It occurred to me that when fossil fuel becomes too expensive and the world supply of it dwindles and we are forced to move to an alternative source of energy, especially for transportation, how will governments that make a lot of revenue on taxing petrol and diesel survive without this stealth tax, it seems the more economic activity the more money is made as people will drive further take more holidays etc.

When the conversion to a more environmentally friendly mode of transport takes place, More buses that run on electric power more trains that are electric where will the government get the money that it relies on so much ?

I don’t think you can tax electricity more that it is, Ireland is one of the most expensive countries for electricity and that is set to continue, now that the recession has kicked in and we are slowly reaching the point that we will not pay the highest price any more. The realisation that we have got ripped off in the last 10 years or so, we only have ourselves to blame, as we excepted these high prices.

As the government know all too well now with VAT/Stamp duty on houses/ VRT are all in massive decline and the budget still in the RED, I think this will be a glimpse of the future.

Even if economic growth take off to again, I don’t see how it can, that another story. The fact that we rely so much on liquid Fossil fuel for a mean of transportation, I don’t see how we can change the system now without causing even greater amount of pain.

I travel up to Dublin for a good while over the last few weeks, the one thing that struck me is that we have a hell of a way to go in terms of public transport, we have an addiction to the car and its not going to change any time soon.

When I traveled on the Dublin motorway/M50 from Kilkenny what struck me was the amount of trucks. If it wasn’t a road I would have mistook them for a train. I past at least 5 trucks in a row and the more to the left and right of me. It would seem that we have invested huge amount of money in truck transportation, at a cost to transport via more traditional modes of transport, transport of freight on train that can pull 2000 tons V 20 tons for a truck which make more sense ?

The average price of a litre of petrol is about 1.12c and for diesel its 1.03c depending on where you go, what will happen when the price rises to 2 euro/ 3 euro a litre ? and the thing to remember is that there is vat on top of that. I think VAT + duty accounts for at least 60% of the cost of a litre liquid fuel and with the raw product set to rise the VAT on top will also rise.

The good thing when that will happen when the price of fuel rises to a threshold that the market cannot afford, something has to give, either the Government reduces the cost of the Duty and VAT on the raw product or people stop driving as much, the only thing I see about the not driving as much is that for most people that is not an option. Due to this governments planing permission we mostly live outside of the public transport system and this system is too expensive and to inflexible to be any use to all, but to tourists who have all the time to wait around for hours till the next train or bus arrives 2 – 3 hours later.

I do think a radical and painful shift to non fossil fuel will be the only way in which Ireland will be able to sustain itself in the coming years. I cannot find any information on what % of revenue generated is from fossil fuel and the transport industry, I suppose it gets lumped in with general excise duty, when I find the information I will post it and correct this post.

So what if any are the alternatives ? as I seem them not many, we can travel less, live where we work, better public transport.

There are ways of getting revenue from usage of a car, one way would be to introduce a toll for using the roads, or maybe a mileage card that need to be topped up ever once in a while.

Every time I put petrol in my car I think at what stage will it become too expensive for me to travel by car, I’m already paying 200 Euro a month and its getting more expensive as the months go by.

With an alternative to the ICE car a very distant future and public transport that is not going to get any better. How are people going travel to work. I’ve no idea what the solution is to all this but I don’t see an economic recovery unless as I said we make the transition to a better system of transport.