Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.3
Uses of energy in the United States. (Energy Information Administration)
The world now consumes 86 million barrels of oil every day; 21
million of them are used in the United States, mostly for transportation,
heating, and air conditioning (fi gure 6.3). Clearly civilization is in a race
between increasing oil production and the world's growing demand for
this liquid gold. So long as the world, including the United States, relies
on petroleum as a major energy source, exploration needs to continue
in every area where new sources might be found.
The ratio of proved oil reserves to annual production has held steady
at roughly 40:1 for more than twenty years, but the remaining reserves
are increasingly concentrated in more politically and technically chal-
lenging terrain, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
Increases in world oil consumption will have to be met primarily from
the oil-rich Middle East, a region with a history of wars, illegal occupa-
tions, coups, revolutions, sabotage, terrorism, and oil embargoes. To this
list of instabilities can be added powerful fundamentalist Islamist move-
ments that are at war with Western Judeo-Christian civilization. They
have their sights set on its oil supplies. In December 2004, al-Qaeda
issued a fatwa that said in part, “We call on the mujahideen in the
Arabian Peninsula to unify their ranks and target the oil supplies that
do not serve the Islamic nation but the enemies of this nation. Be active
