Fuel Economy and Synfuels – A Comparison of Strategies for Maintaining Automotive Mobility

Two strategies for maintaining automotive mobility - improvement of fuel economy, and production of synthetic fuels - are compared with regard to their potential for replacement of petroleum, their investment requirements, and marginal consumer cost. If the necessary capital can be made available, the strategies can be competetive with expected prices of imported petroleum, and can replace 2.9 million barrels per day (MBD) of petroleum by 1990 and 6.1 MBD by 2000.