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> It also fails to note that most of the energy ends up us waste heat. I've heard the statistic that 40% of the total oil pumped out of the ground just to tran

> It also fails to note that most of the energy ends up us waste heat. I've heard the statistic that 40% of the total oil pumped out of the ground just to transporting oil. We use almost half just to move it to and fro before even using it. Is this accurate?

testing22321 5mo ago
It must be way higher if you really got into it i.e. A friend that works on rigs is flown to and from rigs from anywhere on earth every month, then choppers out to the rig and back. Same for everyone that works on the rigs.
- matkoniecz 5mo ago
  And? Given how much typical oil rig produces this would not be a serious part of its production.
- victorbjorklund 5mo ago
  The helicopter fuel is a drop in the oil ocean. You can just check this but checking how much oil that rig produces per month. How many flights the helicopter does every month and the amount of oil needed for it. It’s gonna be a drop in the bucket. Otherwise it would not be profitable to drill for oil.
foota 5mo ago
This doesn't math out to me just based on what I know of energy consumption numbers.
matkoniecz 5mo ago
Sounds really dubious to me. Tankers and pipelines are really efficient. I would not believe it at all without source. Maybe someone got confused by "transportation" altogether being major consumer?
jml7c5 5mo ago
I suspect this is confusion between the statistic that 40% of global shipping traffic is transportation of fossil fuels. https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-consists-of-fossil-fuels https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-c...
dmurray 5mo ago
This can't be accurate. Let's say a barrel of oil travels 15,000 km from Saudi Arabia to Texas, gets refined, gets shipped another 10,000 km to Europe, then the last 1,000 km overland by truck. This reasonably well sourced Reddit post [0] says big oil tankers burn 0.1% of their fuel per 1,000 km, smaller ones a bit more. Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time. From the same source, a truck burns about 3% per 1,000 km. This seems too high: for a 40,000 kg loaded truck that's less than 1 kmpl or 2.5 mpg. But let's believe it, double it for empty journeys, and we still only get 16%. I used very conservative estimates here: surely most oil doesn't travel anywhere near that far. Alternative thought experiment: look at the traffic on the highway. If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jozd7/eli5_how_much_oilgas_do_we_burn_moving_oilgas/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jozd7/e...
- sokoloff 5mo ago
  > you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. I’d expect tanker trucks to carry far more fuel than the typical vehicle.
- mschuster91 5mo ago
  > Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time. Fuel saves from slow steaming and being empty are massive. > If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. The US has a lot of domestic pipelines [1], and a lot of the remainder is done by train [2] because trains are the most efficient way to transport bulk goods over extremely long distances. [1] https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-portal/us-petroleum-and-natural-gas-pipelines-2019 https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-portal/us-petroleum... [2] https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AAR-US-Rail-Crude-Oil-Traffic.pdf https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AAR-US-Rail-C...
0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago
I also don’t have a source, but I have heard that 15% of global energy is dedicated to handling petroleum (extracting, transporting, refining) which feels like a plausible number.
porknubbins 5mo ago
Say a tanker truck has a roughly 300 gallon fuel tank and a 10,000 gallon payload tank (per google). Thats roughly 3% loss to cross a lot of the US, which is by no means insignificant but assuming ships are not any worse and the pipeline to the ship is minimal, around a manageable 6% loss.
- ygra 5mo ago
  Trucks need a lot more infrastructure in a lot more places than ships, though. I guess that's not often factored in.
victorbjorklund 5mo ago
I very much doubt that number. Maybe it was referring to 40% of the price of oil for consumers comes from the stages after pumping?
dredmorbius 5mo ago
The energy may go into net processing of the oil, and measures such as EROI or EROEI give some indication of this. But transporting oil itself is ridiculously easy. A supertanker can move a cargo halfway around the world for roughly 1% the energy contained in that cargo. Much more energy expenditure comes from refining itself, or in the case of shale and tar sands, in heating vast volumes of rock or sand to liberate the (usually very heavy, thick, and "sour") tar-like oil contained within. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI>

testing22321 5mo ago

It must be way higher if you really got into it i.e. A friend that works on rigs is flown to and from rigs from anywhere on earth every month, then choppers out to the rig and back. Same for everyone that works on the rigs.

