America to start using less gasoline for good

[Dave]

>>It's about time we stopped importing oil.
>>It's about time we realize that gasoline prices are manipulated just to screw the consumer.
>>

America to start using less gasoline for good
Fuel efficiency and demographic trends mean use likely peaked in 2006
There will be millions more cars on the road in the future, but they'll be more fuel efficient and Americans will drive them less.
By JONATHAN FAHEY
The Associated Press, updated 15 minutes ago 2010-12-20T21:25:31
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40755238...s_and_economy/

NEW YORK — The world's biggest gas-guzzling nation has limits after all.

After seven decades of mostly uninterrupted growth, U.S. gasoline demand is at the start of a long-term decline. By 2030, Americans will burn at least 20 percent less gasoline than today, experts say, even as millions of more cars clog the roads.

The country's thirst for gasoline is shrinking as cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient, the government mandates the use of more ethanol and people drive less.

"A combination of demographic change and policy change means the heady days of gasoline growing in the U.S. are over," says Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry.

This isn't the first time in U.S. history that gasoline demand has fallen, at least temporarily. Drivers typically cut back during recessions, then hit the road again when the economy picks up. Indeed, the Great Recession was the chief reason demand fell sharply in 2008.

But this time looks different. Government and industry officials — including the CEO of Exxon Mobil — say U.S. gasoline demand has peaked for good. It has declined four years in a row and will not reach the 2006 level again, even when the economy fully recovers.

In fact, the ground was shifting before the recession. The 2001 terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and pump prices rising to a nationwide average of $3 a gallon for the first time in a generation reignited public debates about the political and economic effects of oil imports and climate change. Also, the popularity of SUVs began to wane, and the government started requiring refiners to blend corn-based ethanol into every gallon of gasoline.

Americans are burning an average of 8.2 million barrels — 344 million gallons — of gasoline per day in 2010, a figure that excludes the ethanol blended into gasoline. That's 8 percent less than at the 2006 peak, according to government data.

The decline is expected to accelerate for several reasons.

* Starting with the 2012 model year, cars will have to hit a higher fuel economy target for the first time since 1990. Each carmaker's fleet must average 30.1 mpg, up from 27.5. By the 2016 model year, that number must rise to 35.5 mpg. And, starting next year, SUVs and minivans, once classified as trucks, will count toward passenger vehicle targets.
* The auto industry is introducing cars that run partially or entirely on electricity, and the federal government is providing billions of dollars in subsidies to increase production and spur sales.
* By 2022, the country's fuel mix must include 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels, up from 14 billion gallons in 2011. Put another way, biofuels will account for roughly one of every four gallons sold at the pump.
* Gasoline prices are forecast to stay high as developing economies in Asia and the Middle East use more oil.

There are demographic factors at work, too. Baby boomers will drive less as they age. The surge of women entering the work force and commuting in recent decades has leveled off. And the era of Americans commuting ever farther distances appears to be over. One measure of this, vehicle miles traveled per licensed driver, began to flatten in the middle of the last decade after years of sharp growth.

"People wildly underestimate the effect that all this is going to have" on gasoline demand," says Paul Sankey, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. Sankey predicts by 2030 America will use just 5.4 million barrels a day, the same as in 1969. Aaron Brady, an analyst at CERA, predicts a more modest drop, to 6.6 million barrels a day.

As a result, families will spend less on fuel, the country's dependence on foreign oil will wane and heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide will grow more slowly.

The shift from SUVs began in 2004 and has saved Americans $15 billion on gasoline this year, according to the National Resources Defense Council. By 2020, improved fuel economy is expected to lower annual carbon dioxide emissions by 400 billion pounds, the equivalent of taking 32 million cars off the road.

In reality, there will be 27 million more cars on the road — a total of 254 million — a decade from now, according to government projections.

Environmentalists are looking at the trend with a mixture of disbelief and delight. A decade ago they thought demand would continue to grow 1-2 percent a year far into the future.

