In what way is today's push to move off oil similar to the push of the 1970s?
A lot of the initiatives are the same, and you hear a lot of the same things. But the irony of the 1970s and the 1980s is that all of the government policies that encouraged greater energy efficiency, and this is as true in the U.S. as it is in Western Europe, ultimately led to us consuming more and more energy. For all the improvements in the internal combustion engine's efficiency, the average car or vehicle in the United States consumes just as much oil as it did 30 years ago because we've consumed all those efficiency gains in bigger and faster cars with more energy-sucking options. The real challenge going forward is we've got to become more efficient without the reward of cheaper energy prices.

















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Jamila Bamba of MD 2:08PM November 22, 2010
Peter Piper of WA 1:13PM July 04, 2009