With the gas price unbelievably high this year, I am thinking, we all need to come up with an engine that doesn’t take gasoline to make it go. Recently a company in Daphne called Cello Energy was testing raw materials such as the stuff you use in compost piles and the oil from wheat, corn, barley, trees, and grasses to produce a diesel gasoline and kerosene called bio-diesel. What a great idea! Use the materials we have in abundance to fuel a truck. I wonder what the oil cartels of the world like OPEC would think of that idea. Finding a way to make our machines run without using their fuel takes a littleYank ingenuity and I think we are smart enough to do it. But this bio-diesel is only good for diesel machines. What about the common car? What can we do to relief the high cost of gasoline for our cars? Not much really. But we can encourage car companies to create cars with more gas saving mileage per gallon which might help us save our resources a little better.

Take Ethanol for instance. Ethanol, a clean burning fuel created from renewable resources like corn, would also greatly reduce our dependency on foreign oil. It is most commonly mixed with regular gasoline but the higher Ethenol fuel is called E85 which is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. It would take a little different engine to utilize this fuel but it is possible. There are major auto makers such as Ford, Chrysler, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and GM who do make several vehicles which use ethanol and are known as “Flexible Fuel” or “Flex Fuel” vehicles but not many. This is a start and maybe sometime in the future this Ethenol would be a way for us to cut down on using so much oil.

The next best way to save on gas is to take a few tips from the driving experts. Driving aggressively (as in speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gasoline. It can lower your gas mileage by a sizable amount (33 percent) on the highway if we drive sensibly. Not only do you save money at the pump but you will also drive better.

Also sharing rides would help save on everyone buying gas. If we were living in the city we could use a mass transit but that is not possible for most people around this area.

Who knows how long this high cost of gas will last. Something has to be done but what, I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to get back to the horse and buggy. Who knows. In any case, this motivates us to try and find more efficient ways to cut back on filling up at the bump.

Loxley resident Valerie J. Steimle is the author of two books, “Home Is Where The Heart Is, A look at strengthening the American Family,” and her latest book, “Home Is Where The Learning Is” (www.amazon.com/gp/product/1403379637). Contact her at valeriesteimle@yahoo.com or visit her website at www.stengthenyourhome.com.