"Now you look and, wow, we've actually bent the curve," says Roland Hwang, transportation director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

There are scenarios that, while unlikely, could temporarily upend the long-term trend. If the U.S. economy booms and global oil prices fall, demand for gasoline could rise.

"Sometimes what we think is a structural shift is really just a temporary phase," says Antoine Halff, an analyst at the brokerage firm Newedge. "U.S. demand has rebounded with a vengeance before."

To be sure, America will continue to burn more gasoline than any other country, in total and per capita, for decades to come. China is second in total consumption, but, despite its explosive growth, still uses just half of what the U.S. uses. Canada is second in consumption per capita but is on its own path toward a more fuel-efficient economy.
Story: Winter won't cool gasoline prices as usual

While America's diminishing demand will temper global demand, it will be more than offset by rapidly growing demand in China, India, the Middle East and Africa. As a result, declining U.S. gasoline demand will not bring lower pump prices.

Worldwide oil demand will hit a record 88.3 million barrels per day next year, according to the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Put simply, "we're entering a period where the U.S. motorist is no longer the king of the road," Yergin says.

[sduyck_2000]

My Nissan leaf is to arrive in 6 months

I decommissioned my oil furnace ...i will now use biomass to heat my home ...whatever is cheapest...and off peak wind turbine generated electricity

I will do my part to no longer use gasoline

my old cavalier was getting 30 miles to the gallon since it was made in 1986

it has 140,000 miles on it..60,000 when i purchased it used in 1990

thats 4000 miles a year driving for me..i drive a lot less now

live in oregon ...gas down the road is 3.30 $ a gallon

[seriously curious]

As gas prices slowly head for the skies again this winter and thru out the summer by default we will use less gas. Yes I agree with Dave's assessment that price fixing is in. The economy shows a modicum of growth and what's the first thing to start going up GAS! What will the effect of higher gas prices have on our economy it will slow it down considerably all because we can't regulate the futures market regardless of what Bob may think this is a place where the direct outcome of the price per barrel of oil affects the economy and the futures market in crude needs to be regulated somehow. If gas prices come close to $4.00 per gallon it will drive us back into a recession.

Personally I don't think the goverment has pushed hard enough for higher EPA Mandated MPG I don't think it should be an average of the manufacturers line but an individual car by car mandate I still see no reason why todays cars still have trouble getting more than 25MPG when a 1959 Led sled Cadillac with a four barrel carb got 25 mpg's not much improvment since then.

Im on a rant again time to back off and play nice, nice with all the EA Boys and Girls New dose of Chemo and I'm feeling like I want to piss someone off really bad or at least getinto a good fight so don't take it personally i'll calm down tommorow

[Losethem]

Personally I don't think the goverment has pushed hard enough for higher EPA Mandated MPG I don't think it should be an average of the manufacturers line but an individual car by car mandate I still see no reason why todays cars still have trouble getting more than 25MPG when a 1959 Led sled Cadillac with a four barrel carb got 25 mpg's not much improvment since then.

I'm not sure where you're getting this information, but I would have trouble believing a 1959 Cadillac achieved half that 25 MPG you claim.

The first generation Ford Mustangs (mid-1960's) were being purchased like crazy as used vehicles during the early 1970's oil crunches because they were light and economical compared to many other vehicles on the road, and even those had trouble getting over 20 MPG with fine tuning.

--LT

[Dave]

...
I agree with Dave's assessment that price fixing is in. The economy shows a modicum of growth and what's the first thing to start going up GAS! ...

Demand in the USA isn't the only reason gasoline prices keep going up. The worldwide demand is increasing and there is only so much gasoline. It isn't just some bad guys are fining prices. That's way to simple and mostly illogical and foolish.

The republican argument was that higher mileage standards would hurt the automotive industry and we saw just how stupid that idea worked out. Chrysler and GM required government intervention to stay in business. Ford just barely escaped.

