6 Stupidly Simple Steps to Saving Billions of Gallons of Gas

[Ichingcarpenter]

K...gas prices are getting out of hand, and carbon emissions have been out of hand for a long time. So let's kill two birds with...well...five stones. We generally focus on high-technology here at EcoGeek, and how we can save energy with smart designs. But sometimes, there are simpler ways. In fact, an absolutely tremendous amount of gasoline could be saved in America with some very simple measures. We break it all down and figure out how much gas can be saved with some stupidly simple techniques.

1. Lose Some Weight - 900 M Gallons of Gas
Americans weigh about 24 more pounds per person than we did in the 1970s. That weight, when we're driving, has to be moved around with our cars. Multiplied over the three trillion miles driven in America each year, suddenly we need a lot of gas to move around our extra chub. If we could (preferably through walking and biking) lose those 24 lbs and reach 1970's sizes, America would used nearly one billion gallons of gas less than we currently do.

2. Intelligent Traffic Lights - 1000 M Gallons of Gas
Studies have shown that altering traffic lights to ensure maximum flow can reduce gasoline consumption in cities by between 10% and 20%. Already, lots of places have traffic light systems that use sensors to detect whether or not there are cars in certain lanes and when and how often to change lights. But a great deal of traffic infrastructure is still extremely primitive, and most of it is programmed by hand. Researchers have begun to attempt to create traffic lights that can make decisions for themselves. Stoplights might soon communicate with other nearby lights about when they plan on changing, how much traffic they've seen, and what's been working for them recently to keep traffic flowing. And they will even be able to remember what worked for maximizing flow in the past, and use those same techniques in the future.

3. More Expensive Gas - 450 M Gallons of Gas (so far)
OK, so this isn't necessarily the best solution to our problems. Especially since most people who really need to drive can't afford to pay much more for gas. But 2007 showed the first decrease in the number of miles traveled since the gas crisis of the 70s. As gas prices sored to upwards of $3.00 per gallon, people actually drove less. The amount driven dropped by about 10 billion miles. At the average fleet efficiency of 22 mpg, that's 450 million gallons of gas saved.

4. Drive a Little Slower - 600 M Gallons of Gas (just for semi trucks)

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1620/69/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. The USA with 5% of the world's population uses 30% of the resources and produces 50% of the waste.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. I had to change my title to this... originally I had the World Survey

National Geographic story. So I put this in before it was too late to edit.

Yes, the US is wasteful.

[Warpy]

3. I see your edit

while I was looking for cites and obey.

The geeky stuff is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy-maximizing_behaviors

[phantom power]

4. That was (4).

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. Good start, currently Off 1 MBPD

Now I can't remember where I saw this. It was within the last day or two. US Oil imports were off 1 million Barrels per day or 42 million gallons per day or 15 Billion Gallons per year.


As economists have pointed out. The solution for high gas prices is high gas prices.
It appears that we may have finally had the price high enough for long enough that people will actually start to change their habits. And we may see that 24lbs start to come down as people walk more.

Still there are alot of people suffering from the cost increases even if they are a necessary evil.