Secondly, you are only partly right to question commercial energy production as a major contributor for oil consumption. If we look solely at petroleum used to generate electricity in commercial power plants, yes, it would seem like we don’t use much oil to meet our energy needs at first glance.

What you’re forgetting, however, is that if you just look at the fuel sources of commercial electricity generating plants you overlook the vast number of homes that are heated with healing oil, the number of homes that power water heaters and stove-tops with gas, and the vast amount of industry that uses oil to its own furnaces, all of which could be done by substituting electricity for oil products. LNG makes up 10% of our oil consumption and fuel oil makes up another 20%. If we were to replace “home burned” oil products with a cheaper commercially generated electric alternative, we could realize a drop in oil imports immediately.

Lastly, part two of this series deals with alternative fuels. Based on official figures released by the EIA last month, 9,286,000 of the 20,680,000 barrels of petrol per day consumed by Americans is used as gasoline, on top of which an additional 1,622,000 is used as jet fuel. That means that 52% of all oil used in America is used for transportation. I would argue that the transportation sector is as great of a concern for US energy policy and that tackling one problem without dealing with the other will never result in energy independence.

In 2000 Based on primary energy source, coal-fired capacity represented 43 percent (260,990 megawatts) of the Nation’s existing capacity (Figure 1). Gas-fired capacity accounted for 19 percent (117,845 megawatts); nuclear, 14 percent (86,163 megawatts); renewable energy sources, 12 percent (74,575 megawatts); petroleum, 7 percent (41,017 megawatts); and pumped storage hydroelectric, 3 percent (18,020 megawatts).