Energy body wants brakes on fuel consumption (i.e. rationing)

Energy body wants brakes on fuel consumption
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France
Thursday 24 March 2005

The International Energy Agency is to propose drastic cutbacks in car use to halt continuing oil-supply problems. Those cutbacks include anything from car-pooling to outright police-enforced driving bans for citizens.

Fuel "emergency supply disruptions and price shocks" - in other words, shortages - could be met by governments. Not only can governments save fuel by implementing some of the measures suggested, but in doing so they can also shortcut market economics.

An advance briefing of the report, titled Saving Oil in a Hurry: Measures for Rapid Demand Restraint in Transport, states this succinctly.

"Why should governments intervene to cut oil demand during a supply disruption or price surge? One obvious reason is to conserve fuel that might be in short supply.

"But perhaps more importantly, a rapid demand response (especially if coordinated across IEA countries) can send a strong market signal."

Snip ......

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/655B03B0-32C2-4BF7-A3E8-F7EFD8144333.htm

Link To IEA Workshop, March 7-8, 2005

International Energy Agency
European Conference of Ministers of Transport
WORKSHOP: MANAGING OIL DEMAND IN TRANSPORT

http://www.iea.org/textbase/work/2005/oil_demand/FinalAgenPresentations.htm

cause this is huge!

what we deserve. There was a lot of talk about conserving gas. People bought small cars. Price of gas where I lived when over a dollar! People were screaming. Gas lines were long. People who could insulated their homes. Thermostats were turned down in winter and up in summer. How quickly we forget. Now we consume 60% of the world's oil for our SUV's. Bush wants to get rid of Amtrak now. Airlines are folding like crazy. At least US airlines. We are such an amazingly stupid country. Led my a bunch of corporate loving incompetents.

And the US car industry - what's left of it - is going to get hit again. You'd think they would have learned something back then when gas prices forced them to make smaller cars because imports sold more than home made cars.

as the price continues to go up.

eom

My family has enough income that gas prices could double, and it wouldn't hurt very much. But when you take into account that it would also increase the cost of everything else, it hurts more. If you make the reasonable assumption that this would cause a recession, maybe it makes one of us lose our job. Now, it's suddenly a big problem. If both of us lose our job, we are now in danger of living out of our car.

Many people are already on tight budgets. So, these things might happen sooner.

The other nasty thing is, it's easy to say "ration fuel"... but how are you supposed to do that? If you are one of those people who commutes an hour to work, it's not like you can just decide to start walking.

We're lucky. My wife could bike to work, if it was necessary. I work at home. We could walk to our grocery stores and for most other necessary shopping.

I already drive very little. I put less than 800 miles on my car last year. I expect this year to be the same or less.

Five years is a damned long time. The GOP can blather all it wants, this economy is rotting from the inside out. My family is OK so far, but I worry every day.

BTW, The Experts Agree On The Economy!

"Overall, this level of (job) creation represents the worst job performance since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting monthly jobs data in 1939 (at the end of the Great Depression)."

http://www.jobwatch.org

"In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs."

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

My Conclusion: The American middle class is fast approaching demise and will need life support to survive!

We have high longterm unemployment, college grads can't find jobs. But you can get a job at Wal-Mart throwing boxes or running a cash register for minimum and get nowhere fast. Some states have reached all time high unemployment rates.

Food, medicine, medical care and local taxes have continued to rise steadily.

Salaries and wages have stayed the same for the past five years.

Wall street has remained flat for the past five years.

Now you add higher fuel costs to this mix. I don't know but somethings got to give.

or even an oil tax, but have the revenue distributed equally to all Americans.

Higher prices would mean reduced consumption as people changed their habits to avoid the cost.

Returning it, in equal shares to all citizens, makes it progressive, keeps it from hurting the overall economy, and gives the working poor some means to avoid the costs: insulation, better appliances, more efficient car, etc.

The only people this would hurt, and this depends on the size of the tax, are those involved in petro-energy production. However, this hurt will be balanced by the growth in conservation, transit, and alternative energy production, and reduced reliance (and greed for) foreign oil.

Better wages are to be had from building new windmills and PV cells than are to be had from operating coal plants. Might even wind up being good for detroit, as folks now have an economic incentive and means to replace their vehicles.

I'd really like for this idea to simmer in the minds of the disenchanted masses.

It's much more effective and equitable, and less economically harmful than legislated rationing.