Energy Systems Group 2: Energy Consumption By Cars in Kuwait

Kuwait

Figure 1. Population Density of Kuwait. [3]

To begin to look at the energy consumption by cars in Kuwait it is necessary to look at how far the average driver drives on average in each day. This number is affected by where the population of Kuwait resides. Looking at the population density map in figure 1, it shows that the vast majority of people live in the area surrounding Kuwait City. While the population of all of Kuwait is nearly 2.8 million, the population of the Kuwait City metropolitan area is nearly 2.4 million. There fore we will consider the traveling by car for Kuwait City to estimate the energy consumption by car. The area of Kuwait City Metro Area is 200 km^2 (77.2 sq mi). With this we will assume that the average distance traveled per day is about 50 km (30 miles).

Kuwait has roughly 1 car for every 2 people so there for about 1.4 million cars [2]. So dividing that by 2 because only every other person has a car we come up with the average travel by day per person by car to be 25km (15 miles). For the distance per unit of fuel we will consider 22 miles per gallon (9.353 km per litre) with the mix of new more efficient cars and older more affordable cars. Lastly to discover the energy per unit fuel for the calculation of energy consumption by car we will an energy per unit mass equal to 8kWh per kg. With a density of .8 kg per liter we achieve 7 kWh per liter. Now simplifying this into the energy per day equation.[1]