My Car Won’t Go on H2O!

Car owners across the country braced themselves for another smack in the face at the gasoline pump, as the shutdown of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska rippled through energy markets and consumer psyches.

Americans are deeply divided in their responses to high gasoline prices, as they are on so many other things, including politics, class and culture. Many say they are using less gasoline,

Researchers, pollsters and ordinary Americans said they saw no broad national experience or commonality of sacrifice when it came to gasoline, even when the nation endured a jolt like the one from Alaska.



Wealthier
people have more choices than others in how and whether to adapt – to
drive just as much or buy an expensive hybrid vehicle. Hispanics,
lower-income households, urban residents and younger people, according
to a national poll by the Pew Research Center, are more likely to
change their behavior by carpooling or using mass transit.


There are often
regional disparities, too; the West Coast, for example, is likely to be
hit hardest by the closing of Prudhoe Bay, experts said, because the
Alaskan oil mostly feeds refineries in the West.


Even ethanol,
the alcohol additive that is being used more frequently as a component
in the nation’s fuel supply, can be a point of division.
Environmentalists like the additive because it pollutes less, but some
energy experts say that ethanol-gas mixtures are less efficient as a
fuel and may be leading to more gas consumption. Some ethanol is in
about a third of the nation’s gasoline supply, up sharply from last
year.


In the Pew
Research survey of 1,182 Americans – 1,048 of them drivers – 55 percent
said they were driving less because of the recent increases in gasoline
prices. The poll, taken from June 20 to July 16, had a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.


Yet Americans’
overall gasoline appetite has barely budged. Total use this year is up
about one-half percent to 1 percent compared with 2005, according to
federal figures – a slower rate of growth than in the past, but hardly
the mark of a nation with its foot fully on the brake.


Experts say the
apparent paradox of public reaction to price increases – a majority of
people saying they are driving less, but more gas is still being sold
year after year – could be explained by several factors, not the least
of which is that people sometimes give pollsters and reporters answers
they think are more socially acceptable or expected.


“We don’t really
know the impacts of all these things,” said John C. Duff, manager of
the weekly petroleum status report surveys for the Federal Energy
Information Administration.


Mr. Duff said
that demand for gasoline this year had definitely flattened, compared
with previous years’ increases, suggesting that some people were using
less. But those cutbacks may be overwhelmed by other forces, including
bigger cars and more miles being driven by a growing population, and
perhaps, he said, reduced mileage from cars burning more ethanol.


Researchers at
Pew say the pattern of consumers using less when high prices linger has
been seen before, in the gasoline price spikes of the 1970’s and early
1980’s. Per capita consumption of gasoline has fairly consistently
mirrored the average price per gallon since at least 1977, falling when
prices increased, rising when prices fell, according to the Pew study,
which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.


Other experts
say the nation’s shifting economic, demographic and urban terrain in
recent years – greater disparity of rich and poor than in the 1970’s,
and more transportation options than a generation ago, including mass
transit rail lines in more cities and hybrid cars – is making this
spike different.

Jose Vargas said
he thought the changes he had made to conserve gasoline were probably
permanent, for better or worse.  He used to drive to the beach at Sandy
Hook, N.J., about 30 miles away, three or four times a month. Now he
mostly stays home.


Mr. Vargas predicted that gasoline would reach $3.50 a gallon before the end of the month, and he shook his head in disbelief.


“It’s only going to get more expensive, and once it goes up, it will never come down,” he said.