The Real Cost of Petrol

When we fill up our car with petrol, the vehicle manufacturer provides a carbon figure per litre. But this figure (often around 2.3 kg of CO2 per litre) is a deceptive, limited view of the real carbon cost. That petrol has to get to the pump - usually by diesel trucks travelling long journeys. Ships have to bring the oil to the country of use. There are 22,000 ship journeys per day just for moving oil around - that’s a third of the worlds ships! And before it gets onto the ship it has to be refined. This is probably the biggest shocker. Oil refineries use heaps of electricity to refine crude oil into petrol. They use around 6kWh per gallon.

So the next time someone says that there isn’t enough electricity for all these electric cars, point out that if we stopped refining oil. there would be plenty of electricity to power those electric vehicles.