Illinois is a leading refiner of petroleum in the American Midwest, with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly 900,000 barrels per day. However, Illinois has very limited crude oil proved reserves that account for less than 1% of U.S. crude oil proved reserves.
Nuclear power arguably began in Illinois with the Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the world’s first nuclear reactor, built on the University of Chicago campus. There are six operating nuclear power plants in Illinois: Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle, and Quad Cities. Illinois ranked first in the nation in 2010 in both nuclear capacity and nuclear generation. Generation from its nuclear power plants accounted for 12 percent of the nation’s total. In 2007, 48% of Illinois’s electricity was generated using nuclear power.
Illinois has seen growing interest in the use of wind power for electrical generation. As a result, more areas of Illinois have become prospective wind farm sites. Illinois ranked ninth among U.S. states in installed wind power capacity, and sixteenth by potential capacity.
llinois is ranked second in corn production among U.S. states, and Illinois corn is used to produce 40% of the ethanol consumed in the United States.
Transportation:
Because of its central location and its proximity to the Rust Belt and Grain Belt, Illinois is a national crossroads for air, auto, rail, and truck traffic.
Airports:
From 1962 until 1998, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD) was the busiest airport in the world, measured both in terms of total flights and passengers.
While it was surpassed by Atlanta’s Hartsfield in 1998, with 59.3 million domestic passengers annually, along with 11.4 million international passengers in 2008, O’Hare consistently remains one of the two or three busiest airports globally, and in some years still ranks number one in total flights. It is a major hub for both United Airlines and American Airlines, and a major airport expansion project is currently underway. Midway Airport (MDW), which had been the busiest airport in the world at one point until it was supplanted by O’Hare as the busiest airport in 1962, is now the secondary airport in the Chicago metropolitan area and still ranks as one of the nation’s busiest airports.
Midway is a major hub for Southwest Airlines and services many other carriers as well. Midway served 17.3 million domestic and international passengers in 2008.
Rail:
Illinois has an extensive passenger and freight rail transportation network. Chicago is a national Amtrak hub and in-state passengers are served by Amtrak’s Illinois Service, featuring the Chicago to Carbondale Illini and Saluki, the Chicago to Quincy Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr, and the Chicago to St. Louis Lincoln Service.
Nearly every North American railway meets at Chicago, making it the largest and most active rail hub in the country. Extensive commuter rail is provided in the city proper and some immediate suburbs by the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘L’ system.