Not a Bad Idea
Another hurricane is barrelling through the Gulf of Mexico and doing who knows how much additional damage to oil and natural gas infrastructure there that's already been battered terrifically this season. The potential exists for more sharp increases in gasoline prices, which had finally begun creeping back down in the aftermath of Katrina. What is to be done?
The CSM has an editorial today which caps a three-part series there exploring what the future of energy in America could look like (other portions of the series are linked there). The piece makes the point that the president, while taking some steps to combat high oil prices (releasing fuel from the strategic petroleum reserve, etc.) "has shown weak leadership on a more lasting step: Using the White House pulpit to urge Americans to turn down their thermostats this winter, save gasoline by buying high-gas-mileage vehicles and, most of all, to drive smarter."
An energy analyst, John Dowd of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, told a Senate panel looking into high gas prices this week that "if, as a country, we were to obey speed limits for the next two months, we would probably conserve more fuel than will be lost by the refinery outages. Reducing speeds from 70 mph to 60 mph, for example, improves fuel efficiency by 15 percent. If Americans want to know what they can do to limit gasoline price inflation, the answer is simple: slow down."
No legislation required. No draconian "price freezes." Just slowing down by ten miles per hour. Doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. Of course, we still must increase fuel efficiency standards and provide more incentives for hybrid and other vehicles of the future (while making the driving of a ginormous Hummer a socially unacceptable option). But hey, every little bit of pressure lifted off the gas pedal helps.
Will the president use the bully pulpit and make this suggestion? I won't be holding my breath. But a good start would be to recommend this website, a joint Department of Energy/EPA page on driving more efficiently, which notes "gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph. As a rule of thumb, you can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.21 per gallon for gas."
Less pressure on the pedal means less pain at the pump.
posted by JBD @ 7:27 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
It's not surprising that slowing down would result in such savings- it's the Law of Big Numbers. Reducing speeds, higher fuel efficiency standards and alternative fuels (anti-GOP) coupled with more nuclear power and expanded oil exploration such as ANWR (anti-Donk) would have significant impact. It will take leadership, vision and compromise. It won't happen. Especially since the last Prez to try it (Carter + sweater + fireplace) didn't fair too well.
That would be "didn't FARE too well". Sorry, my editor's fault.
I'd like to take a minute to highly recommend hybrid vehicles. I recently purchased a hybrid Toyota Highlander (an SUV) and have been paying far less to keep it running than I am paying for my VW Jetta. It seems to me with gas prices so high and apparently not going down anytime soon, the market forces are in place to make hybrids successful. The key is finding incentives to speed up development and production.
cakreiz - will ANWR really help in the long run? I'm hearing yea and nea on that. Me, I ride a motorcycle, my wife takes the train. And when we use our Xterra, we drive it pretty slow. Still regret buying it instead of a Subaru. Oh well.
ANWR really will help in the short run - but its just a bridge til genuine alternative energy sources and extremely fuel efficient engines becomes mainstream. It will take at least 20 years to make even %10 of the national fleet LEV or better with high fuel efficiency - we need something for more immediate relief in the meantime. The trick is minimizing footprint in ANWR during drilling and extraction.
I just want to chime in briefly on the ANWR front, to say that its usefulness, short-term or long, is minimal. There is not enough oil there by even the most liberal of estimates to provide any kind of serious relief, and it will take at least 15 years to get the infrastructure into position to begin extracting at any kind of serious rate. Additionally, because of shipping logistics, very little if any oil from ANWR would come to the US - it would have to be sold to Japan or China (thereby basically defeating the purpose). Fuel efficiency and hybridization (along with other new research, etc.) are much better options.
jbd: understand your arguments; they make perfect sense if the public sector bears the risk of economic infeasibility. Suppose that it's the private sector that's wlling to shoulder those risks (however misguided you believe they are). Would you still object to ANWR drililng? If so, why?
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