9 Ways Oil and Gas Help to Fuel Your Thanksgiving Holiday

(The following article is from Aera Energy’s Website)

Ready to gather around the table with family and friends for roast turkey and pumpkin pie?

Thanksgiving is one of America’s most beloved holidays, but very few of the traditions we’ve come to know and love would be possible without the energy industry.

As you celebrate on Thanksgiving, consider some the ways oil and gas help fuel this special day:

1. Flying out of town? The day before Thanksgiving is one of the year’s busiest airline travel days. Last year, a record 30.6 million passengers traveled on U.S. airlines during the 12-day Thanksgiving air travel period. Fortunately, the U.S. has plenty of petroleum-based fuel to power those jets.
2. Hitting the road instead? If so, you’ll be one of 41 million Americans who’ll drive an average of 550 miles on Thanksgiving. The abundance of oil produced in the U.S. ensures there is enough gasoline at the pump to get us where we want to go.
3. Forty-six million turkey-based Thanksgiving meals are consumed every year. That means we use about 644 million kilowatt-hours of energy to cook Thanksgiving dinner – enough energy to power a laptop for about 600 days.
4. Don’t forget what’s needed to cook all those other Thanksgiving staples. Just baking a pumpkin pie requires 2 kWh of energy. That’s enough to power an LED lamp for 12 days.
5. Did you know the U.S. produces over 750 million pounds of cranberries each year? The oil and gas industry plays a big role in getting those red berries from farm to table on Thanksgiving. Fertilizer, irrigation, harvesting and shipping are just a few of the ways the energy industry helps the cranberry industry.
6. Where do you store that turkey? Before you can cook it, that big bird most likely is kept fresh in a freezer or refrigerator. Oil and natural gas keep appliances running at the store and in your home.
7. Thanksgiving is the peak day for home cooking fires, reports the National Fire Protection Association. In 2016, U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated 1,570 home cooking fires on Thanksgiving. Stay safe this year – and remember that hundreds of life-saving products originate with oil and natural gas, including cells phones, safety glasses, helmets, hoses, oxygen masks, tubing, surgical equipment, rubber gloves, syringes, bandages, antiseptics and antibiotics.
8. The Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City attracts some 50 million viewers and 3.5 million attendees. Without oil and natural gas, we wouldn’t have the polyurethane that makes floats and balloons – or the helium to keep them afloat.
9. Whether you’re watching football on television, enjoying the warmth of a gas fireplace or playing a board game, you can thank oil and natural gas for keeping the lights on and producing the plastics that are part of our everyday lives.

Sources: Powering California, Texans for Natural Gas