I have a house in the Hudson Valley, and switched from HO to propane last year.  When I made my deal for this coming winter (last week), my supplier accused me of having prophetic insight, as the moderate propane price increase is way under the significant HO increase contemplated - in fact, they haven't set the HO price yet, as they are that concerned about customer acceptance.

I know that I have always focussed on vehicles in relation to oil, but in reality getting people off of home heating oil is likely to be somewhat easier.  There aren't the technical obstacles that there are with vehicles.  I haven't even thought about what the optimum types of heating systems would be, really.

I have this idea rattling around in my brain like a loose marble - that if fuel prices reach a certain point (not sure what that point is), that governments would institute rationing in an attempt to hold down demand, and thereby control inflation.  The problem is of course that this would almost need to be instituted on an international level first or otherwise prices would never stabilize.  What would make this even harder is coming up with an equitable way determining who gets how much.  Just like everything else, people would try and figure out ways to game the system to get more than the system intended.