Peter - its exactly same as electricity. Yes i can walk most of time, and i do that actually, but i am living in small town and to get even to bigger shops to buy goods i need to drive. Same thing - in order to deliver goods to Durango - trucks needs to be driven. If they wont - delivery will fall on horses, which is interesting option, but i dont see, somehow, people going for it. My point is - you cant refuse from using it. You can increase economy, same as with electricity, but while you , as particular person, can stop using petrol - current economy will not even notice it. There is such thing as lobbying of interests, so more efficient and alternative engines would be blocked by that, untill those who block would run out of money to pay for lobbying. Good example of such thing - long life + brighter electrical bulbs. While stuff was invented dozen of years ago on how to make even old ones more efficient - its been bought in as patent and never made it to production lines b/c it was not good for manufacturers - they would sell less. There has been tons of inventions that followed such destiny. Including better petrol engines , and engines based on quite different priciiples from internal combustion ones...
Utahdog23 - cost of electricity will not go down b/c of lower consumption in one point.
Guys. Stop dreaming about "free market". Its not working like that. Look at the health insurance. How many of us really using it? Heck i havent been in doctor office for 8 years now. Yet i have to pay piles of money for it. And price going up each bloody year. I switched between few providers to find lower cost, but i know that none of my old providers lowered prices b/c of some people leaving. You have to have it. While you might not use it, some bod next to you - will. And price will go up.
Totally free market means anarchy anyway. B/c of potential alliance creation in order to raise prices. Portions of it still has to be regulated, while you not thinking about it
Yes States got some laws about it, but they arent really working very well (M$, anyone?)
Latest example - ask any person in Colorado how much their car insurance dropped after switching off "no-fault" model. Entire proposal was to drive insurance prices down. Ha, bloody, ha. "well we now have to offset costs somehow" is exact phrase of my (former) insurance agent.