"This may seem like a strange question to ask, considering iPhones obviously are charged with electricity, not gasoline. But the answer speaks to why gasoline and other liquid fuels will remain an important part of the energy mix in the future.
In ExxonMobil’s recently released Outlook for Energy
we predict that by 2040, about 90 percent of the global transportation
fleet will still be powered by liquid petroleum fuels – that is,
gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. When asked why that’s the case, Bill Colton, ExxonMobil’s vice
president for Corporate Strategic Planning, often starts the discussion
using this fact to put it in perspective:
All of the energy concentrated in one gallon of gasoline is enough to charge an iPhone once a day for almost 20 years.
Clearly, there’s a lot of energy in a gallon of gasoline. And energy
density is one of the key factors behind the reliability, affordability,
versatility and convenience of any fuel. These are key elements that
drive consumer choices today and will continue to drive consumer choices
in the future."
~Ken Cohen writing on the Exxon Mobil blog
on Dec. 14, 2011
Despite Obama's dismissal of oil as the "fuel of the past," the scientific and economic realities are that fossil fuels will play an important role in our energy future and will be the "fuels of the future" for many generations to come.
HT: Joe and Mark Lais
: Here's some independent analysis
that supports XOM's claim that one gallon of gasoline can charge an iPhone for at least 20 years, maybe longer.