Save Gas & the Environment

Gas prices over $4.00 per gallon! Whatever shall we do? In my way of thinking, we need to make the price come down or at least make it be a good deal less important. We can do that by reducing our gasoline consumption. There are probably dozens of ways to accomplish that goal. Some ways would be a good deal less popular than others – like lowering the speed limit on our highways. Some obvious ways would really take quite a while to become effective – like manufacturing cars with better mileage and getting enough of them on the road to make a difference. One very long-range plan might be to re-engineer our businesses and communities so long drives for employment and acquiring essential goods and services were shortened. While those may be good ideas, the problem is with us now and we really can’t wait as long as they would take.

I have a few suggestions that would yield a much quicker reduction in our national gasoline demand. One strategy which would yield very quick results would be to require stores to be closed one day a week – Sunday perhaps. Such a move would impose a need for strategic planning for such things as shopping excursions. Such planning should result in fewer such excursions thereby reducing fuel consumption. It could also aid in reconstruction of families and neighborhood relations, but it too might not be very popular in our material culture.

Another suggestion that would likely yield much better results, but a little less quickly, is to make a distinction between driving on city streets and highway driving. Cities and states can legalize and encourage operation of golf cart-like vehicles on low speed (45 mph or less) city streets. Many such vehicles are in production right now and with some slight modifications could be made to be more comfortable and safe for street operation. Many of these vehicles are powered by electric motors – very quiet and efficient. Others are powered by small gasoline motors which can get remarkably good gas mileage. (Other engines designs should be explored such as Sterling engines and compressed air engines).

The automobiles we drive now are least efficient in city driving conditions - most get much better gas mileage at highway speeds. So why not take advantage of that knowledge and replace the least efficient driving modes with more efficient cars? Depending on their needs, people could own both an urban vehicle and a highway vehicle or they could own one kind and rent the other as needed.

I suspect that shortly after enabling such a program, we would have thriving industries manufacturing new vehicles as well as upgrading and refitting existing ones. Within a year, our national gasoline consumption would be dramatically lowered as would the price per gallon. Additionally our dependence on foreign oil would be reduced and correspondingly the influence such foreign nations can exert on our culture and economy would be reduced. (Some of those countries seem to be our enemies and I’ve never been enthusiastic about making our enemies wealthy.)

Really small, efficient urban vehicles, would provide the means to a substantial improvement over our current situation. They would use far fewer resources than conventional cars – cost much less, cost much less to operate, allow for narrower traffic lanes and parking spaces. They could even reduce city street maintenance needs. Noise and pollution levels would be greatly reduced in neighborhoods. Who knows where such thinking could lead?