My favorite dashboard meter on the Mercedes I just sold plotted instantaneous miles per gallon over time. The engineer in me kept an eye on MPG as I accelerated onto an autobahn. If I launched from a dead stop to, say, 70 miles per hour in 30 seconds, the MPG meter would hover around 10. Once I arrived at 70 MPH the meter would settle in at about 20 MPG. And if I coasted down to 35 MPH, the meter would rise to 40 MPG.

Here is a simple graph comparing acceleration of a 2014 Mercedes ML350 (white with dark brown seats) with miles per gallon:

(Sidebar: By the way, engineers know that “acceleration” doesn’t just mean getting faster and faster and faster. Acceleration can ALSO mean getting slower and slower and slower. But it can ALSO mean staying the same speed – your “acceleration” is simply zero if your speed is constant. This ALSO means that the brake on your Ford F-150 is an accelerator, but I digress.)

What if oil production is like my former Mercedes ML350? What if you could think of the investment required to raise or lower oil output as a form of MPG?

For example, to keep my Mercedes going at 60 miles per hour, I had to buy 1 gallon of gas every 20 miles; but if I wanted to RAISE my speed, I had to buy 2 gallons of gas every 20 miles. If I wanted to keep my US oil production flat at 10 million barrels per day, I needed to spend $50B every year; but if I wanted to RAISE my oil production, I’ve got to spend twice that - $100B every year.

Conversely if I want to slow my car from 60 MPH to 30 MPH I need to buy only half a gallon of gas every 20 miles; and if I want to drop my US oil production from 10 million barrels per day to 5 million, I’ve got to spend only $25B.

Here’s the point: To launch my car onto the highway, I’ve got to pour enormous amounts of gas into the fuel injectors. If I want to coast to a stop, I need only a few cups of fuel. The world does not need (or want) the US to produce 13 million barrels of oil every day. Maybe it needs only 6 or 7. This is why spending on drilling, completing and producing wells is falling in half in 2020.