By Jeremy Scott Diamond, Lynn Doan, David Marino, Dan Murtaugh / December 11, 2014

America Is Shaking Off Its Addiction To Oil

Gasoline in the U.S. is the cheapest it's been since 2010. Gas has dropped more than $1 per gallon from this year’s high and in some cities a gallon costs less than $2.

At the same time, the U.S. shale boom has propelled domestic oil production to the highest level in three decades.

With so much cheap oil available you’d expect consumption to be soaring—yet that isn't happening.

In fact, the U.S. is consuming the least oil per dollar of gross domestic product in more than 40 years.

Oil consumption and GDP once moved roughly in tandem. That link has been severed. Now GDP continues to rise as oil demand bounces between 18 million and 20 million barrels a day.

Economists at the U.S. Energy Department forecast that U.S. gasoline consumption in 2015 will be flat, and may even contract. What’s going on here?

They point to several possible explanations.

Cars are becoming more fuel efficient.

Demand for gas is waning as more baby boomers retire and drive less.

Young people are migrating to cities...

... and they're using public transit more than previous generations.

Americans are also increasingly turning to renewable fuels including wind and solar.

As oil consumption has fallen and production has risen, imports to the U.S. have dropped.

That means we don’t need to buy as much oil from countries like these…

…or from OPEC countries as a whole.

Oil is plentiful enough that exports of U.S. crude shot up in 2014.

The U.S. has supplied 89 percent of the energy it's consumed this year. That's up 2 percentage points from 2013—inching the nation closer to the elusive goal of energy independence.