This article is trying to consider and put perspective on the world energy situation. It uses a phrase called CMO (Cubic Mile of Oil).
One Cubic Mile of Oil is equivalent to:
- All the oil we use globally each year
- A cube one mile wide, one mile long and one mile high
- 1.1 trillion gallons of oil
- 26 million barrels
The worlds consumption of oil, to put it into perspective is.... well imagine you cycle on a stationary bike for 8 hours - thats equivalent to one kilowatt hour. Do it 15.3 trillion times and that is equivalent to what the world uses only in oil.
But oil only accounts for 1/3 of our energy consumption. Put this together with gas, coal and other non renewables and that accounts for 88% of all energy requirements. These fuels are known as 'post photosynthates'. They are borrowed energy from previous sunlight.
They are not finite and infact, according to the annual decline of our oil fields is between 6 and 8% per year...thats going pretty fast.
Renewables account for only 12% of the total global energy consumption. The question we want to answer and are going to look into is realistically how will we reach this figure? Keep reading and feel free to comment as well.