There are many options for generating electricity. Lets look at how much more we will need to replace our oil imports. We currently import about 9,584,000 barrels
of oil a day. A barrel is 42 gallons so we import 9,584,000 * 42 = 402,528,000 gallons
of oil a day. When this oil is refined about 51% of it is turned into as gasoline.
So we end up with 0.51 * 402,528,000 = 205,289,280 gallons of gasoline per day from
imported oil. A gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 33.53 KWH (Kilowatt Hours) of
electricity. So our imported gasoline is equal to 205,289,280 * 33.53 = 6,883,349,558
KWH of electricity.
We don't need to produce this much electrical energy to replace our imported oil
though! Electric motors are about 3.75 time as efficient as gasoline engines, so
we can reduce the amount of electrical energy we need to produce by this factor:
6,883,349,558 / 3.75 = 1,835,559,882 KWH per day. How much is this? Is this a lot
or a little? How much electrical energy do we currently produce each day?
Well I don't have the exact numbers but according to the department of energy website
we have about 1,000,000 MW of generating capacity (they give differing numbers for
summer and winter generating capacity's for what I'm sure are valid reasons, this
is towards the high number, but good enough for our rough estimates here). This
1,000,000 MW is a measure of power not energy. That is energy produced per unit
time. So if all these plants ran at full capacity for one hour they would produce
1,000,000 MWH of electrical energy, running them at full capacity for 24hrs would
produce 24,000,000 MWH of electrical energy. The above replacement requirement
of 1,835,559,882 KWH is equal to 1,835,560 MWH (1000 KWH = 1MWH). So we need 1,835,560/24,000,000
= 7.6% of additional electrical generating capacity to replace our imported oil
assuming we are using it to run electrical motors that are 3.75 times as efficient
as gas engines.