WHAT IS PETROLEUM ?

Energy Perspectives is a graphical overview of energy history in the United States. The 67 graphs shown in this section reveal sweeping trends related to the Nation’s acquisition and use of energy from 1949 through 2008. Energy can be grouped into three broad categories. First, and by far the largest, are the fossil fuels---coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Fossil fuels are nature’s batteries; they have stored the sun’s energy over millennia past, and it is primarily that captured energy that we are drawing on today to fuel the activities of the modern economy. Use of the individual fossil fuels changed at different rates over the decades but all three major forms have been essential to meeting the Nation’s energy requirements. In 1949, fossil fuel consumption in the United States totaled 29 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu); in 2008, the total was 83 quadrillion Btu. A second major form of energy is nuclear power, which is a relative newcomer in the energy business. The nuclear electric power industry got its start in this country in 1957 when the Shippingport, Pennsylvania, nuclear electric power plant came on line. By 2008, the industry had expanded to supply 20 percent of the Nation’s electrical output and 9