from 86 million barrels (13.7×10^6 m3)), due in large part to increases in demand from the transportation sector.
An oil barrel is 158.9873 litres, so that's 13,672,907,800 litres per day!
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The data above concerns the oil use for everything it is used for, not for feeding the world (assuming this means supplying the human population with food).
On the other hand, maybe the original poster had more in mind how much oil is used to fuel our civilization?
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Oh, yeah that's what I thought was meant
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How do we find out for sure what was meant?