Introduction
Energy History

Usable sources of energy have always been a powerful commodity in human society.  From the earliest days, mankind has recognized the need to use energy to condition the environment.  Wood was needed to heat homes and to cook food.  Beasts of burden were needed to plow fields and to provide transportation.  When either of these commodities became scarce, hardship prevailed, and solutions were sought.  In ancient Rome, for example, the lack of available firewood led to the passing of laws that made it illegal to build a house or structure that would block another person's home from getting sunlight, as this was the primary method of heating homes without fire.

In the 20th century, fossil fuels (oil in particular) reigned supreme as the energy of choice.  The low price of oil and the rapid growth in the number of machines that used oil (cars, trains, boats, etc.) meant that oil became a very valued commodity.  Because of this, it played a very important role in the economy and politics of the entire century.  The main reason that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor was due to the fact that America had cut off the flow of oil from Indonesia to Japan with a blockade.  Hitler tried to march quickly through North Africa and Russia for the main reason that these two areas hold the vast majority of known oil supplies.  The fact that both Japan and Germany have almost no oil reserves and were not able to create supply lines to any country that does was one of the determining factors that led to the Allies winning World War II.

By the late 1960's, America's demand for oil had increased so much that we were no longer able to produce enough to meet all of our needs.  Because of this, we began to import large quantities of oil from other countries.  In retaliation of our support of Israel during the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an organization controlled at that time by Arab countries, placed an embargo on the sale of oil to the U.S.  This embargo caused energy prices to double overnight and led to massive inflation.  Several years later, Islamic Fundamentalist in Iran overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah.  Once again, in retaliation for our support, an embargo was placed on the U.S., which once again caused the price of oil to more than double in price and massive inflation to ensue.  It was not until fighting between OPEC countries broke out in the early to mid 1980's that any type of relief in the price of energy (and in inflation) was felt.  The need for money to buy weapons allowed oil to flow freely and cheaply from the Middle East as countries like Iran and Iraq fought bloody battles.  The situation has changed so much that, today, we enjoy a historical low price for oil, when prices are adjusted for inflation.

Energy in the U.S.

The modern American way of life requires a lot of energy.  In 1999, the energy per capita use was over 330 million BTU's of energy.  Put another way, this means that the average U.S. citizen would have been responsible for using almost 60 barrels of crude oil if all of the energy used in America came from oil.  The only other country in the Western World that was even close to this was Canada, which had almost the same amount of usage.  Most of the Western world used 200 million BTU's of energy or less.  Although we make up only about 5% of the world's population, we account for almost 25% of all of its energy consumption.  In comparison, many Third World countries such as Ethiopia use less than 1 million BTU's per person.

Of the energy used in the U.S., about 38% of it is used for industrial processes (mining, milling, etc.), 36% of it is used to power homes and offices, and 28% of it is used for transportation.  The majority of this energy (82%) is supplied by fossil fuels.  Crude oil accounts for the largest share of this (38%), followed quickly by coal (22%) and natural gas (22%).  The remaining energy comes from nuclear (8%) and renewable sources like solar and wind (7%).

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