List of ways to save oil in transportation

Let me count the ways

Top-down (Government regulations)

1. Lower speed limits (Conservation)
2. Raise fuel taxes (Disincentive)
3. Lower vehicle weight/power standards (Conservation)
4. Raise CAFE standards (General efficiency)

Bottom-up (Consumer choice, vehicle/fuel)

1. Bicycle (pedal power)
2. Mo-ped/motorcycle (Gasoline)
3. Hybrids/plug-in vehicles (Gasoline/electric)
4. Flex-fuel vehicles (E85) (Gasoline/Ethanol)
5. Diesel/Bio-diesel vehicles (Diesel/biodiesel)
6. Natural-gas vehicles (NG)

What does "flex-fuel" mean - just E85 or gasoline?
http://www.agriculture.state.ia.us/e85vehicles.html E85 Flex-Fuel Vehicles (FFV):

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/flextech.shtml - any mixture of gasoline and ethanol

Here's a website for a coalition supporting immediate solutions to reduce oil demand:
http://www.setamericafree.org

http://www.setamericafree.org/blueprint.pdf

• Hybrid electric vehicles: There are already thousands of vehicles on America’s roads that combine hybrid engines powered in an integrated fashion by liquid fuel-powered motors and battery-powered ones. Such vehicles increase gas-consumption efficiency by 30-40%.
• Ultralight materials: At least two-thirds of fuel use by a typical consumer vehicle is caused by its weight. Thanks to advances in both metals and plastics, ultralight vehicles can be affordably manufactured with today's technologies and can roughly halve fuel consumption without compromising safety, performance or cost effectiveness.
• “Plug-in” hybrid electric vehicles: Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are also powered by a combination of electricity and liquid fuel. Unlike standard hybrids, however, plug-ins draw charge not only from the engine and captured braking energy, but also directly from the electrical grid by being plugged into standard electric outlets when not in use. Plug-in hybrids have liquid fuel tanks and internal combustion engines, so they do not face the range limitation posed by electric-only cars. Since fifty-percent of cars on the road in the United States are driven 20 miles a day or less, a plug-in with a 20-mile range battery would reduce fuel consumption by, on average, 85%. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can reach fuel economy levels of 100 miles per gallon of gasoline consumed.
• Flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs): FFVs are designed to burn on alcohol, gasoline, or any mixture of the two. About four million FFV's have been manufactured since 1996. The only difference between a conventional car and a flexible fuel vehicle is that the latter is equipped with a different control chip and some different fittings in the fuel line to accommodate the characteristics of alcohol. The marginal additional cost associated with such FFV-associated changes is currently under $100 per vehicle. That cost would be reduced further as volume of FFVs increases, particularly if flexible fuel designs were to become the industry standard.
• Flexible fuel/plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: If the two technologies are combined, such vehicles can be powered by blends of alcohol fuels, gasoline, and electricity. If a plug-in vehicle is also a FFV fueled with 80% alcohol and 20% gasoline, fuel economy could reach 500 miles per gallon of gasoline.

If by 2025, all cars on the road are hybrids and half are plug-in hybrid vehicles, U.S. oil
imports would drop by 8 million barrels per day (mbd). Today, the United States imports
10 mbd and it is projected to import almost 20 mbd by 2025. If all of these cars were also
flexible fuel vehicles, U.S. oil imports would drop by as much as 12 mbd.

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I'm glad there are some choices that can exist now although evaluating benefits in cost/oil-consumption/pollution are not trivial and I can't guess. I still lean towards higher oil consumption taxes to encourage weening earlier. I like the idea of the government being able to set goals on oil consumption and have a mechanism to reach the goals.

Given that oil shortage is the primary threat, it makese sense to diversify. Technology IS the answer in the sense of giving choices. But I'm still upset that conservation can't easily fit into the debate as framed.

More later