Whod'a thunk!

I'd ever agree with Glenn Reynolds:

The truth is that substantial improvements in the efficiency of solar power will be very beneficial, even if they don't provide a silver bullet that solves all of our energy problems. You can say the same for a lot of other alternative energy proposals: Hydrogen, hybrids, biofuels, wind power, etc. None of these alternative technologies live up to the hype, but all offer some contribution to the problem. So does conservation, which doesn't solve the problem by itself -- and whose luddite boosters often render unappealing by their obvious enthusiasm for making others do without -- but which helps, too.

Of course some will pick up on this to say "jeez, that only means we shouldn't subsidize those technologies" but the spirit of this idea is explained by Armed Liberal:

It's a small thing, but the error I think that Sensing (and others) are making is that they are looking for One Big solution when in reality there are a hundred small ones. This idea - substituting minivans for SUV's is a small idea, but there are probably hundreds of them - ideas big enough to have an impact but small enough to be doable without changing the whole world.

So, over the last six years, we've sold about 40 million SUV's (figure roughly 50% of new car sales of 14 million units/ year - not a figure I've checked, but it's close to correct).

So 21 million SUV's (half the number sold) times six years (duration) times 3,000 gallons - we would have saved 58 BILLION gallons of gasoline if everyone who had bought a SUV bought a minivan instead. Yes, the numbers are approximate and skewed because not all SUV's are as thirsty as a Suburban...but not all minivans are as thirsty as an Odyssey.

To put that into some kind of reference, the annual gasoline consumption in the US for 2005 (US DOE Energy Information Agency) was about 3.33 billion barrels, or 140 billion gallons (42 ga to a barrel). We would have saved about 10 billion gallons/year (total savings/6) or 7% of our gasoline budget with that one change.

That's about 3% of our national energy budget. Just from driving minivans.

And if everyone is aware of the problem, we will all want to do something about it (come up with our own 3%). And national energy policy would reflect this rather than supporting squandering of our resources.