<Flesh on the bones of Mexican oil productionThe Oil DrumDrumBeat: February 8, 2007>

54 comments on Megan Quinn of Community Solution: What Can We Learn from Cuba's Response to a Lack of Resources?

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abelardlindsay on February 8, 2007 - 4:00am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Interestingly enough if we measure a country's oil efficiency by how much GDP per capita we get for each barrel of oil consumed per capita, The U.S is FAR more efficient than Cuba.

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cb.html
Cuba:
GDP - per capita (PPP): $2,600 (2006 est.)
Per capita Oil Consumption Per Year: 6.633 Barrels
$ of GDP - per capita produced by 1 barrel of oil per capita per year: $392.15

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html
U.S:
GDP - per capita (PPP): $43,500 (2006 est.)
Oil - consumption: 20.73 million bbl/day (2004 est.)
Population: 298,444,215 (July 2006 est.)
Oil Consumption per Capita Per Year: 25.39 Barrels
$ of GDP - per capita produced by 1 barrel of oil per capita per year: $1713.27

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BrianT on February 8, 2007 - 8:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Abe: Yep. India is 2.6 X as oil efficient as the USA, while China is 2.46 X as efficient.

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Zoe di Magnifico on February 8, 2007 - 8:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yeah, but this fails to take into account the fact that the US doesn't really produce much any more. Everything's imported. If we took the fuel that's used to make and ship in all of the imports and compared it to Cuba, which is still under a trade embargo, US oil consumption to GDP efficiency would probably be really low.

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Coilin on February 8, 2007 - 9:31am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

But we shouldn't be using GDP in our measurements at all. GDP is a measure of turnover, not output. Also it only measures monetary transactions.

So if you grow all your own food and eat well, for instance, this adds nothing to GDP. On the other hand, if you buy all your food, this adds to GDP, even though you might not be able to buy enough to eat well. If the food you are buying is non-organic, produced with agrochemicals, tractors and other machinery, and is transported around the world and packaged, then this adds even more to GDP.

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