Why is Petrol So Expensive in Britain?

[luinil]

cdude1034 said:

Kasz216 said:

luinil said:
It wouldn't. The US is spread out and not dense like most of Europe. If gasoline gets too expensive people won't be able to get around as easily, causing more economic pains than just those felt at the pump...

Solution = lower taxes + more production.

Yeah. I live in a suburb where you freaking need to take a car to get to the Bus line.

lower taxes + more production = more consumption + less supply for the future, which of course equals even more expensive gasoline in the future.

If it was just that simple, right? How about we remove the speculators and investors, they are the biggest driving force in the oil/gas market.

Or, we can all trade in our Hummers for Prius's. Nah, too simple. Of course doing either of these things isn't realistic, but people have to realize that the oil/gas market isn't as simple as High School Economics: Supply and Demand.

You do know that America has enough oil to supply itself for at 20-30 years, and in that time could develop new technologies for energy? This is the short term fix, the long term is to move to hydrogen, but only when it gets to be market feasible. If it is pushed on us before it is cheap enough we will be worse off than with oil. What needs to happen is to allow the oil companies to explore and recover the oil they find. We need to allow off-shore drilling as well. Cuba is drilling closer to Florida than the American oil companies are allowed to...

edit: Another option is to switch to Natural Gas. It does everything that we need it to and, we have more than we know what to do with. There are conversion kits to let your car run on NG already, but it costs like $2k, but then the fuel costs like $1.50 which you fill up at your house.