Energy Conservation
Originally published at The JFX. You can comment here or there.
Look, we all know that the price of gas sucks right now. But in the long run, this is probably a good thing. I doubt anyone honestly can say that they didn’t see this coming, but no one has done anything about it. It is human nature to ignore a problem until it actually inconveniences you to a point where the effort required to fix it outweighs simply dealing with it. That is why everyone accepted $2/gal. We whined about $3/gal, but still just shrugged it off and made smalltalk about it with other people at the pump. Now $4/gal comes along, and it is a national crisis. There is a lot that I could write about the energy crisis, the problem, and what needs to be done, but the fact is that it is doubtful anything will change any time soon. But the reason I say it is a good thing is because now that it is a national crisis, something will change, it will simply take a while.
However, the reason for this post is to present a little bit of advice. Political views on the energy crisis aside, it is pretty much universally agreed upon that the immediate course of action is to conserve energy. People are already driving less, which is good, but there is something more that I’ve noticed barely anyone is doing. If you would like to save some cash, help reduce the cumulative consumption of gas, and earn the right to really complain about the price of gas, then I encourage all of you to slow down. Ever since I got home from school and began driving a lot to commute to and from work, the price of gas really hit my pockets (Like it has everyone else). So I did what i figured would be natural to anyone who didn’t want to buy as much gas, I started using less of it. Most people take this to mean don’t drive as much, don’t go to the store, and don’t go on needless trips. That is all true, and it does help. But what will help more is increasing your mileage. Just because your car is rated for 25mpg doesn’t mean you will get 25mpg, you need to drive it properly to achieve that. Accelerating hard from stops, constantly slowing down and speeding up, and driving fast all burn a lot more gas than is necessary. Driving properly can usually achieve higher mileage than your car is rated for.
While I’m cruising along in the right lane of the highway, everyone else is screaming past me in the left lanes. There are usually only 2 or 3 cars with me, and even then its usually because they’re getting on or off the highway soon. On the back roads, while driving fast isn’t usually a problem, people still keep their foot on the gas right up until stop lights (at which point they slam on the brakes), and then accelerate hard from the stop. Everyone hugs the bumper of the car in front of them, so when someone slows down to make a turn, everyone else has to slow down and speed up again. People routinely stop at yield signs when there is no need for it. There are dozens of things that people do to waste gas on a daily basis.
I’ll give an example of how much of a difference proper driving can make, and let you make your own decision. I used to drive just like everyone else, 40+mph on back roads, keep up with traffic in city/town streets, and cruising along at 70-75+ in the middle and left lanes of the highways. Pretty much exactly like I outlined in the last paragraph. My cars’ readout said 22-23mpg on average back then. In the past month since I started conserving gas, I stick to the speed limits on the highway around 55, and also slow down a bit to 30-35 on the back roads. My mpg is now around 28-30 overall. Strictly in terms of highway travel, my average mileage at 80mph is 24mpg. At 75 it is 25mpg. at 70 it is 27mpg. at 60 it is 29mpg. And today on the way to work I got 32mpg at 55mph. To put this in perspective, my 14 gallon tank can bring my car 334 miles at 80mpg, and 448 miles at 55mph. This is all in an SUV. In smaller cars the differences would be much more dramatic.
So before I hear more people complain about how much it costs them to fill up their tank, I’d like to see a lot less cars screaming past me on the highway, and a lot more of them chilling out with me in the right lane. In the words of Captain Planet, the power is yours.
P.S. - Shout out to Ryan. King of hypermiling.