Gas Consumption Still Going Up In Canada

by bigcajunman on July 7, 2007

Gas prices are up from last year, yet our consumption of Gas is also up, guess my statement that Gas demand is completely inelastic (i.e. price increases do not affect demand at all).

Sales of refined petroleum products
	May 2006^r	May 2007^p	May 2006 to May 2007
	thousands of cubic metres		% change
Total, all products	8,230.2	8,973.5	9.0
Motor gasoline	3,486.1	3,709.9	6.4
Diesel fuel oil	2,268.0	2,405.8	6.1
Light fuel oil	224.9	273.0	21.4
Heavy fuel oil	430.1	614.0	42.7
Aviation turbo fuels	592.6	589.1	-0.6
Petrochemical feedstocks¹	414.0	407.0	-1.7
All other refined products	814.5	974.8	19.7

On this day where we are supposed to be thinking about the environment it suggests Canadian demand for fossil fuels is not dropping.

{ 4 comments }

{ 4 comments… add one }

Big Cajun Man July 11, 2007 at 2:21 am edit
Not sure what will “win” but it’s pretty obvious a change is needed and we may well have crossed the tipping point.

-c8j

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Nabloid.com July 10, 2007 at 9:29 pm edit
It wouldn’t make sense to take mass transit in my city… its one of the most spread out cities in the world (larger area than NYC) and in the winter, it can be deathly cold here. It would take HOURS (2 to 4 ) extra if I was to take mass transit, each day.

My city was designed around cars.

In the future I hope to see electric vehicles, and the only thing stopping that from being a reality is finding a method of energy storage that is better than our century old battery technology. Everything but the energy storage is in place… ultracapacitators anyone? or will hydrogen win?

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Big Cajun Man July 10, 2007 at 3:59 am edit
Agreed, I grew up in a city where it only made sense to take the mass transit system, and the only time you drove (when my parents LET me) was to go long distances like out of town. I took the bus, subway and train everywhere.

–C8j

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Matt July 10, 2007 at 3:32 am edit
Until there are some serious changes in the countries larger cities there will be a significant need to drive. I take transit to work daily but because this system is barely adequate it makes it a real challenge to do for most people. Without good transit funding, more compact cities and a lot of education as the population grows more people will need to use cars to get to where they’re going.

Unfortunately this also mean the wasteful uses for the car will go up… this is the educational part I was mentioning, driving 2 minutes to the corner store should never occur. But we have been conditioned (especially in many suburbs) that you need to drive everywhere.

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