What's your Energy IQ? Part Two

This is part two in the series of What’s your Energy IQ?  Finding solutions to the energy crisis is a hot topic, and one that we can not ignore.  The American Petroleum Institute created a survey gauging how much people know about energy.  The results were broken down into how much people know about supply, demand, and how people view the taxes.

In terms of taxes, Americans tend to underestimate the oil industry’s contributions to the economy through jobs and taxes, while they tend to overestimate the oil industry’s profits.

• Only 15 percent of respondents knew that six million Americans are employed directly or indirectly by the oil and natural gas industry.
• Only 9 percent of respondents knew that oil companies pay more than 40 percent in income taxes as a share of their income. The majority thought that it was less than 30 percent, and one-third of all respondents believed companies pay less than 15 percent.
• Similarly, when asked how much the oil and natural gas industry paid in taxes over the past three years, only 10 percent of respondents answered correctly—$242 billion. One quarter of respondents believed that the U.S. oil and natural gas industry contributed less than $100 billion.
• More than 40 percent of respondents believed that the oil and natural gas industry earn more than 20 cents per every dollar of sales. In fact, the industry earns just below 6 cents on every dollar.

Additionally, the survey asked “What percent of global energy demand in 2030 will be met by fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas, and coal?” The responses might surprise you.

http://www.energytomorrow.org/flash/mainPlayerAPI.swf?xmlpath=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eenergytomorrow%2Eorg%2Fxml%2Fstreamxml%2Eashx%3Fid%3D123%26type%3D1%26embed%3Dtrue

In the meantime, take the survey to find out your Energy IQ.
http://energyiq.energytomorrow.org/EnergyIQWidget.swf

Also, check out Bearing Drift’s post about Friedman on Climate Change.