So did keeping lower mileage standards help? No. All that crybaby horseshit did was guarantee that USA built cars were uneconomical overseas. And that the USA would keep sending billions and billions of dollars to OPEC.

And yet, the same people who championed lower mileage standards cried and screamed "government intervention" and "Let them fall" and voted against the GM and Chrysler bailout.

Kind of makes you wonder if they want the USA to have an industrial sector or if they deliberately tried to destroy it. What do we elect senators and representatives to do? Raise mileage standards and push our manufacturers into new markets and new technologies or to protect the wasteful use of landboats, hummers, pickup trucks and cars that get 10-15 miles per gallon in the city and 20 on the highway or do we make electric cars and hybrids that get 50 to 100 miles per gallon of gasoline.

Why did senators and representatives align themselves with the cars of the past and not the cars of the future when the Law of Supply and Demand (the most basic of economic principles) says that gasoline prices will rise with demand because China and India are developing and demand energy in the form of gasoline.

I have almost no hope that the USA will ever lead the world in hybrid technology or automotive technology ever again. The beat-back of all things forward looking that started with Ronald Reagan and continues as a war on science and modernity has take a toll on the USA. We are now "Oliver" begging another bowl of gruel from the world.

The USA just started building factories for car batteries. We are five years behind and will never catch up with the rest of the world.

We are ten years behind in high speed trains and getting farther behind because these trains are "too expensive" for the poor USA.
YEAH, RIGHT Sure...

I'm a technical person. I was the little nerd with the erector set growing up. The books I had laying around to read were cheap Sci Fi and a set of Grolier Encyclopedias and new magazines. Today, I see people running from math and science as too hard. Everyone else but them can understand that stuff. What is that doing to the USA? It turning out a generation or two of sheep that will let the rest of the world make the scientific discoveries. And like Oliver, the USA will not only pay through the nose for the technology but other countries will insists on the USA being on its knees in supplication.

This, I believe, is the bright, shining city on the hill of Reagan - it's a foreign manufacturer and technology that bypassed the USA as the USA turned its sights on the 50's and went nostalgic for the social mores of the past.

Now do you see the depths of my bitterness?
Now do you understand why I look forward and not back to the past?

There were three huge economic and social advances in the USA in the 1900's:
-- FDR creating the wartime economy and industry that created more weapons and better weapons than anyone else. In the end, it was the machines of war that the USA provided that finally defeated Hitler and it was US Technology that defeated Japan. We rebuilt both of those countries in our image and gave them freedom.
-- JFK who challenged the USA to reach the moon. Everything electronic that we worship today came out of the space race. Computers, medical monitoring, industrial controllers, IPODS, all of that miniaturization and electronic marvels were developed first for the space race and then for information and social uses.
-- Bill Clinton who enabled the information revolution and the expansion of computer networks. In the last decade of the 1900's, the world begged for an IBM computer. The world begged for our programmers and software. But that wasn't to last.

The world has passed us by. Why because the USA tried to fight two wars and lower taxes all at once. The Spending and belligerent militarism of the first decade of the 2000's has ended in a worldwide recession and made the USA the war mongering fool of the civilized nations.

Didn't you hear the drumbeat of failure:
-- There is no global warming. We need to do nothing.
-- We can't do medical research to cure disease.
-- We don't need to go into into space.
-- We don't need to modernize industries, we can stay ahead just by paying workers less to maintain profits.
-- there is no energy shortage.
-- we don't need clean water and clean air because it costs too much

What utter fools the USA has for politicians.

[sduyck_2000]

i totally agree ...our politicians are fools..i received a email from my senator apologizing for not voting the tax cut bill the way i wanted.

I think its time we tax oil big time and reduce the usage and cut the money off from these speculators

[A-1]

Dave, do not feel too badly, please.

At least YOU were not the little nerd with the ERECTION and nowhere to stick it!

[Slammr]

I'm not sure where you're getting this information, but I would have trouble believing a 1959 Cadillac achieved half that 25 MPG you claim.

