Noah Osborn

Period 5
9/30/13

Oil Consumption in Comparison to Population Growth

The relationship between oil usage and the growing population of the world has been a large
concern of researchers for an ongoing time. I knew that since it was such a big topic it wouldnt
be hard to find data on these two topics. I also thought that is would be interesting but
predictable if the two sets of data were put next to each other and compared.
If the world is using 85,000 barrels per day then there must be about 6.65 billion people
on the planet. If there is 56,000 barrels of oil being consumed everyday then the population will
be about 4.275 billion people. If there are 27,000 barrels being consumed everyday then there
has to be at least 3.15 billion people on the planet at that time. The y-intercept is just where oil
was first started to be used in mass amounts. Before that it wasnt as popular. The slope of my
graph is predictable because with more people on the planet, the more oil is consumed by cars
and bigger factories. There is also a bigger need for electricity and to make electricity, oil is
needed and more is consumed as the population grows. There are many different professions that
could use this data. Oil companies can use this to predict how much oil will be used by a certain
population amount and they can have a better idea of when they need to scale up their production
rate. Environmentalist who study the effect that humans have on our environment will be able to
greater understand why the planet is getting worse as more people are born. Stock Brokers could
also look at the steady climb that has been population and buy into oil stocks because those
stocks will only be going up from now.
This information put together on a graph isnt revolutionary but it is interesting to look at
and can even be helpful to some professions if they looked really deep into it. The oil usage is

predictably climbing as the population does because there is a higher demand just like it would
drop off if the human population dropped off. The oil usage will always mimic the human
population because they are so closely related. Unless mankind makes machines that dont
require very much oil at all and the population grows or if mankind all of a sudden starts using a
massive amount of oil then the graph could go vertical just like the graph for population over
time has done. Unless those two major changes occur the graph will stay the same with small
rises and drops.

Works Cited:
Index Mundi 2013 9/26/13 http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx?country=us
Worldometers 9/26/13 9/26/13 http://www.worldometers.info/about.php