AP reports on the benefits of easing back on the throttle out on the highway. David Greene, a senior researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Lab, says that if we all would ease back from 70 mph to 60 mph, we'd see a 2 to 3 percent decrease in demand, as happened in the 1970s when Nixon set the speed limit at 55. Green estimates that drop in demand would lead to a "larger reduction in price, maybe 10 percent" [see Richard Richtmyer, "As Fuel Prices Rise, Some Speedometer Needles Fall," AP via Yahoo News, 2008.05.07].
10 percent out of $3.45/gallon (going rate here in Madville) = 34.5 cents a gallon.
Amount federal gas tax holiday would save you at the pumps = 18.4 cents a gallon.
Another article I blogged on three years ago when Hurricane Katrina swamped some refineries said a similar speed reduction could produce 15% fuel savings.
A northeastern U.S. trucker in the Richtmyer article says he's eased back from 72-73 to 60-65 and is saving $100 a week. Con-Way Freight of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has dialed back the governors on its 8,400 trucks from 65 mph to 62 mph. They expect to save 3.2 million gallons of diesel a year -- $13.3 million (not to mention 72 million pounds of carbon emissions).
Of course, asking folks to slow down means a sacrifice. Calling for sacrifice calls for leadership, and Richtmyer finds that quality in short supply among our politicians. Bills to reduce the speed limit in Alabama and Connecticut are going nowhere. Utah just voted to raise the speed limit on one strip of the Interstate 15 to 80.
So, here's the morning political quiz: If you're a patriotic American looking to do what's good for your country, which action do you take to address high fuel prices?
- Support turning good farmland into a giant industrial complex (the Hyperion refinery in Elk Point)
- Support stripping South Dakotans of land rights to allow a foreign company to run oil pipeline over our aquifers (TransCanada Keystone Pipelines I, II,...)
- Support opening up a national wildlife reserve to oil drilling (Bush's ANWR plan)
- Support cutting the gas tax while our troops fight and die in the Middle East and while Minnesota rebuilds the I-35 bridge
- Give up a few minutes a day and slow down.
Slowing down saves gas, saves money, saves lives. And you can do it yourself.
I also suggest driving less, if possible, by consolidating trips, walking, or riding a bicycle. In the long term, give gas mileage greater priority when considering the choice of a vehicle.
ReplyDeleteActually, I support all except cutting the gas tax. Cutting the gas tax would do nothing except buy votes (I'm with Obama on this one, believe it or not!!) or make us feel good, and we would just pay later anyway.
ReplyDeleteMost of the reason we are in the fix we are now is the decades long policy of "not in my back yard" by politicians. Yes, drill, but not in ANWAR or off our coasts or anywhere else in the US. Yes, we need new sources of oil, but not in ANWAR or off our coasts or anywhere else in the US. What shortsightedness and stupidity! It's OK to drill in the desert half way around the world and send them our precious dollars and basically sell our souls to them, but ignore what the resources we have in our own country?? We need new drilling sites, new refineries (we are woefully short of these which also compounds the problem), and yes pipelines.
Someday we will get off oil and onto some other source of power. But that's a long ways off, and we have to be sensible and cut our dependency on foreign oil cartels etc in the meantime. If we had had the foresight to start this process years ago, just think where we could be now instead of beholden to the unstable Middle East.
I don't want to wreck the earth either, but those who want to save it are going way overboard in the other direction and causing part of the problems we now face.
Yes, I will cut back my speed. We already reduced our 18-mile one way trips to town. I'm not up to biking that far, and last I looekd there aren't any buses out here in the boonies of SD. Guess I could use the four-wheeler.
But that's about all I can do at the present time, except advocate for sensible use of the resources God gave us in our own country.
I did my part today to conserve on fuel. Instead of doing 70/75mph I did 60 on I29 around the Sioux Falls area. :-) Let me say, that there are a lot of people that need to pull their head out and slow down! I nearly got killed! When coming to an off ramp, that person next to you would rather speed up and cut you off 2 inches before the ramp starts rather than to slow down and fall back behind.
ReplyDeleteThe Gas Tax Holiday. Obama doesn't agree with it, and he says there is a better alternative. What is it? Does anyone know?
If you think the drivers in Sioux Falls are aggressive, you ought to try driving in a place like Boston or Hartford.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Connecticut (having grown up in Minnesota), I marveled at how people would tailgate me. That was in the days of "double nickel" (55 mph speed limit). I would go 60, they'd be pasted to my rear ... 65 ... no change. Whiz, zoom, swoosh, through the sharp curves of downtown Hartford, the onto the straightaway! Experiment: 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 mph. Stuck to my posterior like duct tape. Then I felt sorry for them all, type-A pre-heart-attack specimens to the last twitching cerebellum. (I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds good.)
More on the subject of a lower speed limit: A beautiful idea, but it won't work. After a few hours of cruising at 60 mph on I-90 around Kadoka, Murdo, Presho ... I'll wager that 9 out of 10 drivers will be searching for a convoy, or at least some lone scofflaw they can hide behind.
In Hartford, the speed limit was posted at 55 so I wondered why people routinely went 70 to 75. Then I found out: The state posted the speed limit, but did not enforce it. When you try to ram stuff down people's throats against their will, they gag. Even local and state governments turn rogue when higher powers impose onerous mandates upon their subjects.
Alternative to cutting the gas tax? How about cracking down on the speculation, the cartels, and the immoral profits being made at the expense of the American people? We, the voters, are pretty cotton pickin' mad, a reality that is not lost on Barack Obama. That man, disarming smile and all, knows how to play the rage card.