The first generation Ford Mustangs (mid-1960's) were being purchased like crazy as used vehicles during the early 1970's oil crunches because they were light and economical compared to many other vehicles on the road, and even those had trouble getting over 20 MPG with fine tuning.

--LT

I"m not sure either. My dad had one, and it certainly didn't get 25 mpg.

Stats obtained online:
Fuel Mileage: 10 - 16 mpg / Eldorado: 8 - 14 mpg

[A-1]

How about $5 BUCKS a gallon in 2012?

CLICK HERE...

Honestly, this is getting OLD. Maybe he thinks that the Tea Party will support this?

DENVER -- Brace yourself for higher gas prices.

The former president of Shell Oil announced Tuesday that gas prices are expected to rise to above five dollars a gallon by the year 2012. The reason is that the price of oil is expected to double by that time.

Oil industry analysts say prices have been rising nationwide for weeks and are already at more than $3 per gallon in many cities.

AAA reports that right now, the average gallon of gas in the metro area is at $2.75. Last week it was $2.69, and a year ago a gallon was $2.37.

The oil price information agency estimates that drivers will spend $305 dollars on gas this month. Prices are up nearly 14% from last year.

[Paolo]

When I was looking for another vehicle, I had to take several things into consideration, and fuel economy was at the BOTTOM of the list. Where I live, they do not plow roads. They do not pave roads. They do not repair bridges that are damaged.

Thus, what I needed was something that could ford (pardon the pun) about 2 feet of water, dig through snow, drifts and all, go through mud, and be able to tear a "bee in a beercan ride" in half if the fool pulled out in front of me, all the while allowing me to drive away with minimal if not cosmetic damage.

Even though I knew the answer before I asked, I looked at a Ford Escape and inquired about the hybrid. I could order one for $39,999. Plus tax. Plus excise. Plus destination. $10k of that was battery, with a 0-warranty. If the battery failed on day 2 of ownership, I was S.O.L.

But now we're hyping up the Chevy Volt, which costs something around $41K and can do NONE of the above?

Explain to me how the average working person making less than $10/hour - and be advised, there are a LOT of them out there - can afford one of these? Is our illustrious president going to give everyone making less than $250k/year one for free, or at a reduced rate? What WAS the point of bailing out the auto industry if they cannot produce a car that “Average Joe” can afford? And one that isn’t butt-ugly at that?

Don't even get me stared on the ridiculous insurance for these things.

Therefore, I bought a Ford Explorer for $13.1k, 2 years old, with 15k miles on it. It was even an E-85 setup, although E-85 is another sick joke played on the working class by slick politicians. It cuts mileage by up to 30% on some models, yet it does NOT sell for 30% less than gas.

I would love to use less gas. I really would. I get tired of spending ~$3/gallon for gas, and about the only places I go are to work and back.

Then again, I am lucky to get 20 mpg on the highway with gas, about 14 with E-85, which costs just as much as gas, even though it’s only 15% gas. For the record, using gas, with 4wd on, in the winter, in town, I get about 6 mpg. Again, don’t get me started on the repair bills for E-85 vehicles that claim to be (and are NOT) engineered to run on it. Problems are beginning to crop up with our alcohol-infused gas now, as I have found from spending some serious quality time and money with the local mechanic here.

As I said, E-85 is a sick joke. We were promised salvation with it, as I recall, and in the end, it turned out to be an overpriced bust. This leads us to the issue of price-fixing, of which E-85 is a clear example thereof. In fact, it’s a clear example of price-gouging and political profiteering by its supporters.

Still, I do not agree with the idea that there is no price-fixing going on. There obviously is. When gas can go from $2.89 to $3.19 in one week – and it’s the same gas in storage that was there at the beginning – this is price fixing. If you refine diesel fuel enough, you end up with gas. Yet diesel sells for more than gas. This is price-gouging, and yet our government does nothing about it.

Why?

Money.

Too many of “them” are making money off of it.

