How much oil/energy does it take for your cigarettes?

[serryjw]

Just received this from a friend. We all know we are killing ourselves smoking BUT I was thinking how much would we save in energy if we all stopped?
quote.....
A crude menu
A lot of fossil-fuel energy goes into the production of food:

-- Bowl of oatmeal porridge: 4 ounces of crude oil.

-- Serving of red raspberries: 1 ounce of crude oil.

-- Butter, milk and salt: 1 ounce of crude oil.

-- That cup of java: 2 ounces of crude oil.

-- Energy required to produce 1 pound of coffee: a quart of crude oil, 30 cubic feet of natural gas, or about 2 1/2 pounds of coal.

-- Energy required to produce one week's worth of breakfast for one person: More than 2 quarts of crude oil.

end quote......
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/26/ING3PHRU681.DTL

[JuniperLea]

1. Beef is the worst

And then there's all that methane...

[benburch]

2. I believe these are vastly overestimates!

4 oz of oil for about an ounce (dried weight) of oatmeal? I call BULLSHIT.

[FloridaPat]

3. Might involve the gas used to ship the product. Gas for electricity

to make packages and make product. Plus fertilizer. Then there's electricity in the store and warehouse. It adds up.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Fuel for tractors, energy intensively processed

Transported, kept in heated warehouses... it adds up.

[benburch]

13. But these are still at least an order of magnitude too high.

I wonder at their methodology. I think they pulled these numbers out of a dark place...

[Canuckistanian]

15. Well, then, there should be a real, transparent study

There is a finite cost, though, you can't deny that.

[benburch]

19. Of course I cannot.

There is always a cost.

But it serves no interest to lie like this.

One bbl of oil contains 7040 fluid ounces of oil.

The USA consumes 20,000,000 bbl of oil per day which is 140,800,140,733 fluid ounces.

Which would be 35,200,035,183 servings of oatmeal if four oz per serving is correct and we made nothing but oatmeal.

Assuming a 2000 calorie diet, and 120 calories per serving of oatmeal, an adult needs about 16.6 servings of oatmeal per day if nothing else is consumed.

Which means we could feed 2,120,484,047 people, about seven times our population, or about double the population of China.

And that would include no oil for any other use than oatmeal. No heating. No electric lights. No manufacturing. No going to work in the car.

I just don't buy it as this is too close to the limits of actual caloric consumption. 7X is not quite an order of magnitude.

I might believe that it took ONE ounce of oil to make a serving of oatmeal, but I would be more inclined to think a tenth of an ounce is correct.

[Canuckistanian]

22. Point taken.

Still, we've got to think about this as it relates to us, as a privileged society.

[benburch]

23. Oh, without a doubt we consume a lot more oil per person than most.

But those chickens will come home to roost soon, as we will be unable to keep paying for oil and will have a major energy crisis and famine before any other part of the world does.

Then we will WISH we could eat 16 servings of oatmeal and nothing else each day.

[Lilyhoney]

4. What about hate? How much energy does it take to hate? nt

[GeorgeGist]

5. This is made up nonsense....

do they have editors? JFC

[Canuckistanian]

11. How do you figure that?

Almost any product you buy at a store needed energy to be produced. The collection of raw materials, transport, processing, re-transporting, storing in heated warehouses.

Your own gas to go out and buy it and bring it home....

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

6. Sorry, But Why Do I Fail To See What The Hell This Has To Do With Smoking?

Seriously, wtf does this have to do with cigarettes? Do you eat your friggin cigarettes for breakfast or something?

[DanCa]

16. Dontcha miss the days when...

people didn't care what other people did such as smoking and eating? This nation needs a national bong hit now. :D

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

17. Hell. Fucking. Yeah.

:smoke:

[megatherium]

7. If you want to figure out how much oil is needed for cigarettes,

be sure to consider how much less oil smokers use in their lives -- given that smoking takes 14 years off of the life of the average smoker.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/research_data/economics/mm5425_highlights.htm

:)

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. But all the ambulances and oxygen bottles n'shit... it adds up. n/t

[MazeRat7]

10. Yes... it takes energy to produce anything... but this analysis is lame

Point in case... many of the products listed are "transformed" via natural gas. While ol' Chad seems to realize that Calories and BTU are related (snark)... he fails to recognize that much of the energy used to create those products also comes from electricity (coal, hydro, nuclear) and natural gas... none of which are huge consumers of crude oil.

What this has to do with smoking is beyond me.. other than it takes energy to produce cigarettes too.. like it does to produce anything.

MZr7

[SheilaT]

12. Excuse me, but I'm as virulent an anti-smoker

as a person can be, and I'd never couch my arguments against smoking this way. In fact, I don't think equating everything to ounces of crude oil makes any sense at all.

[karlrschneider]

14. You're right, it doesn't make sense and it's crap.

...

[RB TexLa]

18. edited to say .........

"care to run that by me again?"

[Bluebear]

20. So if one quits you don't eat raspberries , butter, milk or salt?

I don't get this one.

[pitohui]

21. we've got to eat friend

sorry i refuse to feel guilty for eating a frickin bowl of oatmeal

[troubleinwinter]

24. How much oil/energy does it take to shave my legs?

[QC]

25. How much energy is required to spam poorly sourced malarkey

all over the internets?

[American Tragedy]

26. Energy conservation seems like a mighty obscure motivation

to quit smoking. Is the medical evidence really not compelling enough?