The increase in oil consumption

Since industrialisation began, humans used more and more energy resources, not only for heating their homes in cooler regions of the world, but also for production of their goods. Manufacturing and work sharing began and larger industries grew. Mobility and transport however were still based on natural power from the wind for sailing ships or from the muscles of horses and people for cars and coaches.

This began to change with the usage of steam engines not only in industry but also in ships and trains, first using coal as fuel. In 1807 the North river steam boat was the first commercially used paddle-steamer, going between New York and Albany. In 1825 people were for the first time transported on a railway by a steam engine driven train in England. Individual transport began more than 50 years later. In 1888 Bertha Benz drove for the first time in Germany with a motor driven car from Mannheim to Pforzheim. The necessary ingredients for the fuel however had to be bought in a pharmacy.
 

Although oil fields were already exploited in the 9th century near Baku for Naphta production and in the 8th century the streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, modern oil exploitation did not start before the discovery of distillation in 1853. The Polish Ignacy Lucasiewicz distilled kerosene from crude oil and built the first refinery in Poland. The new technology spread immediately in the world. Samuel Kier (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), was distilling kerosene from petroleum by 1853.  Edwin Drake started exploiting the first oil well in the U.S. in August 27, 1859.  Coal distilleries quickly converted to distilling kerosene from petroleum. In parallel refineries were also built in the oil rich regions of the Middle East, for example near Baku in 1861.

Invention of combustion engine initialises oil boom

With the invention of the Internal Combustion Engine and the four-stroke cycle by Nikolaus Otto in 1870 the demand in oil began to rise. But still until the mid-1950s coal was the world's foremost energy source. As we see from the history of the car usage in England, still in 1960 there were less than 10 cars per 1000 inhabitants, growing up to about 400 and more within 40 years and boosting the usage of oil.

Fig. on the right: 3. The four stroke engine was invented by Nikolaus Otto and is basically used in cars up to now.
Please klick the image for a larger view (130 KB) or HERE for a high resolution view (440 KB). Source: N.N. wikipedia

One big future challenge for the world's energy supply will be that developing countries in particular in Asia may experience just now an even faster explosion of mobility than Europe and North America during the last four decades. China started with less than 10 cars per 1000 inhabitants in 2000. But already in 2003 about 2 million passenger cars were sold after about 1.2 million in 2002 and 0.75 million in 2001.

Certainly the "oil boom" was not only a consequence of increasing road traffic. Oil is used in industry and replaced coal or wood in private heating. However, the share of transport in oil consumption is continuously rising, from 33% in 1971 to 47% in 2002 and projected 54% in 2030. Oil covers and will cover in the next decades 35% of our total energy demand. This means, that transport uses up already more than 15% of the global energy production and could reach 20% during the next 30 years.

4. In industrialised countries the share of transportation has already exceeded 20% and could even reach 30% of all energy consumed. The diagram shows the development of primary energy consumption in the United States in Quadrillion (10¹⁵) British Thermal Units BTU.

Data source: US energy information administration eia
Please click to enlarge!

As we know the combustion of oil products in motors (gasoline, diesel or kerosene) always emits the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Catalytic converters in cars helped to transfer toxic products of the combustion process into more harmless exhaust gases and unleaded gasoline helps to reduce the lead burden for the environment and our health. But the amount of carbon dioxide produced per litre of fuel during full combustion is still the same. The International Energy Agency IEA estimates that in 2002 about 4.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide have been released in the transport sector. This is 21% of the total global emissioins (23.6 billion tons). If policy and our behaviour do not drastically change, it is assumed that in 2030 about 8.7 bio tons could be released, about 23% of the total CO₂ emissions (38.2 bio tons). The average citizen would release every year 1 ton of CO₂ only for transport.

This number can be explained, if we consider that going one year with a middle class car (12000 km assumed) produces about 2 tons of carbon dioxide. Certainly, we do not expect that 50% of the worlds population will have an own car in 2030 as it is the case now in the industrialised countries. But transport includes also the road transport of goods with lorries, people go longer distances and total transportation emissions include transport of goods and passengers with airplanes, trains and ships. However, in road transportation we have the most direct personal influence on present and future oil consumption.

6. Carbon dioxide emission by sector from 2002 on the left and a projection for 2030 on the right. Total numbers are in million tonnes CO₂. The area increase of the right circle is proportional to the projected increase in total carbon dioxide emissions for 2030.
Data from IEA World Energy Outlook 2004. All charts on this page: Elmar Uherek