Fossil Fuels Used
Fossil Fuels in Our Lives
Our modern way of life is intimately dependent upon fossil fuels. There are very few aspects of our daily
life that are not, in some way, touched by our usage of them. Just examine what is required to read this
activity on your computer screen. If you are in the U.S. and plugged into the local electrical system, the
majority of the electricity powering the computer came from the burning of coal. The plastic in the
keyboard and computer came from crude oil or natural gas feedstock. The smelters that were used to
create the wires in the computer and in the electric and phone lines used some sort of coal or petroleum
fuel source.
Could all of this usage of fossil fuels be replaced? That is a very important question. The consumption of
fossil fuels to provide energy could be replaced by other fuels such as wind, nuclear, and hydroelectric,
although it is not going to happen overnight. However, there are many other uses of fossil fuels where
replacements are not going to be easy, as the list of viable alternatives is quite short and expensive. How
do you replace the use of natural gas for making artificial fertilizers? You could go back to the process of
using manure, but it would come at a very heavy price and might result in reduced food crops, which
could seriously impact a world population that is still growing. How do you replace the use of crude oil for
plastic? There is some work on using plant materials to create biodegradable plastics, but it is still years
off. And what of the use of oil as a lubricant or wax? The product that we used to use for this (whale oil)
is in very short supply.
Our nation currently consumes 20 million barrels of oil, 60 billion cubic feet of natural gas, and 3 million
short tons of coal every day1. These rates have been growing, and are projected to continue to grow over
the coming years. As fossil fuel stocks become depleted, it will have a serious impact on our lives.
Shortages will lead to higher prices for the products that use them, which given the ubiquitous nature of
their usage, means that inflation will take off like a rocket. This will lead to unstable economic and
political situations. If history has any say in this matter, this will mean going to war. Some would say that
the most recent war that the U.S. is fighting in Iraq is just the first in a line of wars that will be fought over
fossil fuels.
In this capstone activity, we are going to try to look at our individual fossil fuel usage. It would be nice if
we could actually calculate how much each on of us is responsible for using. However, a great deal of
our personal fossil fuel usage is hidden from us and almost impossible to calculate. For instance, the
food that we eat was produced using oil in the fertilizer spread on the crops, fuel in the tractors that
plowed the field, and diesel in the trucks that brought the food to market, amongst other things. The
newspaper you read in the morning required fossil fuels to create the paper, run the presses, and deliver
the paper. Every product that you use during your day has a similar story.
Rather than try to calculate the total amount of fossil fuels that you use, we are going to only look at some
rather direct usage that we can track very easily. For the purposes of this activity, we are going to
investigate how much fossil fuel we use to transport ourselves and to power our homes. The average
person in the U.S. uses about 14 barrels of oil, .9 tons of coal, and 21 tcf of natural gas. This usage is
just a fraction of the total amount of usage for which we are responsible. All of our usage from industrial
and commercial processes combined amounts to over 8.2 barrels of oil, .7 tons of coal, and 53 tcf of
natural gas per person in the U.S. per year2. Even these numbers do not account for transporting
products to market or to your home.
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