Saving Oil in a Hurry

What if we had a sudden disruption of our supply of transportation fuel? What if there was an even steeper price hike? What if we were running out of gas like Juneau ran out of electricity? If this happened, it would be good not to flail around trying this, experimenting with that – wasting precious fuel in a trial and error approach.

In 1995 the International Energy Agency published Saving Oil in a Hurry. This report outlines the fuel savings that would be realized by the implementation of a variety of policies and the cost of implementation of the policies. For example, transitioning the workforce to telecommuting has a large impact on oil consumption, but it can require investment in infrastructure. The savings realized depends on what is required in terms of infrastructure to facilitate implementation. Car pooling and compressing the workweek turn out to be two polices that are very inexpensive to implement and have very large and large fuel savings respectively.

It is text like these that we should ask our Borough leadership to have in their energy tool-kit. You never know when you might need them. Thanks to Mike Denker, former chair of the Haines Energy Task Force, for the tip about the IEA publication.