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Acknowledgments US Department of Transportation - BTS

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If transportation had been reviewed in the same format, it is likely that the discrepancies would have been larger.Most transportation fuel (gasoline for automobiles) is purchased in small quantities at irregular intervals and cannotbe checked simply by looking at a utility bill. Hence, highway transportation energy consumption surveys must beextensive to avoid the risk <strong>of</strong> large uncertainties in the data. But, with the termination <strong>of</strong> the RTECS, EIA ceasedconducting such surveys. Consumption data must be derived indirectly from sales <strong>of</strong> petroleum products and taxcollection data. While petroleum supply may be accurate to one decimal place, it is likely that disaggregating bysector use may be within plus or minus several percentage points, or perhaps about half a quadrillion British thermalunit (Btu) in table 4-1.Motor GasolineAlmost all gasoline is consumed in the transportation sector. Small amounts are used in the commercial sector fornonhighway use and the industrial sector, which includes agriculture, construction, and other uses. Subtractingestimates <strong>of</strong> those uses from the known total sales yields the transportation sector's total, which is further subdividedinto highway and marine use. Aviation gasoline is, <strong>of</strong> course, used entirely in the transportation sector (for a very fewhigh-performance automobiles as well as small aircraft).Data on actual sales is collected by the states for revenue purposes. These data are forwarded to FHWA. EIA usesthe data from FHWA to allocate highway consumption <strong>of</strong> motor gasoline among the states. For 1999, FHWA reported124.7 billion gallons <strong>of</strong> gasoline sold nationally for highway use. EIA's table 5.12c <strong>of</strong> the Annual Energy Review 2000lists 8.33 mmbd <strong>of</strong> gasoline supplied for the transportation sector, the same as 127.7 billion gallons.Such close agreement between supply and demand is not totally convincing. Definitions are unique to each state(e.g., whether gasohol is counted as pure gasoline or part gasoline and part renewables), measurement points varyfrom state to state, and each state handles losses differently. Hence, the total <strong>of</strong> all states' sales <strong>of</strong> gasoline is notentirely consistent.Separation <strong>of</strong> highway from nonhighway uses <strong>of</strong> gasoline is, by necessity, based in part on careful estimates.Nevertheless, overall gasoline sales are well documented, and the separation is probably fairly accurate. Refineryoutput <strong>of</strong> motor gasoline was 7.93 mmbd in 1999, which is probably accurate to the first decimal place and maybe alittle better. The transportation sector's 8.33 mmbd would have about the same accuracy.Diesel FuelDiesel fuel is used in highway vehicles, railroads, boats, and military vehicles. Sales are only about 30 percent <strong>of</strong>gasoline in the transportation sector, but uncertainties are greater. More diesel than gasoline is used for nonhighwaypurposes, especially agriculture and construction. In addition, there has been more potential for cheating to avoid thetax; heating oil is virtually the same as diesel fuel and can easily be transferred to a vehicle. However, this is lesssignificant now that tracers have been added to fuel oil. After the addition <strong>of</strong> tracers, the amount <strong>of</strong> transportationdiesel fuel use jumped.To estimate diesel fuel sales by mode, EIA starts with the total supply <strong>of</strong> distillate fuel and subtracts the small amountsold to electric utilities (the most accurately known sector, as measured by EIA Form EIA-759). The remainder isdivided among the other end-use sectors according to EIA's sales surveys (Form EIA-821: Annual Fuel Oil andKerosene Sales Report, and Form EIA-863: Petroleum Product Sales Identification Survey).This method introduces several potential elements <strong>of</strong> inaccuracy. First, the surveys <strong>of</strong> each sector are probably lessaccurate than the supply surveys noted earlier. Companies and individuals may inadvertently send incorrect data, ornot respond at all. Then EIA has to determine what adjustment factor to use for each end-use sector. Since eachsector will have a different response rate to the surveys, the adjustments will be different. Large adjustments canintroduce large errors. EIA has not published its adjustments for the transportation sector. As shown in table 2, theadjustments in other sectors range from 5 to 96 percent <strong>of</strong> reported consumption. Even a 20 percent adjustmentcould introduce an error <strong>of</strong> one or two percentage points (plus or minus) for any one sector.Overall, the accuracy <strong>of</strong> diesel fuel use in the transportation sector should be viewed with some skepticism.Jet Fuel

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