A Solar Panel placed in the Mojave Desert with a surface area of 100 square miles would produce enough electricity to power the US with more to spare.

Basically there are alternatives. It's the oil companies clambering for survival who are preventing it.

Why couldn't the company move to something like, say a Chevron Charging station?

Because that means they got to get rid of all their oil drilling, exploring equipment, not to mention all the oil related jobs. And they don't want to lose all that investment and don't want to lose their oil jobs either.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

Basically there are alternatives. It's the oil companies clambering for survival who are preventing it.

There are no "good" alternatives...yet.

Biofuel is a temporary solution but it still requires gasoline (except for Sunflower oil which South African Farmers are using). I support hydrogen fuel cells as hydrogen as its totally clean and inexhaustible. It will be cheap too the moment they have improved the hydrogen refining process so that they can refine it from ocean water instead of coal.

Your right on the second part. The oil industry knows fossil fuel days are numbered, but they are trying their damnest to maintain their monopoly as long as they can by slowing all future techs to a crawl.

As for the Poll. In the UK its already over $5 a galleon.

Prices have to come down a bit... or Oil prices have to keep climbing so that the price for the alternatives don't look so damn expensive anymore!
Fitting southern sides of buildings with solar panel glass (such things exists) would be a good start. More investments into wind towers (Europe is going nuts about wind towers and that's very smart) and tide powered power plants...
As for cars... USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION if you live in a developed country where it is faster if you just take the damn subway! You burn calories by walking too.
Also I thought it would be nice if buildings opened their roofs and turned them into building community gardens. This would bring a cooling effect on the urban heat islands.
- The 13th Shameless Tree Hugger.

^A Successful, well liked alternative to Gas cars that was put out of production because corporate bigwigs preferred this (below) and because of the change of administration and the resurgence of Big Oil.