unfortunately, a planet with humans in equilibrium is but a wishful thinking, considering peak oil and soon uranium and methane, too, so 'peak energy' will likely soon be upon us, with solar, wind and geothermal energy only partially replacing them.
Humans are incredibly resourceful when pushed into a direction.
See the average consumption of gasoline/diesel fuel for cars in Europe especially over the last 3 decades. And to make things even more impressive, graph out the average horsepower, weight and overall features added to cars in the same time frame. A car these days uses 1/3 the fuel it used to use in 1980 while having probably 2x the horsepower and 10x as many features, many of which have greatly improved passive and active security.
Of course, not all improvements are good, but the overall trend is nice.
Exactly. Americans are complaining about petrol hitting $4/gallon in some states, but if they had to pay $9-10 per gallon like some European nations do, they would drop the massive 6.0L V8 engines and switch to 1.6L turbocharged diesels tomorrow too. It's only a matter of price.
Note that Europe pays the same market price for raw petroleum that America does, it just taxes the refined petrol and diesel (and uses far more of the latter) much higher.
This does have the effects of suppressing demand for fuel that you note, but the financial effect is that the money remains in-country and can be spent on other things.
Unless the US were to suddenly double its fuel taxes, a likelihood I estimate somewhere between nil and never, the only way US fuel prices would hit $9-$10/gallon would be for the cost of extracting oil to rise to that extent -- probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $200-300/bbl prices.
There you start running into the question of just what you're getting for your barrel of oil in terms of economic output. $GDP/BBL runs from a low of around $490 in India to nearly $2800/bbl in Sweden. It's around $1000, for most of Europe around $1500.
My thought is that there's a lot of marginal economic activity in China and India which will cease if the cost of oil doubles. Quite possibly elsewhere as well.
My grandfathers Wartburg from soviet era takes 7 to 10 liters on 100 kms. Most modern cars have around 5 liters on super-economy mode. Sure they are much heavier and saver, but overall fuel consumption is not much improved.
You should also calculate energy needed to produce and maintain the car. Wartburg engine has only 7 moving parts and can be disassembled and fixed with screw-driver. Most modern cars are thrown away after 10 years, because it is too expensive to maintain them.
I think we could easily reduce energy consumption 5x by making simplier and lighter cars. I am not saying to give up computers and other modern stuff, but keep it standardized and replaceable.
If your Wartburg would hit a modern car you would be squashed. At this point they're a hazard on the road. They're cool and have their appeal but if a modern car company would design the Wartburg today it wouldn't pass safety or environmental regulations.
And most modern cars are not thrown away, they are sold as second hand cars in my country or other developing countries :)
They are only partially replacing them because at the moment they are more expensive. The very moment producing electricity by burning coal becomes more expensive than by using solar or wind energy, we will see a huge spike in the number of solar/wind farms built. And burning coal will become more expensive the less we have of it.
