Fossil Fuel Reserves Versus Consumption

Abstract

In Table 2.1 of Chapter 2, data are presented which reveal that the U.S.’s known and recoverable reserves of petroleum are about 22.5 billion barrels (early 1998), representing about 2.2 percent of the known and recoverable reserves of the world. In Chapter 4, recoverable coal reserves in the United States are listed at 434 billion tons, representing about 35 percent of the known and recoverable reserves of the world. For more than three decades petroleum has supplied more than 40 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States, and in 1997 that percentage stood at 40 percent of consumption. (See Figure 1.3.) Coal is 23 percent of consumption. During most of that period petroleum imports as a percentage of demand increased steadily, standing at 52 percent of demand for the year 1996 (Figure 2.1).