This is the question people are asking as Australia moves into a decade in which CSIRO researchers predict fuel will skyrocket to $8 a litre at peak times, adding $250 to the weekly budget by 2018.

Country people depend on vehicles to run their farming enterprise and drive distances for services, education, employment, entertainment and sport. Unlike their city counterparts they don’t have the choice of a public transport system.

During a tour of southern and western NSW in July, NRMA Motoring and Services President Alan Evans and local director Graham Blight said the answer lies in greener alternative fuels and technologies.

Mr Evans has welcomed the Australian Government’s Green Paper, but stressed the importance of adjusting the fuel excise by the same amount petrol prices will increase as a result of the Carbon Reduction Scheme.

Visiting Holbrook, Mr Blight pointed out that Australia doesn’t have to rely on oil but has to find people with courage to go down the alternative fuel path.

“The technology is there, it’s a matter of getting the government and industry to do it,” he said.

With its two million members in NSW, the NRMA will use its Jamison report due out this week and other scientific reports to pressure the governments.

“Prepared by eminent scientists, the Jamison report is expected to provide a road-map on where we are going with alternative fuels,” Mr Blight said.

Alternative fuels of gas, ethanol and bio diesel are the answer to the rising price of oil, the NRMA leaders said.

“We have the technology to tap in to our own natural gas line with a converter and fill up the car.

“This can be done overnight while people are asleep and the vehicle will be ready to drive the following morning,” Mr Blight explained.

“We are a gas country not oil,” he explained referring to Australia natural gas reserves.

One of the reasons Australia is not using natural gas as fuel for vehicles and machinery is that there has to be specific investment for the service to happen.

Using natural gas as fuel could be in all communities that have natural gas.

“It’s happened in the USA - we have the technology and it’s not happening here. “We need to fix the problem, we need to think about it and encourage it to happen,” he said.

What about electricity and hydrogen? There are plenty of hydrogen cars being developed by Mercedes Benz, Honda and BMW and commercial production is expected to start in 2015.

Mr Blight drew attention to the potential of electric cars which are being trialled around the world with better batteries being developed coming out of space research.”