22 Million Barrels a Day

A few nights ago Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News answered a question about whether the oil disaster would increase the price of oil.  He answered that it wouldn’t as the spill was such a small amount of oil relative to actual usage.  He said all the oil that has spilled so far is just what this country uses in ONE HOUR!  I was shocked at that stat and checked it out myself and it turns out to be a pretty good estimate.  Wow!

We use 22 million barrels a day.

That gives me an entirely different metric to understand just how much oil we use every day.