Mar 10
3
Depending on your point of view, it would appear that Government Departments are either very
good or very bad at cooking the books.
(Although possibly they didnt forsee independant analysis of the data….)
For the last few days I have been researching for an article
that I am writing on Perceptric.
There are various data sources on the web for petrol consumption.
These sources claim a number of varying amounts of usage for Americans. The
world average is 4.7 barrels per annum.
(A barrel is 200 litres.)
I thought I would use the definitive Government resource as
being the most believable.
Was the petrol utilisation of Americans increasing or
decreasing?
This morning, I took some of the research and plonked it
into a spreadsheet.
This is what I did….
I copied the Population data from http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/country.php
from 1980 till 2008.
I then went to http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/petro.html
and downloaded
5.2 Crude Oil
Production and Crude Oil Well Productivity, 1954-2008
5.4 Petroleum Imports
by Country of Origin, 1960-2008
I added the local (USA)
produced crude oil to the imported crude oil and divided it by the population
for the years 1980-2008.
Here is the result.
|
|
1980 |
… |
1994 |
… |
1997 |
… |
2006 |
… |
2008 |
|
Population |
227,726,000 |
… |
263,436,000 |
… |
272,912,000 |
… |
298,363,000 |
… |
304,060,000 |
|
Barrels per year |
5,693,150,000 |
… |
6,585,900,000 |
… |
6,822,800,000 |
… |
7,459,075,000 |
… |
7,601,500,000 |
|
Barrels per day |
15,597,671.23 |
… |
18,043,561.64 |
… |
18,692,602.74 |
… |
20,435,821.92 |
… |
20,826,027.40 |
|
Barrels Per Capita |
0.0400000 |
… |
0.0400000 |
… |
0.0400000 |
… |
0.0400000 |
… |
0.0400000 |
I missed out a few years for presentation purposes,. but
yes, every year is identical, from 1980 – right through 2008, 0.0400000.
Isn’t it wonderful when regardless of improvements in fuel
technology, the introduction of compact cars and hybrids; fuel consumption can
be relied upon so exactly, through to the sixth decimal place.
I find it difficult to believe that Americans fuel
consumption habits have remained unchanged for 28 years.
A statisticians dream.
(I want that job, don’t have to do anything, consumption is constant.)
So as far as my article is concerned, there will be a short
hiatus whilst I find alternative RELIABLE data that hasn’t been cooked (as
much).
Maybe, this is the level of Internet furphys and lies that
President Obama was referring too when he appointed Dr Cass Sunstein to “Clean
up the Internet.”
References:
Non DOE
Oil Barrels Consumed per person Globally