How could we consumers turn about the gas price debate?

Question

Every one is talking about it, and every one complains. Gas prices are going through the roof and continue soaring. for many people the gas bill is becoming near to unaffordable. And it's mainly due to people that artificially jack up the price. the thing that always struck me most is that we developed the technology to ensure mobility without using Gasoline over 20 years ago (hydrogen, electricity, ethanol,...), but still due to pressure of the Gasoline lobby, the industry continues to produce gasoline based vehicles. now use your brains for an instant and think on how as consumers we could bring about change in this. how could we step up our efforts to free us from slavery of gasoline and have the automotive industry work at alternatives for transport.

Greatest answer get's 10 points

Answer 1

If you have a diesel- use cooking oil- thats exactly what im doing. Restaurants will give it to you for nothing (better than paying a company to take it away). If you have a gasoline, get LPG. Other than that, protest at every opportunity. Other than that, no chance.

Answer 2

You are right in that people are complaining.

What i do find suprising though, and this is what always gets me thumbs down but no-one ever has a sensible reply, is that many people still accelerate and brake hard and drive speeds much higher than necessary.

We could all save 20% fuel, effectively reducing the price by 20%, if we accelerated more gently, and drove at 50/60 on A roads or 70 on the motorway.

but people don't, they continue to tear around, it hardly looks like they are trying to conserve fuel.

People have the opportunity, today, to reduce thier fuel bill by 20%

I also see, and this also attracts lots of thumbs down with no replies as to why this is the case, that out-of-town retail outlets are jam-packed full of cars with people choosing to drive many miles to buy unnesessary clothes.

If petrol really was such a genuine problem for those people, why do they make unnecessary journies ??

So, until the driving behaviour of people changes it all seems like a lot of moaning and i suspect the government think the same.

Once they see people being unable to function / get to work, then they will do something about the taxation.

People need to help themselves first.

Right, now onto the other part of your question about replacement technologies.

All fuels will increase in price to a level that the comsuner can absorb. We've all proven we can absorb the curretn costs, so this will be the target for any future fuel technology.

Forget chip fat, forget biofuel. They are cheap now because they are sold as loss-leaders to create a demand and dependacny - thats execatly what happend with diesel. It was chepa because only farmers and lorries used it. Now many people have diesel cars, gues what ?? Yep, the price is higher than petrol

Chipfat will only be cheap while a minority use it, once he demand rises, so will the price.

Biofuel is unsustainable - the current level of land given over to bio-fule is already affecting crop prices. And the biofule market is currently tiny. As it increases the pressure on food-agricultural land will be too high to sustain bio-fuel.

Battery ?

These will work as they can be recharged by a variey of sources - the fuel / energy companies haven't got everyone over a barrel with this as many people / factories / land owners can install low-output wind famrs / soalr panels.

Hydrogen cells ?

These will probably work but you can guess what will happen to the cost of a hydrogen re-charge

No, the real problem is that we have all proved to the insutries how much we are willing to pay for fuel. That lesson will never be forgotten by industry and any technology will be "grown" to absorb that money.

The real answer is to reduce your dependancy on your personal transport.