My personal solution is I bought a bike. No, not a woman's genitals bum bicycle. A motorcycle. I’m getting about 45 mpg and it costs $15 or so to fill up the tank. I get to split lanes in traffic, so I’m not stuck on the freeways for hours. Plus, my girlfriend likes the vibrations and that saves time on foreplay.

Longer term, I’m looking at going diesel/biodiesel. Algae derived bioD isn’t there yet, but for the moment used cooking oil is free. No need to modify the engine since I’m in So Cal (warm temps means no preheating necessary) and I’m the DIY type (I can set up filters and a centrifuge for removing debris and glycerides, making the vegetable oil into “real” diesel). Even when too many people catch on and used cooking oil is no longer available for free, I imagine it will still be cheaper than gasoline.

Corn ethanol is a boondoggle, and we’re getting raped twice, once when we subsidize it with our taxes and again when we pay higher prices for fud. It’s not helping the American Farmer, since there are no farmers left. It’s all Big Ag, such as Archer Daniels Midland that is benefitting from Corn Ethanol. Cellulose based ethanol might be a possibility, but ethanol in general has many drawbacks, regardless of its source. (Example: Can’t be transported by pipeline due to volatility, so it must be transported by truck or rail.)

One more thing: I don’t commute. I work either at home or near home. I buy local and locally produced when I can.

Oh, and one more thing I should mention about Bio D from algae. The production process is scalable, meaning an individual could make it in his backyard, you could form or join a neighborhood coop, small businesses can get in on it, various levels and branches of government can make their own, and yes, even big business conglomerates can participate. In other words, Big Oil would be ****ed and we’d win.