BIG drop in US oil consumption

IslandCrow

The BBC report shows the following drop in car sales in the US last month:

Nissan - 37%
Ford - 34%
Chrysler - 33%
Toyota - 32%
Honda - 24%
General Motors - 16%.

Overall industry-wide car sales declined 26%.

This represents a huge demand destruction.

But what does it mean for energy use?
Long-long term it will mean fewer cars and so less fuel used, but should it have any effect in the short term on gas demand?

Is the demand destruction in cars meaning that people keep more ‘gas guzzlers’ on the road and so demand for gas will be higher than if the economy had allowed people to buy the cars they wanted?

Link
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cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3824

TheDude

75% of sales are used vehicles. CNN has a nice piece on Fun used car facts.

Models from the 80s/early 90s are vastly more popular now, perhaps fuel efficiency is going up...
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FrankRichards · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 11, 2004 Posts: 112

I would say that the decline in car sales indeed means that the fuel efficiency of the fleet (mpg or l/100km) gets better more slowly. However the decrease in miles driven more than makes up for that, so gas usage continues to decline.

JohnDenver · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 29, 2004 Posts: 1888

The latest EIA stats show an amazingly large drop in US petroleum consumption for the week ending Sept. 26. Product supplied was down by 2.175 mbd, year on year, for a percentage drop of about 11%.

Interesting how little effect a drop of that magnitude has on the price and general travel situation in the US. A few minor shortages, but on the whole, it's business as usual. Just goes to show how much fuel people waste over there.

It's also pretty anticlimactic when you contrast the reality with the prognostications of peak oil boy wonder Matt Savinar:

joeltrout · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 19, 2007 Posts: 1317

This means auto mechanics have good job security.

joeltrout

BigTex

forbin · Tar Sands Joined: Jun 16, 2008 Posts: 27

in hte mean time we have that report that the Russians oil prodcution is down.

as the KSA say - "the market is well supplied"

the fact that the market is smaller is nether here not there

until later that is......

Forbin.

ki11ercane

So JD, it's done then? Can I put this "Peak Oil Thingy" behind me now once and for all? I really do want to go back to the life I had before I heard and read about Peak Oil. I want my ignorance back. It's been a challenging 2 years for me trying to live without prepping. I don't want to waste years of time and money preparing my entire life around the final consequences of consuming a finite resource knowing it's going to last forever. Just reply "Peak Oil doesn't exist, you don't have to ever worry about it ever happening evar! There will always be finite natural energy resources to consume forever." I want to die knowing my kids and grand kids won't have to worry about it either.

I'll check back here later to see.

Thanks in advance!

burtonridr · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 763

Bas

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 6486

Yeah, in case you hadn't noticed JD, that 11% drop has had really profound impacts on our economy. Things are not looking good here economically at all. I think that in a lot of ways that's probably right that our demand can fall 30% or even 60% and not impact our lives directly that much. People will still be able to get where they need to go and have the things they need to get by. The problem that's going to be quite tumultuous here and other places is that there's a lot of people employed using petroleum wastefully. The Spanish fishing and trucking strike was a prime example. For somebody, that demand destruction means being out of a job, and they're not going to necessarily just be really happy about accepting it.

I think Aaron use to have a saying, "Don't fear peak oil. Fear how your neighbor will react to peak oil.
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BigTex

Cheap energy = potential for rapid wealth creation enhanced by use of leverage

Expensive energy = potential for rapid wealth destruction enhanced by the presence of leverage
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seahorse2 · Expert Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1966

JD,

The PO news board linked an article you wrote dismissing the Hirsch report as wrong. I think you misunderstand Hirsch, who never said demand destruction wouldn't occur, but was saying that to avoid harsh economic consequences (caused by demand destruction) a transition to other sources via some type of "Marshall energy plan" is needed. Again, Hirsch didn't argue there wouldn't be demand destruction, just what it would take to avoid the harsh economic realities of demand destruction.