Question

A barrel of oil produces about six million btu's. A ten-minute shower uses six thousand btu's. One barrel of oil will provide the energy needed for how many showers? Now assume each American takes one shower a day. Divide the above answer into the number of Americans to get the number of barrels used each day in the United States for showers.

Answer 1

One barrel of oil can provide the energy for 1,000 showers. With the U.S. population at about 330 million, it would take 330,000 barrels of oil per day to provide energy for a daily shower for every American.

Step-by-step explanation:

To determine how many showers a single barrel of oil can provide, we divide the energy a barrel can produce by the energy used for one shower. One barrel of oil produces 6 million BTUs, and a ten-minute shower uses 6,000 BTUs.

Number of showers per barrel = 6,000,000 BTUs per barrel / 6,000 BTUs per shower = 1,000 showers per barrel.

Considering the population of the United States is about 330 million people, if everyone takes one shower per day, then:

Total barrels used each day in the United States for showers = 330 million showers / 1,000 showers per barrel = 330,000 barrels per day.