[Vision2020] Gas Hog Wake Up Call?

[Ron Force]

Excerpts from a NT Times articles contrasting energy use in France vs. the
US:

 The United States, land of gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s and air-conditioned
McMansions, might do well to turn to the country some Americans love to hate
for lessons on how to curb its reliance on imported oil: France...

...Spurred by the oil shocks of the 1970's, France embarked on a vast
state-led drive to flush out as much oil from its economy as possible. With
the national slogan at the time, "We don't have oil, but we have ideas," it
accelerated the shift of electricity production from oil-fired power plants
to nuclear reactors, increased taxes on gasoline to the equivalent of $3.75
a gallon, encouraged the sale of diesel-powered cars and gave tax breaks to
energy-hungry industries like aluminum, cement and paper to shift from oil
to other fuels.

It worked. In contrast to the United States, where oil consumption initially
fell but then ended up rising by a total of 16 percent from 1973 to 2003, in
France, despite some increase in recent years, oil use is still 10 percent
lower today than it was three decades ago, according to the United States
Energy Information Administration. (Germany also matched France's record.)

"Americans have completely abandoned their efforts at energy conservation
over the past decade and have been incredibly care-free about oil
consumption because they believed they would get access to cheap energy -
through force if necessary," said Pierre Terzian, an energy specialist who
runs the Paris-based consulting firm PetroStrategies.

The contrast between French resolve and American abandon in recent years is
sharp. The United States, too, took the high road in the 1970's and early
80's, when the combined impact of the 1973 oil embargo, the growing power of
OPEC and the Iranian revolution of 1979 created long gas lines and raised
the prospect of an oil producers' stranglehold over the American economy.

The price of Arabian light crude rose from $1.85 a barrel in 1972 to $40 in
1981, or $80 in today's dollars.

Americans responded with a nationwide speed limit of 55 miles an hour, a
home-insulating boom and a blossoming of energy-technology start-ups to help
businesses cut their energy bills. Vast improvements came in home
appliances: refrigerators, for example, now consume a third of the energy
needed 30 years ago.

But slowly, the nation resumed old habits. By the late 1980's, with the
economy booming and oil prices below $20 a barrel, gas guzzlers were back,
cars raced along highways at 75 m.p.h. with impunity and new vehicles'
average mileage per gallon, which had almost doubled to 27.5 in 1987 from 14
in 1972, slipped back to 24, compared with Europe's 36.

In the 1990's, the United States, which represents roughly 24 percent of
world economic output and an even lower share of industrial production,
nonetheless accounted for a third of the growth in demand for global oil.

A big reason for the policy divide, said Amy Jaffe, the associate director
of Rice University's energy program, is a cultural contrast of two sharply
opposed ways of looking at the world.

"In the United States, we try to control things over which we have no
control, like Russia or Saudi Arabia, instead of looking at what we could do
inside," Mrs. Jaffe said. "We're like drug addicts. We're looking around for
another dealer instead of going to detox."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/business/05conserve.html?pagewanted=1&8dt

**********************************************
Ron Force         Moscow ID USA

rforce at moscow.com
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