Transportation is an essential factor of the global economy and our urban environments.

It is executed by the various vehicles, which require energy in its most common form - gasoline.

Being a liquid substance capable of releasing considerable amount of energy when ignited,

gasoline is relatively convenient form of energy. However, despite its convenience, gasoline

poses detrimental consequences for environment by releasing its by-products into the

atmosphere, its raw resource is limited in the world, and its efficiency is low when it comes to

comparing it with other energy sources, like electrical engines. All these disadvantages will lead

to an economic and environmental crisis in five decades, if society continues using gasoline. Its

replacement with better alternatives can prevent the crisis and may even provide benefits. Not to

mention that prohibiting gasoline by law can trigger faster transition to substitutes.

First of all, the combustion of gasoline in engines releases gases such as carbon

monoxide (CO) and dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides and various hydrocarbons, which are

detrimental for the atmosphere and air environment. The greenhouse effect is one the

consequences of those gases. It means that some of them ruin the ozone layer by reacting with it,

others accumulate heat in the stratosphere. Their main threat, however, is typical air pollution

that makes the environment toxic for human respiration, which can become global threat because

of the increasing number of gasoline engines used everyday. $469 million are spent on

healthcare and climate-change restoration because of each billion gallons of gasoline being

produced and then burnt (Hill et al., 2009). This amount of money can be considered as a pattern

of increasing problems. If this cost was calculated in 2009, what would be expenses in 20 years?

One can estimate toxicity of emissions from gasoline engines by comparing it with alternatives

like ethanol engines. In study completed on rats (Massad et al., 1985) it was revealed that

gasoline fumes had higher acute toxicity than ethanol fumes, which demonstrates disadvantage
of gasoline regarding other fuel types, as rest of them are less toxic than ethanol. It is clear that

substitutes of gasoline are less harmful and thus its replacement will give positive effect for

environment.

Secondly, source of gasoline is not endless. It is produced by refining the crude oil, a

resource which will be exhausted one day because of how limited it is throughout the whole

world. But when? According to Kerr (1998) the most positive estimation is 50 years from now,

sceptics, however, state that the need for oil will decline sometime after 2020. More recent

studies show increasing supplies and a larger time line of exhaustion, which is 53 years

according to Tully (2014). As mentioned, gasoline has substitutes, including ones made from

renewable sources. For instance, hydrogen fuel, which has water as its by-product, can be

produced by electrolyzing water, fermentation from biomass or splitting water under high

temperature. Electrical engines may use electricity received from solar panels or windmills. The

fact that oil can be used in less time than century is enough to realize importance of transitioning

to a replacement for the gasoline.

Lastly, gasoline is not the most efficient source in terms of producing amount of energy

and using its percentage for the actual work. The efficiency of gasoline engines are no more than

50%, while other fuels have bigger percentages. Verhe, Maesschalck, Rombaut and Sierens

(2009) found out that hydrogen has better efficiency than gasoline by comparing both on bi-fuel

hydrogen/gasoline engines. Feldman (2014) says that Tesla, which is an electric car, spends only

320 Wh in order to travel one mile, while a gasoline powered car consumes 940 Wh for the same

distance. Efficiency is a parameter that not only determines convenience of the fuel, but it is also

a parameter, which is important from economic point of view, because it shows amounts of

different fuels to produce same outputs for the actual work, and according to provided studies,
gasoline engines consumes most joules to use it for actual output, which other fuels could do

with less joules. However, one should consider price per kilogram and thermal heat capacity of

each fuel.

It turns out that the price of hydrogenous substitutes per kilogram cost three times more

than gallon of gasoline, which is energetically equal. Some substitutes are more expensive than

gasoline itself and thus they are not profitable. This is the argument of people, who support the

continued use of gasoline. But despite its relatively low price, the global damage that gasoline

causes is incomparable to savings that people have by using it instead of hydrogen. Not to

mention, that there are less expensive substitutes like electric cars. The Sierra Club (n. d.)

company points out that it is possible to save money on gasoline by using electric car,

and expenditures would be cut by 74%. However, when it comes to electric replacement,

supporting gasoline opinions state that used and disposed batteries and expired accumulators

from electric cars pollute environment, which make them just as bad as gasoline. Recycling can

easily prevent such littering, even though it requires more energy, that mostly comes from fossil

fueled power plants, which is another argument of people who support gasoline. They state that

production of substitutes, such as batteries, hydrogen or electricity itself, requires a lot of energy

that is mostly generated by fossil fuels. It makes usage of substitutes pointless, as burning of

fossil fuel in power plants does the same harm as burning gasoline. This argument is true only

for today’s standards, because fossil can be and will be replaced by less harmful nuclear power

plants, that do not release toxic gases. Not to mention, that power plants based on renewable

sources of the energy can provide energy for production of substitute fuels as well. Norway

generates 96% of its energy through hydropower (Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, 2016) and

is an example of implementation of renewable sources.

 Prohibition of gasoline may not be immediate or crucial for today but its usage poses

threat in long term perspective. Society should at least begin transferring to substitutes, which are

happening. Otherwise, oil depletion becomes a sudden problem, which will cause economic

disaster. Environmental damage from the by-products of gasoline should also be taken into

consideration as well as rising price of gasoline average consumer have to pay for its low

efficiency. Prohibition by law could be necessary if it will help to motivate people to reject

gasoline.