With world oil price at $40/barrel and dropping.... Is ethanol still viable?

[donbuggy]

What if our government imposed a higher fuel tax?

Reasons:
1) To encourage people to switch to vehicles with better fuel economy.
2) To encourage people to take public transportation.
3) The additional revenue can be used to pay for alternative energy research.

[rion]

the dillima is still fresh, the downfall of world economy is also contributed by high prices of oil. I believe alternative fuel solution will stay... unless by 2012 40$/barrel parin.

btw, recently, I have seen increase of vehicle running on the roads again. or maybe just a normal figures on holiday season?...

[ghosthunter]

What if our government imposed a higher fuel tax?

Reasons:
1) To encourage people to switch to vehicles with better fuel economy.
2) To encourage people to take public transportation.
3) The additional revenue can be used to pay for alternative energy research.

4) To encourage more corruption to line the politico's pockets with even more public money.

IMHO, it won't happen. And when did the philippine government really spent for anything for REAL research into alternative sources of energy? All we do is take what is already available in other countries and stamp our own label on it and say it was developed by "pinoys". This includes windfarms, solar power systems, ethanol, bio-diesel, and electric vehicles.

Another is with the coming election, raise fuel prices by imposing another tax will be too unpopular with the masses who need cheaper fuel like taxis, jeeps, buses and the private cars as well.

[ghosthunter]

btw, recently, I have seen increase of vehicle running on the roads again. or maybe just a normal figures on holiday season?...

Normal for the season. This is the season I cut down on my driving simply because it takes me more than twice the time to get anywhere in the metro.

Just like yesterday, what typically takes me 30 minutes to drive, took me nearly 1.5 hours because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic at all the roads between point A and B.

[uls]

btw, recently, I have seen increase of vehicle running on the roads again. or maybe just a normal figures on holiday season?...

Holidays and also those people who abandoned their cars when fuel prices was sky high are now driving their cars again

the downfall of world economy is also contributed by high prices of oil

yup oil is part of it

$140+ per barrel oil pushed the world into recession

[niky]

What if our government imposed a higher fuel tax?

Reasons:
1) To encourage people to switch to vehicles with better fuel economy.
2) To encourage people to take public transportation.
3) The additional revenue can be used to pay for alternative energy research.

1. Fuel prices already do that. And as we have a huge increase in tax once you move from economy cars to "luxury" cars with bigger motors, as well as a large increase in registration costs (amazing what's considered "luxury" nowadays by the LTO), this is just doubling the cost for people. I'd rather they lowered taxes for vehicular purchase and registration and tax the fuel alone... people who use more gasoline use the roads more, and they can take the cost for road maintenance out of the fuel.

I've always felt this should be the way to go. One person who uses his Honda Civic to go tens of thousands of kilometers every month for various "road tripping" reasons makes the Philippines more oil-dependent than a family that uses its SUV to go to the malls once a week. The person who actually uses more gas should pay more tax... not the other way around.

2. Of course, if we increase taxes on fuel... will we exempt public transport? They already get a tax cut on fuel... and yet they complain the loudest. If we, the private motorists pay, everyone should pay.

3. GH already mentioned the problems with this. I'd rather they put that money into our road infrastructure.