Imagine a river of oil

The problem we are facing with Peak Oil is our utter dependence on billions of gallons of cheap oil every day. It's in everything we manufacture, including food. It pumps our water, powers our cars and 18 wheeler trucks that transport everything from more oil to fruits and veggies. When the flow is disrupted we will feel it.

Found this nice visual from HarryHammer via Treehugger.com:

According to David O’Reilly the CEO of CHEVRON, the world currently consumes oil at a rate of about 40,000 US gallons per second. He says, “the scale of the energy system is enormous.”

So, Hammer did some math:

1 barrel of oil = 42 US gallons

1 cubic meter = 264.172052 US gallons

According to the 2008 World Fact-book, the world currently consumes about 85,270,000 barrels of oil per day.

85,270,000 barrels per day x 42 US gallons per barrel = 3,581,340,000 US gallons per day = 149,222,500 US gallons per hour = 2,487,042 US gallons per minute = 41,451 US gallons per second.