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| Fig. 1: A look at select countries' oil consumption over time. [4] (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
The Yom Kippur War occurred from October 6 to 25 in 1973. Multiple Arab states, led by Egypt and Syria, executed a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. Egypt's goal was to retake claim of Sinai, beginning with the Suez Canal. [1] The United States rushed to aid Israel, while the Soviet Union took the side of Egypt and its teammates. [1] Two weeks after the invasion, the United Nations issued a ceasefire, which garnered responses from each side blaming one another. [1] Finally, on October 25, a second ceasefire was imposed to end the war. [1]
Because the United States and other industrialized nations in Europe supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) declared an oil embargo against those countries. [1] This included a 25% decrease in production of oil, throwing the United States and several other countries into an energy crisis. [2] The cost of oil in the United States skyrocketed from $3 per barrel to $12 per barrel by 1974. [2] In perspective, $12 dollars per barrel in 1974 is approximately equivalent to over $60 per barrel in 2008. In 1973, the United States was consuming nearly 18 million barrels of oil per day, as seen in Fig. 1. This means that total spending for the country on oil jumped from $24 million per day to $216 million per day, effectively quadrupling total5 spending.
Because of the massive shortage of oil, the United States and other countries began emergency rationing and put strict regulations on oil consumption. The government limited the amount of gas that could be dispensed at gas stations, restricted what days cars could fill their tanks based on license plate numbers, and closed stations on Sundays. [2] Other European countries instilled similar restrictions, including a three-day workweek as well as limiting non-essential Sunday driving. [2]
However, not all of the effects of the oil embargo were negative. Because the United States had to regulate how much oil it was consuming, new conservation efforts rose to the forefront. In order to conserve oil, more energy-efficient appliances and cars were created, buildings were constructed with better insulation leading to reduced use of heating and air-conditioning, mass transit was more widely used, and people refocused their efforts on alternative energy sources. [3] Because of these efforts, over 30 years, United States oil consumption rose only 11 percent. [3]
© Tierna Davidson. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] P. Allen, The Yom Kippur War (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982).
[2] J. M. Deutch, The Crisis in Energy Policy (Harvard University Press, 2011).
[3] K. Galbraith, "Certainties of the 1970s Energy Crisis Have Fallen Away," The New York Times, 2 Apr 11.
[4] "Annual Energy Review 2005," U.S. Energy Information Administration, July 2006, Fig. 11.10.
