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The world may soon achieve something long dreamed of by governments and policymakers: higher economic growth without using more oil.
Rising efficiency, conservation and substitution are steadily reducing the amount of oil needed to fuel an increase in the goods and services produced around the world.
Oil demand in the rich, industrialized countries of the West already appears to have peaked and the trend in developing economies is toward an ever-smaller increase in the amount of oil consumed for every extra unit of economic growth.
Global oil intensity -- oil demand growth divided by economic growth -- has
fallen by about
2 percent a year over the last decade and
the decline is now
accelerating, spurred by high oil prices, moves to alternative fuels and measures to curb global warming."