Posted on 05/01/2005 6:19:00 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
President Bush made it clear last week that he sees no quick fixes to the nation's energy woes. The problem has been long in coming, the argument goes, and so will the solutions. But if history is any guide, there is one thing he could do immediately: bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit.
It has been done before. Along with record oil and gasoline prices, improvements in fuel efficiency and a lasting economic recession, speed limits helped curb fuel consumption for the first time in American postwar history between 1974 and 1984.
Of course, energy eventually became cheap again, the economy expanded and Americans became complacent and unwilling to make more sacrifices.
Instead of opting for small fuel-efficient cars, people switched to large sport utility vehicles and larger pickups. As drivers groaned and states fought for their right to speed, the limit was raised.
While oil consumption in most industrialized nations has either leveled off or declined, in the United States, oil demand has soared 38 percent since the first oil shock of 1973.
The Bush administration's focus over the last four years has been to increase the supply of oil and natural gas, which are also priorities for the energy industry, instead of finding ways to cut back on energy demand, which until very recently has been left out of the picture.
"We are in a boxing match, and the president keeps one hand tied to his back," said Steven Nadel, the executive director for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research group in Washington. "We're punching with supplies and not using demand. We're at a disadvantage."
Other industrialized countries, especially in Europe, have been much more successful than the United States and have managed to actually lower oil demand, or at least keep it in check. That comes from higher diesel use and higher taxes. In France and Germany, a gallon of gasoline sells for as much as $6, with taxes accounting for about 80 percent of that.
Few politicians in America might risk ridicule or rejection by explicitly supporting higher taxes on gasoline, one of the surest ways to limit the nation's dependence on oil.
"Even the least outrageous gasoline tax would have choked off some demand, and the money would have gone to our own government instead of being transferred overseas," said Robert K. Kaufmann, a professor of geography at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Boston University. "Of course, that would have to involve personal sacrifice, which is off the table politically."
There are other ways to curb consumption that may be only slightly less challenging, analysts say. One would be to increase the average mileage per gallon requirement. After Congress passed legislation forcing automakers to act in 1975, average mileage almost doubled to 27.5 miles a gallon in 1987 from 14 in 1972. But it has since slipped back to 24 because of S.U.V.'s, and Congress shows no inclination to toughen the standards.
Another way to sharply reduce demand - and improve mileage - would be to encourage drivers to buy diesel cars, which offer as much as 60 percent more fuel efficiency, said Theodore R. Eck, an energy consultant and former chief economist at the Amoco oil company.
"The neat thing here is that this is off-the-shelf technology," he said. But the trade-off to diesel fuels also includes higher emissions of nitrate oxide, a pollutant that is responsible for smog.
In a recent speech, President Bush suggested that diesel cars might be made eligible for similar income tax credits as hybrid cars, which are quickly turning into best sellers with long waiting lists.
The present predicament behind high oil prices is quite different than the oil shocks of the 1970's and 1980's, which were a result of producers in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cutting oil supplies. Today, the price shock comes from rapidly increasing demand, driven largely by China, but also by the United States and its strong car culture.
After rising 33 percent in the last year, crude oil prices in New York slipped below $50 a barrel on Friday for the first time in 10 weeks. They closed down nearly 4 percent at $49.72 a barrel.
Still, Americans can expect to pay record prices for gasoline this summer. According to the latest national average compiled by the Energy Department, gasoline prices at the pump averaged $2.24 a gallon, up 42 cents from last year; they are expected to touch a record $2.35 a gallon this summer.
Polls show that higher gasoline prices are increasingly hurting Americans, and the president is pressing Congress to revive an energy bill that has been stalled for four years.
Since the last energy shock of the 1980's, the economy as a whole has shifted toward services and away from heavy industry and is now less dependent on oil than it once was. But that has been more than offset by the rise of oil demand for the transportation sector, which accounts for two of every three barrels of crude oil consumed here; gasoline alone amounts to half the nation's oil consumption.
"We've had this situation building up for years, and yet the focus continues to be on the very long term," said Shirley Neff, an adjunct professor at Columbia University and a former economist on the Senate Energy Committee. "We have to focus on demand and be more efficient in our energy use. We need something like an Apollo program for the transportation sector."
But restricting demand might also weaken economic growth, an unpalatable prospect for any government, especially at a time when some are already blaming energy costs for a slowdown in growth.
"It's true that there is a limit to what you could achieve through a traditional energy policy in one or two years," said Fridtjof Unander, an analyst with the International Energy Agency, which advises industrialized nations on ways to reduce their consumption.
The 55 miles-per-hour speed limit came as a result of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. The Nixon administration ordered states to lower their maximum limit to save fuel at a time when the first oil shock threatened to bring the economy to a standstill.
After steadily rising each year, gasoline demand suddenly stopped growing in 1974 and remained nearly flat for the next decade, keeping oil consumption in check.
Roland Hwang, the vehicles policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, estimated the savings of the speed limit in 1983 at 2.5 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel, or 2.2 percent of the total use for these types of fuels.
But as gas lines faded from people's memories and energy prices went down, the federal speed limit was relaxed in 1987, allowing states to set higher caps of 65 miles an hour. Once more, gasoline consumption surged.
Smaller efforts today could make a difference. For example, driving at 10 miles an hour above the 65 miles-per-hour limit increases fuel consumption by 15 percent; inflating tires properly cuts gasoline use by 2 percent; keeping engines idle while in line wastes millions of gallons.
The trouble is that few drivers bother with these suggestions, Mr. Hwang said. "People are basically too lazy to pump their tires up."
Bud a if you want an engineering education - go to school. I don't have the time to explain the concepts of velocity, drag, work, and energy to you. Suffice it to say that moving an object through the air at 75 compared to 55 will require a larger force and an even larger use of energy.
