Google the term "energy density". Hydrocarbons beat any non-nuclear alternative in this department, which is a large part of the reason why they're cheaper than the competition. I can put 14 gallons of gasoline (roughly equivalent to 1.8 billion joules or ~512 kilowatt hours) into my automobile in about one minute. I can't fully charge my cell phone battery (with a paltry capacity of ~10,000 joules) in less than an hour....
I think you just answered your own question.
Yes, sellers usually do check the addresses (though this may not be required depending on their CC handler). The reason they do that is because they don't want the bank to go after them later if the purchase was fraudulent. Any merchant that gets a high quantity of fraudulent traffic is most likely going to have to the CC handling privileges revoked, so the chances of getting away with it for long are slim. The notable exception is places like E-Bay that have a fair bit of financial baking to them and enough presence to keep the banks at bay. I know very well (having caught a credit card thief in-the-act) that stolen credit cards are fairly easy to use on E-Bay to order expensive items to shady destinations for extended periods of time.
"No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai