Cascadia's profligate energy consumption lies at the root of many of the region's most serious problems. Each barrel of oil we burn for highway fuels adds nearly half a ton of climate-warming gases to the atmosphere; releases perhaps 60 pounds of carbon monoxide, soot, and smog-forming compounds that endanger our health; siphons between $40 and $140 out of the local economy; increases the risk of oil spills and pipeline leaks; and entangles our region with some of the most volatile and politically unstable regimes in the world. Cascadians consume more than 300 million of those barrels each year. Coal and natural gas also carry steep costs. Even hydropower dams, though comparatively benign in their climate impacts, cut salmon off from vast areas of spawning habitat.

The Cascadia Scorecard measures highway fuels and non-industrial electricity, but not other forms of energy, for three reasons. First, highway fuels and electricity consumption are closely monitored, and the data is reliably updated and released with little delay. Second, Cascadians themselves have control over their consumption of these commodities, while short-term trends in many other forms of energy consumption -- such as home heating fuels or industrial energy consumption -- respond to forces of weather and global markets that are largely outside Cascadians' control. And third, the combination of highway fuels and non-industrial electricity has been a fairly reliable proxy for overall energy consumption in the region. Between 1978 and 2000, consumption of highway fuels and non-industrial electricity accounted for 34 percent of total energy use in Cascadia, never varying from this level by more than 2 percentage points in any year.
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Germans enjoy high standards of living while consuming far less energy per person than northwesterners do. Moreover, that nation has aggressively pursued efficiency and renewable energy policies in recent years. While Germany still emits far more than its share of global-warming emissions from fossil fuels, it nevertheless stands as a developed-world model that Cascadia can aspire to match.

A technical note: Sightline recently re-estimated Germany's energy consumption, based on newly accessible data, and determined that the nation's performance on the energy indicator in 2001 was likely even better than Sightline had estimated when the Cascadia Scorecard was launched. Cascadia may have an even steeper task ahead if it is to match Germany's performance on personal energy consumption. (Click to read more about Germany's energy consumption.)
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But that overall stasis conceals three diverging trends. After spiking in the late 1970s, per person gasoline consumption maintained a rough equilibrium from the mid 1980s through 1999, when per capita consumption gradually began to fall. (Click for chart of Northwest gasoline consumption.) Diesel fuel use, on the other hand, had been on a long-term upswing, interrupted only in the last two years. Meanwhile, per capita electricity use in Cascadia's homes and businesses has wavered only a bit since 1980.
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We pay a steep price for this energy. Although energy prices have fallen from their 2008 peak--when the region's fossil fuel spending topped $30 billion--the region still spends exhorbitantly to import oil, gas, and coal. (Click for chart of Northwest fossil fuel spending through 2009.)

During 2009, two crosswinds buffeted Northwest gasoline consumers. The faltering economy, particularly south of the 49th parallel, worked to trim gasoline consumption; but steep drops in gas prices, compared with their 2008 peaks, worked to expand consumption. In the Northwest, the price cuts won out: per capita consumption ticked upwards, bucking nearly a decade of steady declines, as total gasoline consumption rose to its highest level ever. Similarly, vehicle travel rose in each of the Northwest states, partially reversing the steep declines in driving during 2008 that had resulted from soaring gas prices. The fact that gasoline consumption and vehicle travel rose in 2009, during the deepest economic contraction in decades, shows the powerful effects that gasoline prices can have on consumer's purchasing decisions.

But even though diesel prices fell in lockstep with gasoline, the sputtering economy put the brakes on long-distance trucking. As a result, the Northwest's diesel fuel consumption fell by 7 percent--the second consecutive year of declines in diesel consumption. In the Northwest states, this decline in diesel consumption more than offset the rise in gasoline use: total highway fuel consumption in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington fell for the second consecutive year.

British Columbia followed a different trajectory last year. Provincial consumption of both gasoline and diesel soared, particularly in the runup to the 2010 winter Olympics. Preliminary data suggests that those trends continued into 2010: for the first three months of the year, gasoline consumption was running 15 percent ahead of its 2009 total, a mammoth year-over-year increase.

But despite British Columbia's spike in consumption, residents of the Northwest states still use about a third more energy per person than their BC counterparts. (Click for chart of regional energy consumption.)

During the summer of 2008, when gas prices were at all-time highs and consumption was falling rapidly, some commenters speculated that high prices had permanently changed our attitude towards driving. Those comments proved premature: consumers proved highly sensitive to fuel prices, so when prices fell, they drove more.

But northwesterners' sensitivity to gas prices does point to a way forward to end the region's unhealthy addiction to oil. As expensive as a gallon of gasoline may seem, the price at the pump simply fails to cover the costs of global warming, air pollution, petroleum-related military spending--or even the costs of streets and roads. Ensuring that all consumers pay the full cost of their energy purchases--rather than pushing those costs onto their neighbors or their grandchildren--can create the financial incentives that are needed to wean our region from its unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels.
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Spending on energy imports, Northwest states

Energy use, Northwest states vs. BC

Per capita gasoline consumption, Northwest states