matkoniecz 5mo ago
And? Given how much typical oil rig produces this would not be a serious part of its production.
victorbjorklund 5mo ago
The helicopter fuel is a drop in the oil ocean. You can just check this but checking how much oil that rig produces per month. How many flights the helicopter does every month and the amount of oil needed for it. It’s gonna be a drop in the bucket. Otherwise it would not be profitable to drill for oil.

foota 5mo ago

This doesn't math out to me just based on what I know of energy consumption numbers.

matkoniecz 5mo ago

Sounds really dubious to me. Tankers and pipelines are really efficient. I would not believe it at all without source. Maybe someone got confused by "transportation" altogether being major consumer?

jml7c5 5mo ago

I suspect this is confusion between the statistic that 40% of global shipping traffic is transportation of fossil fuels. https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-consists-of-fossil-fuels https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-c...

dmurray 5mo ago

This can't be accurate. Let's say a barrel of oil travels 15,000 km from Saudi Arabia to Texas, gets refined, gets shipped another 10,000 km to Europe, then the last 1,000 km overland by truck. This reasonably well sourced Reddit post [0] says big oil tankers burn 0.1% of their fuel per 1,000 km, smaller ones a bit more. Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time. From the same source, a truck burns about 3% per 1,000 km. This seems too high: for a 40,000 kg loaded truck that's less than 1 kmpl or 2.5 mpg. But let's believe it, double it for empty journeys, and we still only get 16%. I used very conservative estimates here: surely most oil doesn't travel anywhere near that far. Alternative thought experiment: look at the traffic on the highway. If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jozd7/eli5_how_much_oilgas_do_we_burn_moving_oilgas/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2jozd7/e...

sokoloff 5mo ago
> you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. I’d expect tanker trucks to carry far more fuel than the typical vehicle.
mschuster91 5mo ago
> Say 0.2% on aggregate, that's 5% for the whole journey, 10% because the ship is empty half the time. Fuel saves from slow steaming and being empty are massive. > If this were true, even neglecting oil burnt for heating or electricity or aviation, you'd expect 40% of the vehicles to be tanker trucks. The US has a lot of domestic pipelines [1], and a lot of the remainder is done by train [2] because trains are the most efficient way to transport bulk goods over extremely long distances. [1] https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-portal/us-petroleum-and-natural-gas-pipelines-2019 https://www.bts.gov/geography/geospatial-portal/us-petroleum... [2] https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AAR-US-Rail-Crude-Oil-Traffic.pdf https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/AAR-US-Rail-C...

0cf8612b2e1e 5mo ago

I also don’t have a source, but I have heard that 15% of global energy is dedicated to handling petroleum (extracting, transporting, refining) which feels like a plausible number.

porknubbins 5mo ago

Say a tanker truck has a roughly 300 gallon fuel tank and a 10,000 gallon payload tank (per google). Thats roughly 3% loss to cross a lot of the US, which is by no means insignificant but assuming ships are not any worse and the pipeline to the ship is minimal, around a manageable 6% loss.

ygra 5mo ago
Trucks need a lot more infrastructure in a lot more places than ships, though. I guess that's not often factored in.

victorbjorklund 5mo ago

I very much doubt that number. Maybe it was referring to 40% of the price of oil for consumers comes from the stages after pumping?

dredmorbius 5mo ago

The energy may go into net processing of the oil, and measures such as EROI or EROEI give some indication of this. But transporting oil itself is ridiculously easy. A supertanker can move a cargo halfway around the world for roughly 1% the energy contained in that cargo. Much more energy expenditure comes from refining itself, or in the case of shale and tar sands, in heating vast volumes of rock or sand to liberate the (usually very heavy, thick, and "sour") tar-like oil contained within. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EROEI>