How much are 82.2 million barrels of oil?

The International Energy Agency's report projected global oil demand at 82.2 million barrels a day this year and 84 million barrels a day in 2005 (see New York Times Article). How much are 82.2 million barrels?

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Image: barrels of oil
Barrels of oil; Photo by Slick

I did a quick search and gathered some statistics to make that number a little more tangible.

The water we use for drinking (say one to five liter per day) is just a drop in the bucket compared to our total water use. The average U.S. citizen uses 454 liters per day for domestic chores (flushing most down the toilet). Add the water used indirectly for agricultural and industrial uses and average daily consumption per person soars to 6435 liters. When you sum up daily water usage in our industrialized society and devide this number by the number of humans on earth then we use about 5,300 liters of water per day for every person on Earth.

Now let's compare this number to the required oil supply of 82.2 million barrels per day. Earth has now about 6 billion people which is 6x10^9. Thus our hunger for oil compares to 0.0137 barrels for every person on Earth. 0.0137 barrels of oil equal roughly 15,104 liters. That is 2.85 times as much need for oil than for water per person per day.

Again: On average, every person on earth accounts for 15,104 liters (=95 barrels) of oil use compared to 5,300 liters (=33 barrels) of water use, on a daily basis. With other words, we suck mother earth to death, or not?

 

Sources: 1, 2, 3