Staggering numbers

It is a tick over 1,900 km from Sydney to Melbourne and back again. Two full days of driving are needed to cover this distance if you keep to the speed limits.

Imagine each side of the road lined with oil tanker trucks parked end to end in one giant parking lot. Each of the 98,000 trucks is roughly 18m in length and is carrying 34,000 litres of crude oil.

This amount of oil, roughly 21 million barrels, is the amount of oil burnt in America in a single day.

Two-thirds of this vast amount goes into the engines of cars, trucks, planes buses and trains whilst the rest goes to heat buildings and manufacture chemicals and plastics.

OMG those Americans!

Well, hold on.

Australia uses around 950,000 barrels a day or a line of trucks 60 km long.

Hah, that’s nothing, won’t even get you across the Sydney basin.

Except that in less than a month there would be enough trucks to park along the road to Melbourne and back.  Just like the Americans.


One thought on “Staggering numbers

  1. Pingback: The size of the problem | Alloporus environmental

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