More mileage to the tank

Rather than a coherent energy-saving plan, on Friday the Spanish government approved an array of stopgap decisions intended to cope with temporary difficulties in the fuel supply that might result from the ongoing political crisis in the Arab region.

Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba offered an explanation couched in terms of preventive foresight, which was politically effective as an expression of the government's (for once) rapid response to an unexpected situation. Supplies of oil and gas, as Rubalcaba rightly remarked, are not in danger (energy imports from Libya are easily replaceable, the industry minister repeated). But, just in case, drivers are now to reduce their maximum speed on highways and motorways to 110kmph; commuter train fares are to be reduced by five percent to stimulate the use of public transport; while the proportion of biodiesel in diesel sold at the pumps is to be increased from 5.8 to 7 percent.

The government claims that with the speed limitation, the average automobile's tankful of gasoline will obtain from 12 to 15 percent more mileage. This is possible. On the other hand, it seems rather unlikely that the slight reduction in commuter train ticket prices will produce the desired increase in public transport use. The reduction is a very timid one.

The deputy prime minister announced that new measures will be considered next week to help bring down current fuel consumption rates once talks have been held with the regional and local governments. And it is here that the government's real capacity for negotiation will become apparent.

Because the temporary demand to reduce consumption is in this case joined to the permanent- and increasingly urgent- need to ensure a certain level of quality in the air we breathe in our cities, somewhat drastic limitations clearly have to be imposed on automobile traffic in the centers of major cities. This measure, moreover, ought to be of indefinite character, unlike the measures approved for speed limitation and commuter train price reduction, which are of a temporary nature.

Friday's decisions concerning energy consumption are far from being as laughable as some seem to find them, though their provisional nature cannot be denied. But the Spanish economy needs a radical, systematic energy-saving plan, designed for the medium and long term, which would far surpass the recommendations of the plans now supposedly in effect. No plan worthy of the name can do without a thorough recasting of price policy, and a far-reaching reordering of public transport that would shift a substantial part of existing traffic from road to railway, just to mention two indispensable lines of action.