Gasoline and Oil

Milton Copulos testified in late March, 2006 at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on "The Hidden Cost of Oil" with updated projections on his original 2003 report.

According Copulos, who is a senior fellow with the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and with the National Defense Council Foundation:

"Adding up the above, the hidden cost of oil imports skyrocketed to $779.5 billion in 2005. That would be equivalent to adding $4.10 to the price of a gallon of gasoline if amortized over the total volume of imports. For Persian Gulf imports, because of the enormous military costs associated with the region, the "hidden cost" was equal to adding $7.41 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline. When the nominal cost is combined with this figure it yields a "true" cost of $9.53 per gallon." Worse, he sees the costs for 2006 totaling a staggering $825 billion.

"This would bring the "real" price of a gallon of gasoline refined from Persian Gulf oil to $10.86. At these prices the "real" cost of filling up a family sedan is $217.20, and filling up a large SUV $325.80." (Darell's note - this is for 2005)

"It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30."

What is in a Gallon of Gas?

Everyone knows fossil fuels come from long-dead plants, but Jeffrey Dukes wanted real numbers: How much plant matter does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? Dukes, a biologist, ecologist, and dabbler in biogeochemistry at the University of Massachusetts, discovered that such statistics are hard to find. So he decided to figure them out for himself and was surprised by the answers. A gallon of gas represents roughly 100 tons of plant matter, the amount that exists in 40 acres of wheat. Burning that gallon puts 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. The annual consumption of gasoline in the United States, about 131 billion gallons of gas, is equivalent to 25 quadrillion pounds of prehistoric biomass and releases some 2.6 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide. The numbers are even more sobering when you consider all the fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, and oil—that people consume. Since 1751, roughly the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans have burned the amount of fossil fuel that would have come from all the plants on Earth for 13,300 years. “We know that fossil-fuel use is not sustainable in the long run,” Dukes says. “This study will, I hope, encourage people to face up to the energy problem now.”

"Despite 119 years of refinement, the modern car remains astonishingly inefficient. Only 13 percent of its fuel energy even reaches the wheels-the other 87 percent is either dissipated as heat and noise in the engine and drive train or lost to idling and accessories such as air conditioners. Of the energy delivered to the wheels, more than half heats the tires, road and air. Just 6 percent of the fuel energy actually accelerates the car (and all the energy converts to brake heating when you stop). And, because 95 percent of the accelerated mass is the car itself, less than 1 percent of the fuel ends up moving the driver." - Amory B. Lovins from "More Profit with Less Carbon."

A few products made from oil. (How the lack of cheap oil ill affect EVERYBODY.)

How Much Electricity is used to run gasoline cars?

Electricity to help us get off foreign oil (1 minute video clip)

How much electricity does it take to make a gallon of gasoline? We don't know - but here's one stab at it. Ballpark figures only, and NOT a supportable conclusion. The most important message to take away is that it is not trivial! This part of gasoline is ignored by the folks who are concerned about the big impact on our electrical grid if we were to suddenly shift all transportation from gasoline to electricity.

To extract one gallon of gasoline (or equivalent distillate): 9.66 kWh
To refine that gallon: 2.73 kWh additional energy.
Total: 12.39 kWh per gallon.

Roughly one-third of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline produced from California wells is input from natural gas. Less than 2/3's is net energy (probably a lot less!).

So I can get 24 miles in my ICE on a gallon of gasoline, or I can get 41 miles (at 300wh/mile) in my RAV4EV just using the energy to refine that gallon. Alternatively - energy use (electricity and natural gas) state wide goes DOWN if a mile in a RAV4EV is substituted for a mile in an ICE!

Assumptions (sorry, lots of apples and oranges comparisons here):

Data from these sources:
petro industry numbers Word HTML
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/state/ca.html

1. No adjustment for using data from different calendar years to make comparisons.
2. Energy content of natural gas and electricity assumed equivalent and just added. No adjustment for energy lost in burning natural gas to produce electricity (or vice versa).
3. 1 therm = 29.3 kWh.
4. 70% distillation efficiency (1 barrel = 38.5 gallons of refined product).
5. Data for California wells and refineries only.
6. Does not include energy costs of transportation, storage, and distribution.
7. All refined products assumed to be equal in energy cost of refining.
(Definitely not true if low grade crude used to produce gasoline.)

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More on the energy use to make gasoline:

1. one gallon of gasoline contains 35 kWh of energy, and...

2. it takes 10 kWh of energy just from the electric grid and from the use
of natural gas alone to extract sufficient crude from California wells to
produce that gallon. Still searching for the information on the contribution
from other energy sources such as previously refined distillates.

3. it takes an additional 3 kWh of energy just from the electric grid and
the use of natural gas alone to refine that amount of crude to produce a
gallon of gasoline. Still searching for the information on the contribution
from other energy sources such as previously refined distillates.

4. it takes an additional (but presently unknown to me) amount of energy
from the electric grid, the use of natural gas, and other energy sources
including previously refined distillates to store, transport and distribute
the crude oil to the refinery and then the refined gasoline to the consumer.

5. All together, it looks like as much as 50% of the energy content of
refined distillates such as gasoline is required from other current sources
in order to get it to the consumer.

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And still more from Gassavers.com poster omgwtfbyobbq :

-CA extracts ~300 million bpy (second table), and in order to do this needs about
3,846 million KWh of electricity 2,910 million Therms of gas.

-CA refines ~15 billion gallons of gasoline per year, and this requires roughly
7,266 million KWh of electricity and 1,061 million Therms of natural gas.

