When you remove the oil companies' government *subsidies* and *tax breaks*, fossil fuels are about twice as expensive than their current prices (some studies put the actual cost at some 15 times current prices). The U.S. government hands out billions in subsidies and tax breaks to oil companies to offset their fossil fuel production costs, costs which, if passed to the consumer, would make fossil fuels much more expensive than they appear at the pump. Nuclear isn't much better. Its cheap only because of, again, government tax breaks and subsidies. Ethanol is silly if you only consider it as a replacement for gasoline, without doing anything to reduce consumption of fuel. Ethanol is less efficient, so you need more of it than gasoline. To replace the U.S.'s current consumption of gasoline with ethanol, we would need to take up three entire Earth-equivalents annual grain production to cover one year of U.S. fuel consumption, leaving no grain for food. "Switchgrass" or "cellulosic" ethanol, made from grass clippings and grain stalks, is at least ten years away. Solar has a large upfront cost, but practically no maintenance thereafter. Some new solar technologies can be run at night (solar thermal solutions can store additional unused daytime heat up in "thermal batteries" for nighttime power generation). Using *current* solar technology (about 15% efficiency solar panels, meaning 15% of light striking the panel is converted into electricity), a square of Arizona desert land 92 miles on a side, fitted with solar panels across its entire area, would generate *all* of the U.S.'s current annual electrical power needs, for *decades* without more than light maintenance. If we ever hit ~100% efficiency solar panels, an area *one mile square* in the Arizona desert could generate *all* of the U.S.'s current annual electrical power needs. One point which should be made is that the 92-miles-on-a-side square area need not be covered entirely with just solar panels. Existing solar technology permits lenses to be used to concentrate a wider area of sunlight onto a smaller area of solar panel (say a 3 foot diameter lens concentrating sunlight onto a 1 foot diameter solar panel), improving the energy output of the smaller solar panel. Solar energy can also be used to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen, the former for use in hydrogen fuel cell locations in remote areas of the country where power lines couldn't run. What is even cooler is that areas which still get sunlight could have solar panels which convert the water emissions from the fuel cell back into hydrogen to re-fuel the fuel cell, like routing the fuel cell's "tailpipe" back into the fuel tank for more power. Something you just can't do with a regular fossil fuel-based engine. Wind power and wave/tide-power have their possibilities, but they both involve moving parts and thus regular maintenance issues. Only solar can be run without moving parts (slightly more efficiently with motors that turn the panels to face the sun, but that isn't essential). The problem with questions like yours is that our energy crisis will never get fixed by asking questions worded as you have worded them. The obvious response to a question worded like that is that most people will elect to use up the remaining heavily-subsidized fossil fuels rather than get a direct personal hit to their own pocketbooks. What needs to happen is something on a much grander scale, which spreads the cost of alternative energy over the entire population. Solar would be the obvious choice, to make a big expenditure on improving our energy production which then drops to a very small annual expenditure on light maintenance.

As eternal void said in a more-than-perfect answer, fossil fuels are expensive as hell and there are plenty of cheaper alternatives - solar power, windfarms, etc. None of that ethanol nonsense.

Yes, I would pay more, but I don;t know how much.

Yes. I'll do my part.

I've read that cellulosic alcohol can be made for 0.78 per gallon. Works or me! We don't HAVE to convert the entire infrastructure to alcohol. Even 10% would make a big impact on oil prices. And alcohol can be used more easily than practically any other alternative. The corn argument is a straw man. We NEED to start using fuels that don't contribute to global warming. Petroleum products without exception add CO2 to the biosphere. At least alcohol recycles what's already there. Cellulosic alcohol is ten years away? If we do nothing about it now, it will NEVER arrive.