Townsend's Energy Conservation Project

Fuel Conservation on a 15x40 Mile Island

ED 630 /Fall 2007

Can We Conserve?

How much fuel does my family use driving up and down the same minute stretch of pavement every week?

What could we do to lessen our fuel usage?

Just One Idea

Maybe…

Methodology

My husband and I will take our vehicles to the pumps and fill up our tanks on Sunday night

Trip the odometers at this fill

Proceed to drive our normal routes for one week, and fill up again the following Sunday night

When we fill up this time we will note the mileage on each odometer as well as the number of gallons each of us needed to fill up

Here’s what it came to…

…unless my husband goes hunting, then it’s a whole lot more.

Damage Report

7.6 gallons / week may not seem exorbitant, but it sure adds up over time

In a month that 7.6 becomes 30.4 gallons

And 364.8 in a year

What to do, oh—what to do? I have deduced that if my husband

started riding a bike every day, we would conserve a considerable amount of fuel

The fun doesn’t stop there… This would also free up the truck for

my own personal use, which would be pleasant for two reasons:

1.I could take my dog along more often

2. I wouldn’t have to drive that stupid Buick Century anymore

Is it worth it?

Of course! Consumption of fuel may turn out to

be the same (or even a little more, considering the fact that the car gets better mileage), but my satisfaction would be immense

Where does that put us with the rest of the country?

We still did better than these guys…we’re only at $1440 and 1.08! List of the top ten least expensive places for driving: 1. El Paso, TX-NM $2,736 1.6 gal. 2. Anchorage, AK $2,760 1.5 3. Boulder, CO $2,839 1.6 4. Eugene, OR $2,965 1.5 5. Salem, OR $2,972 1.6 6. Spokane, WA $3,125 1.7 7. Charleston, SC $3,215 1.9 8. Omaha, NE-IA $3,259 1.9 9. Honolulu, HI $3,291 1.6 10. Cleveland, OH $3,301 1.9

(based on a family of two daily commuters, $/year—mi./day 5/09/06) http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/gasstudy.aspx

I guess that means we’re doing pretty darn good!

If nothing else, I learned a lot about using PowerPoint!