Note these as well
-1 therm=29.3KWh
-There are about 20 gallons of gasoline in a barrel of oil.
-NG combined cycle power plant efficiency is about 55%.
-Electricity transmission efficiency is about 93%.
-Charger/controller/motor efficiency is about 72%.
-Gasoline production and distribution efficiency is about 83%.
-Average ICE vehicle efficiency is about 20%.

Since we extract 300mbpy, and get about 20 gallons of gasoline per barrel, we extract what will be 6bbpy. In order to do this we used 3.846 billion kwh of electricity and 85.263 billion KWh of NG. If we had used this electricity and NG for electricity, we would have roughly 85.263(.55)(.93)=43.612 + 3.846=47.458 billion KWh of electricity at consumer's homes. Which is about 7.91KWh/gallon of gas, just for extraction.

Refining takes up some too. During this we use up 31.087 billion KWh of NG, and 7.266 billion KWh of electricity, which could be 23.167 billion KWh of electricity at the consumer's home, or 1.55KWh/gallon of gasoline refined.

Combined this gives us 9.46KWh/gallon if we only look at gasoline, or 4.73KWh/gallon if we look at the entire barrel. Since gasoline takes more than most distillates, it probably uses roughly 6kwh per gallon in terms of energy that could be electricity going to CA homes.

With an EV average of 250wh/mile, we could go about 280 billion miles just on the industrial inputs of electricity and NG needed to get gasoline. Or, we could go 300 billion miles on gasoline in vehicles that average 20mpg. Combined efficiency for EVs is around 37%, while ICEs are around 17%. We dump more than twice as much carbon into the atmosphere and god knows what kind of pollutants, compared to NG which is pretty clean in terms of electricity generation, and electricity already being used. I'm surprised we're not using the gasoline to grow ethanol from pine trees...

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Yes, and more...
From the California Energy Department website, we find:

1. 3,700GWh or 1.5% of all electricity consumed by the state is used for Petroleum EXTRACTION
2. 7,266 million KWh of electricity for Petroleum REFINING (1997)- 15% of California's manufacturing sector (if 3700 is 1.5, then 7266=2.9%. 1.5+2.9=4.4%. About 1/20th of all Electric usage.
3. 1,061 million Therms of natural gas Petroleum REFINING (1997)- 28% of California's manufacturing sector 48% of energy from Petroleum is used in the transportation sector.

From this we can conclude:

1. The electricity used in CA to extract and refine oil for gasoline (11,000 Gwh) would be enough to power 4 million full function electric cars.
   11000 million kWh / 0.25 kWh per mile /11000 miles per year per car = 4 million E cars
2. Adding the natural gas used to refine oil for gasoline, 1,061 million therms, we could get enough power to run another 5 million electric cars
3. 1061 million therms * 30 Kwh per therm / 50% combined cycle power plant efficiency / 11000 miles per year per car / 0.25 miles per kWh = 5 million electric cars

Adding in the energy used to produce and ship imported oil (over 50% of it is imported now), plus the energy used to distribute and retail oil...

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From Earl:

Many numbers may be found at http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm

It says for example that in 2006 that U.S.refineries used 39,353 GWh (39,353,000,000 kWh).

At http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_pct_dc_nus_pct_m.htm
you will find that they produced 45.8% "Finished Motor Gasoline" in 2006. That means 18,024 GWh for gasoline (18 TWh)

At http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_refp2_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm
you will find output was 1,965,341,000 barrels, or 82.544 billion gallons. (Note 140 billion gallons were consumed in the U.S., so I suppose the others were imported. Someone ambitious should check this. One could scale to guess at the electricity used by the imports, if you wanted.)

Dividing one gets 218.4 Wh/gallon. Thus in a RAV4-EV, one could go 0.72 miles on the electricity used to produce a gallon of gasoline (using 302 Wh/mi). In a Tesla, it would be about 0.87 miles.

Put another way, the 18 TWh of electricity used by refineries could power RAV4-EVs 59.7 billion miles. Since Vehicle Miles Traveled was 2.7 trillion miles in 2005 (2006 not yet posted) http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/excel/table_04_22.xls this represents 2.2% of U.S. passenger vehicle travel.

However, concentrating on the electricity input to gasoline is perhaps the wrong question to be asking. The natural gas input is much larger. At the first page above, you'll find 697,593,000,000 ft^3 used by refineries. http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/energy_conv.html gives the energy content (LHV) of natural gas at 930 Btu/ft^3. 697593e6*45.8%*930/3.4121416*60% = 52.2 TWh of electricity (at a NGCC power plant with an LHV efficiency of 60%, e.g. the GE H-System). That is almost three times the energy of the electricity bought by the refineries.

GE H-system efficiency is cited here:
http://gepower.com/about/press/en/2006_press/101206.htm

If one combines the 18 TWh and the 52 TWh, then one has enough electricity to power to drive 233 billion miles, or 8.6% of U.S. passenger vehicle travel.

I won't try to add in the other energy inputs to refineries at http://tinyurl.com/2h9zwt, but you're welcome to give it a try if you are ambitious.

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Reverend Gadget (Greg Abbott) claims that 12.5kWhr is required to process/refine each gallon of gasoline. You can drive an EV ~50miles on 12.5kwhrs which is 40% further than you can drive an ICE car on that one gallon of gasoline. So moving to EVs actually will REDUCE the amount of electricity consumed overall. We know that the gasoline refineries are the #1 consumer of electricity.

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