Americans are driving and paying, just like always

I don't claim to know how things are going to end up, including politically.

“For now, gasoline demand has shown absolutely no signs of buckling under the pressure of higher prices, even as California nears an average of $6 per gallon,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

“It’s not impossible that gas prices would still have to climb a considerable amount for Americans to start curbing their insatiable demand for gasoline,” he said.

With the market slow to curb U.S. oil consumption, some experts are urging more action from governments — including leaders calling for more voluntary conservation.

The International Energy Agency — the West’s counterpart to OPEC — (two weeks ago) published a four-month plan to cut oil consumption by 2.7 million barrels a day, equivalent to all the cars in China.

The10-point plan calls for reducing highway speed limits by about 6 mph (estimated to save 290,000 barrels daily), working from home three days a week (170,000 barrels a day) and curtailing air travel for business (260,000 barrels daily).

Many of those practices echo pandemic-era behaviors, so they’re proven to be within reach, said Pete Erickson, climate policy program director at the Stockholm Environment Institute. Such efforts could still meaningfully impact energy markets, he added, without the disruption, isolation or scale of Covid-19’s lockdowns.

“From the perspective of trying to fill a Russia-size hole in the global oil market, it’s really significant what we’ve shown we can do through behavioral measures,” Erickson said.

“The U.S. is a major player in the oil market. It can make changes in its consumption faster than in its production — we have direct proof of that. And the scale of that [change] really matters,” he said.

To be sure, this approach is very different from what’s needed in the long term for climate, Erickson added. This short-term strategy doesn’t require building new infrastructure. That’s why it can work so quickly, but it’s also the reason it’s insufficient for deep and long-term change. - E&E News