Those who don’t live in the real world would readily say, “Move closer to where you work then.” This doesn’t work in real life, because real estate prices, rent, property taxes, utilities, etc., are often so high in these “premium” areas that you might as well try to break even and spend your money on gas to commute. Our recent neighbors could not afford to live in Indianapolis, near the job. That’s why they moved ~60 miles away from there, to here, and drive. Even at the $4.18 peak in gas prices here during King’s Bush II’s reign, they still saved money.

I believe that what many people outside of this country fail to understand is that the United States is big. An Internet friend of ours, some years ago, was visiting New York from Ireland. He called and asked if we could come up to meet. “It’s only from Indiana to New York?” He asked. Then we explained the scale to him on the map.

In the end, it does not matter what our vehicles (private cars or otherwise) run on. We will be gouged and cheated on it for the sake of lining the pockets of our elected leaders and their corporate friends.

And here we sit, wondering why this country is in the shape it’s in now.

Me, I’m starting my hoarding early. I’m getting a new gun shortly, ammo, and plenty of canned goods. If nothing else, there’s plenty of cats around here to hunt.

[Paolo]

$5/gallon they predict?
Let 'em.

Welcome to the New Depression, because this WILL destroy this country as we know it.

Better find me someone who knows how to grill wild cat...

[Dave]

The USA did this to itself.
For years now repsonsible people have been saying the world demand for oil is rising and that means rising prices.

You Don't have to use less gasoline or less energy in your house or less anything but you do have to pay more for gasoline since the OPEC raises prices to fuck your eyeballs out of your dead skulls.

You don't have to buy a higher mileage car or truck or a hybrid or drive less by carpooling but you do have to pay more for gasoline, regardless since the OPEC runs the prices up your ass so big they drive semi-tractortrailers through it.

[seriously curious]

Sorry to bust your bubbles but it's not the government that is working against us not that they arent they are just not as bad as you might think no it's WALL STREET SPECULATORS who drive up the price of oil if some Shiek farts in Dubai they'll drive the price of crude up it was the WALL STREET SPECULATORS that drove gas prices up under GWB Opec said it was happy selling it's crude at 27 dollars a barrel imagine how happy they are now.

The price of gas should not be allowed to jump as it has at the pumps until the gas that was on stock was sold then the new shipment is priced at the new price gas stations see a short term profit increase every time the price goes up. Ah but such is corporate greed the thing to watch is how much profit the oil companies claim this year remember under GWB Exon- Mobile had profit running close to 50 Billion dollars a quarter and that was when gas was at it's highest watch and see if it doesn't happen again now that's a market that need regulating I have no problem with companies making a profit but then theres a profit and then there's a raping to get that profit and we are getting raped with or without vasoleen it still fucking hurts

[gareth19]

We've reached peak oil production; we are going to be dependent on ever-shrinking foreign resources and increasing competitive markets as the Chinese and Indians seek to emulate our industrial production of the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Only poor, dim Sarah Palin believes "there's lots of oil in Alaska." The rest of us know that the bottom of the barrel is now in sight. The Chinese are relying on their ability to revert to Victorian coal burning with all of its toxic consequences, but coal mining is a dirty, dangerous business and American coal reserves are also dwindling. Places like California can get by on less energy if houses are retrofitted with proper insulation devices like double paned windows, which should relieve some of the pressures on existing supplies, but places like New Jersey are going to require winter heating so the less the southwest uses the more is available (at lower costs) for colder places.

The only prudent policy is to consume less and make it go farther. That means investing in public transportation, lowering the speed-limit to 55, and alternative fuels.

[sduyck_2000]

houses dont need to be retrofitted

i live in a uninsulated 50 year old house

it costs me 200$ a winter to heat this old barn with a pellet stove

anyone who uses oil for heat is crazy

i own a truck to use in those situations when my car wont cut it...i never drive it unless needed

it never leaves the farm or gets insured unless i need to drive somewhere with it