"Eschew Automatic Transmissions"
Not so, I changed my PU from a 3 speed standard trans to a 700R4 automatic and increased my milage from 12 to 15mpg and it weighs 4960# empty with the tools that I carry in 2 cros boxes and 2 side boxes.
Yeah that's what I thought. You know nothing.
Not too many kids sin the 3yr to 10yr range can drive a manual, but plenty can seem to make an automatic go (from reading news reports). That makes them a danger and they should be banned (for the children!).
It seems like the more we progress, the stupider we get.
OMIGOD - Maybe there was one of those devices the oil refiniers and auto manufacturers "know" about and hide that they forgot to take off your vehicle!!! Don't let anyone else know. They and the oil companies kill people to keep this secret. I would be scared - very very scared!
Sorry, but speed (air resistance ~= air density * V^2 * Cd * Frontal Area) does have a lot to do with fuel economy. Since it is proportional to speed squared it becomes the largest factor for most vehicles by 55 mph. You can prove this to yourself by driving the same long distance trip at 50 vs 80 (assuming the same temperature and wind speed) and measuring your FE.
In the liberal mind there is no problem that a massive tax can't solve.
Please the facts may ruin a perfently good argument! His vehicle actually uses less gas and air to go faster!
Paladin2 offers a valid argument. You offer insults.
The people who propose such nonsense obviously don't spend much time driving across place like Nevada, or need to travel I-5 in California.
When I drive to visit my Mom in SW Idaho, I take I-80 across Nevada to Winnemucca before turning north. I put the car in cruise control, where the limit is 75, and watch the miles clip along.
55 mph adds hours to a trip.
I believe that he lives in the Rockies and may find that his FE is better at 80 mph down the mountains than it is at 60 uphill. No broken laws there.
But if history is any guide, there is one thing he could do immediately: bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit.[snip]
For example, driving at 10 miles an hour above the 65 miles-per-hour limit increases fuel consumption by 15 percent;
This is a clever bit of political gambitry by the NYT; if the Bush administration were stupid enough to follow their advice, the backlash of angry US motorists at the ballot box would assure a Democratic victory in the subsequent election.
Now; on to the sophistry of the the final paragraph of the article: they artfully claim a 15% increase in fuel consumption at 75mph compared to 65 (which may, or may not be valid, but that's an issue for another time), in the hopes that the educationally challenged American public will incorrectly assume that DECREASING the speed from 65 to 55mph will produce a 15% DECREASE in consumption. The hidden reality is that at constant highway speeds most of the fuel conspumtion goes into overcoming aerodynamic drag, and aero drag increases with the SQUARE of the velocity! If a 10 mph increase from 65 to 75 produces a 15% increase in consumption, the savings from a similar decrement in speed from 65 to 55 will result in vastly smaller reduction in fuel consumption.
The morons touting this "solution" also fail to comprehend the effect of such a speed limit reduction on economic activity; truck drivers are paid by the hour, not the mile, and to the extent that long-haul trucks reduce their speed, the labor cost component of shipping goes up. Additionally, every additional hour an American worker spends on the road each week is an hour of lost potential economic activity by every one of those workers, with concomitant negative economic consequences.
Lastly, there is a safety issue that no one wants to consider: artificially lowering a speed limit INCREASES the accident rate! Traffic engineers have known for decades that for any road, there is one unique speed limit which produces the minimum accident rate for that road; that speed limit is has been shown to equal what is called the 85th percentile speed -- the speed at which 85% of all vehicles will travel at or below on that road in the absence of any speed limit signage. Anyone who has travelled on US interstates knows that the 85th percentile speed is well above 55 mph, and anyone unfortunate enough to have travelled the nation's interstate sytem under the previous federally mandate 55 mph speed limit will recall just how boring it is (and consequently how inattentive the driver becomes) to travel at that speed, and the margin by which it was ignored by commuters in metro areas (the average was about 75, not yhe mandated 55).
Finally, consider that only about one third of US highway driving miles are driven on highways on which the speed limit is ABOVE 55, IOW, a federally imposed 55 mph speed limit would NOT apply to 2/3's of the miles driven in this country! Whatever energy savings the 55 mph speed limit produced were paltry (in the 2-3% range of total consumption, as I recall), and were more than offset by the unintended adverse economic and safety effects.
In short, the 55 mph speed limit is an idea being floated by authoritarian anal-obsessive assholes who drive trundling, unexciting cars (picture a "Citroen" with a "Save the Whales" bumper sticker) that match their trundling unexciting anal-obsessive personalities, and they won't rest until the can force the rest of America to drive just like they do. And they want the Republicans to get blamed for it!
That 700R4!! What a piece of work...
Got one in my Blazer, make SURE you have the throttle cable adjusted correctly, or you will burn it up.
Hogwash! Small cars in the 70s got 25+ mpg in the city and 40+ on the highways. My '75 Honda Civic, btw, weighed in at 1800 lbs and was only 150 inches long. It sported a 53 HP engine and could barely go 75 mph!
Hated the 55 speed limit - home town was Tucson and went to school in Logan, Utah - 900 miles that wasn't meant to be driven at 55. That said, some of the stuff on this thread is foolishness. The vast majority of cars get better mileage at 55 because the air resistance increases with the square of the speed. And SUVs aren't known for outstanding aerodynamics.
Dropping speed limits guarantees more cars in transit longer... more traffic jams, etc. Here in NC many of our highways are posted at 70. We go 75-80, and we're at our destination sooner and the roads are clear than if we poked along at 55.
I can't drive 55!
I think that I'd be white-knuckled too at the thought of bailing out of a car moving at 100 mph. Or was the parachute a drag chute for stopping the car? :=)
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