The Peak Oil Crisis: Rethinking America’s Cars

The mini-crises relating to oil production springing up during the last few weeks seem to have settled down for a while. There is a ceasefire in Lebanon . Iraq has patched up its northern export pipeline for the umpteenth time. BP has figured out that they only have to shut down half the production from Prudhoe Bay . There are no hurricanes in sight, and we have another two weeks before having to do something about Iran ’s refusal to shut down its uranium enrichment facilities.

All this tranquility gives us a few days to think ahead about what we are going to need to do when peak oil arrives. The first big problem we will confront when gasoline gets real, real expensive is what are we going to do with those 210+ million oil-powered cars, SUVs, vans, and pickups that are running around our country.

Anyone who studies peak oil for very long soon learns that oil-for-export is going to dry up a lot faster than oil-for-domestic-consumption and those countries that import most or all of their motor fuel are going to have problems very soon. Here in the US , with our 10 million barrels a day (b/d) gasoline habit, we are going to be leading the pack to new ways of motoring.

Our cars will very quickly come to be valued for one characteristic: how far can they go on a gallon of gas. To get through the first decades of peak oil, only those that get very high mileage, or preferably do not use liquid fuels at all, will be affordable or useful for most of us.

Falls Church News-Church