Energy stats

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) recently updated its statistical report on energy supply and consumption in the U.S. The report begins with an overview of total energy consumption, then presents detailed analyses of trends and statistics for oil, electricity, natural gas, and coal.

On gasoline prices, the report comments:

A significant and not often noted fact is that, like many commodities, the long-term trend in gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation and excluding temporary surges, has been down. As shown in Figure 8, the real price of gasoline peaked in 1980, then fell precipitously in the mid-1980s. The surge in prices since the summer of 2004 brought the price close to the peak of 1980 (in real dollars).

The statistics are largely from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy (DOE).

Energy: Selected Facts and Numbers, CRS Report RL31849, October 6, 2006 (pdf, 184KB, 30p., from Open CRS)