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<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>Excerpts from a NT Times articles
contrasting energy use in France vs. the US:</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004><!--StartFragment --> 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...</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>...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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.)</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>"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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>The price of Arabian light crude rose from
$1.85 a barrel in 1972 to $40 in 1981, or $80 in today's dollars.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>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.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004>"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."</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=265532821-11102004><A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/business/05conserve.html?pagewanted=1&8dt">http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/business/05conserve.html?pagewanted=1&8dt</A></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<P>**********************************************<BR>Ron
Force <SPAN
class=265532821-11102004>M</SPAN>oscow ID <SPAN
class=265532821-11102004>USA</SPAN></P>
<P><A href="mailto:rforce@moscow.com">rforce@<SPAN
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