Since last fall after talking to my brother about how much oil we use world wide per day he would hear the number and yet nothing would register in his face. So after some thinking I gave him an analogy of how much oil we use on a world basis and the rate we use it per day. I use over the road tanker trucks which haul between 7 to 9,000 gallons (I use 8,000 gal) and a 5 lane wide freeway.
So you're standing on a bridge over a 5 lane wide freeway with tanker trucks rolling by you at 60MPH. 5 trucks abreast and nose to tail in each lane as far as you can see in both directions. Roughly one set of 5 trucks going by per second. That is how much oil we use world wide every second of every minute of every hour, night and day, of each month during the year. And next year due to growth we need to add another lane for some more trucks.
84,000,000 mb/d
3,528,000,000 gal/d (42 gal / barrel)
147,000,000 gal/hr
2,450,000 gal/min
40,833 gal/sec
8,000 gal/truck
5.1 trucks per second
60 MPH = 88 feet/sec
He looked a little sick by the end but since he is my brother I had to push him further by asking if we should talk about coal or natural gas or any commodities. Shut up I think was his reply. I am always stunned by the shear volume and velocity that 6.5 billion of us on this planet use each and every day.
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