“How will the coming rise in gas prices change the world“ asks Jeninne Lee-St. John on TIME.COM Christopher Steiner, author of the book $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. In his opinion at $10 a gallon (that’s € 2,65 per liter in Europe) gift cards will become biodegradable and have expiration dates and at $14 a gallon (€3,70/l) Wal-Mart might collapse and manufacturing in the U.S. would be reborn.

Probably also electric and hybrid cars might come into the game. But to get this shift to alternative ways of car power it needs to become part of our public reality. First step will now be done in Germany. One of the biggest energy suppliers, RWE, today presented its new electrical filling pump in Munich. The new pump which has been designed by designaffairs will soon be installed in Germany’s urban centres. Berlin alone will receive 1,000 pumps.

In the next days we then have to talk about what big amount of energy and raw materials the production of electric engines itself costs. Probably we have to think over our way of individual transport in the end? However – this is a good subject for the Blog Action Day ‘09 on Climate Change.