Consumption in the Transportation Sector

The transportation sector consists of private and public vehicles that move people and commodities. Included are automobiles, trucks, buses, motorcycles, railroads, aircraft, ships, barges, and natural gas pipelines. Natural gas use reflects the fuel needed to move natural gas through a pipeline to end users in the residential, commercial, industrial, and electric power sectors. Since 1990, natural gas consumption also includes natural gas consumed as vehicle fuel.

Between 2022 and 2023, transportation sector energy use decreased less than one percent (0.72%) to 199.0 trillion British thermal units (Btu). Natural gas use decreased 8.2 percent, and petroleum use decreased less than one percent (0.90%) from 2022. Renewable energy use increased 8.4 percent. (Renewable energy consisted of ethanol and biodiesel.) If there was any consumption of coal, electricity, or residual fuel in 2023, the amounts were so small that the numbers rounded to zero.

In 2023, looking at Figure 1, nearly all of the transportation sector energy needs were met by petroleum products (92.4 percent)--the major two being gasoline (48 percent) and diesel fuel (41 percent). Renewable products met 4.8 percent of the energy consumed in the transportation sector--ethanol, 3.5 percent, and biodiesel, 1.3 percent. Natural gas met 2.8 percent.

In 2023, motor gasoline (52 percent), diesel fuel (44 percent), and jet fuel (3.5 percent) made up the majority of the petroleum products consumed by the transportation sector. Each of the rest of the petroleum products comprised one percent or less of total petroleum products.