Number of the Day: 1,188.5 Billion
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 07.29.08
254.7 billion -- That's the number of miles traveled on all roads and streets in the US. That's a very high number, but it's the biggest drop for the month of May in the past 66 years since the statistics are compiled.
9.6 billion -- US citizens drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007, or 3.7% less. Yet May usually means an increase in traffic because of Memorial Day vacations and the beginning of summer.
1,188.5 billion -- This is the cumulative number of 'vehicle miles traveled' so far in 2008. Compared to the same months last year, that's a drop of 2.4%. That might seem like a small drop, but if you look at the graph on the left, you'll see that the number of miles traveled usually goes up. This year it didn't just stop growing, it actually went down. This shows that fuel costs do have a big impact and that fossil fuel consumption isn't as 'inelastic' as some thought. Source: GCC
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Peak driving anyone?
I think that the domestic vehicle oil consumption is about 45% of the total oil consumption of the US market. If one assumes that mean MPG of all vehicles on the road is 20 and a distribution of efficiency that is somewhat normal (mathematically speaking), I'm afraid doubling the mean efficiency will make little significant difference in the total oil consumption in this country. A 10-15% change if one still avoids using heavy handed federal tactics to force everyone to behave a certain way. Driving a hummer or driving a Prius makes NO significant difference in the overall consumption of oil in this country. If you want to attack drivers, attack those that live in suburbia and commute 30 miles to work every day. I drive a pickup truck that gets about 14 mpg on a good day and live about 8 miles work work and I burn less than half of the gasoline per year than my old college buddy that commutes from an adjacent small town to work. Regardless, one (emotionally) could take the less is better approach, but anyone out there with an education outside of the humanities knows that the problem is one of "order of magnitude" and like it or not regardless of how much oil we burn we will burn it all one day. Furthermore, the environmentalists have created part of the crisis - that is, drilling and refining oil has become such an incredible hassle in this country because of heavy handed restrictions and the cost of regulatory adherence that it simply isn't cost effective to drill for oil and build more refineries. If we want to blame anyone for the crisis right this moment, blame the environmentalist sector. In the long haul, we will run out of oil whether we drive H1 alphas (that get better gas mileage than a dodge pickup truck by the way) or a Prius.