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Pique'n'yer interest

The price of gas

It’s only been a month since oil broke $100 per barrel for the first time ever, a landmark which comes less than four years after oil first broke the $50 barrier. As I write this column the price is hovering around   $108 a barrel, and experts are projecting the price to go to $120 in the next year — possibly by the summer.

When Dubya Bush was elected in 2000, the price of oil was $35 a barrel, which means that the cost of the raw material we use to make plastics and gasoline has tripled in less than a decade. While the price at the gas pump hasn’t tripled as well — a function of more efficient refining, higher prices curbing demand, and other market forces — it’s looking pretty bleak.

How much influence U.S. foreign policy and economic policy has had on the price of oil is debatable, and would be irrelevant anyway in a few years as worldwide demand outstrips our current supply. These are the days of peak oil, not to mention peak profits for oil companies that are cashing in. Some critics are accusing the oil companies of anti-trust practices, essentially working as a bloc within the market to keep their margins high while profiteering from global situations like the war in Iraq, sanctions on Iran, conflict in Africa, and shaky economies and currency markets.

The oil companies themselves blame speculators for driving the price of oil up with the expectation that people will continue to pay more for the commodity. They’re betting the price of oil will continue to go up and up and stand to make a lot of money if the price surges again to $120.

Whatever the reasons behind higher prices at the pump, it’s time the world woke up to the fact that a century of petroleum-fueled growth is over. It’s the beginning of the end of an era, and change is coming.

That said, we will never run out of oil. As the supply diminishes its value will go up like any other rare substance or commodity, and make hard-to-reach or hard-to-refine deposits of fossil fuels more cost-effective to produce. We also still have huge reserves of coal, which can be processed into liquid fuel.

That, at least, is the paradigm that the oil and gas companies are clinging to, but ignores the fact that recent developments in alternative and renewable energy are driving the cost of alternative fuel sources lower at the same time the cost of gas is going up. When those two lines on the energy graph meet, marking an “x” on the page, the world will shift gears.

I’m not talking about biofuels, which require a lot of energy to produce and drive up the price of food, or other cellulose-based fuels, although these fuels will be needed for a long time for large vehicles like boats, planes, trains and trucks.

The next generation of fuel will be renewable, and will be based entirely on producing and storing raw energy.

For example, several solar companies have recently announced breakthroughs in manufacturing and efficiency that put the cost of solar energy on par with or cheaper than the cost of coal energy. Wind power is becoming more efficient while at the same time designs are becoming more user-friendly — like the Helix Wind Turbine that can be placed on the roof of any house to cut power bills.

The problem right now is storage and delivery, which is key to our whole way of life. Our oil-based economy offers instant gratification, the ability to fill your gas tank and drive until you need to fill up again. Charging the batteries of an electric vehicle still takes several hours, and your range is far more limited. People will shy away from buying electric vehicles as long as they limit your mobility.

Vehicles that have a backup gasoline engine to recharge the batteries stand a better chance in the market, but they don’t really exist just yet.

That leaves hydrogen, which could be a good transitional fuel for society until batteries can be charged instantly. There are still some obstacles to overcome — fuel cells need to be changed frequently, which adds cost, storage is challenging, vehicles have less range than vehicles that run on fossil fuels, and there is currently no infrastructure available to fuel up. One legacy of the Olympics is to create a Hydrogen Highway from Vancouver to Whistler with refueling stations in Sea to Sky communities, so infrastructure may not be an issue for too much longer. Still, people will need a second vehicle, or a vehicle that runs on several different types of fuels if they ever want to the leave the Hydrogen Highway.

At this point nobody is really sure exactly what hydrogen will really cost in terms of mileage, or when members of the public will be able to purchase vehicles, but luckily we’re a little behind the times — while we figure out how to implement a hydrogen program, countries like Sweden and Iceland have already worked out most of the kinks for public transportation systems. Our own system will eventually be part of a longer hydrogen highway running from California to Alaska and will have to conform to a broader standard, but that only makes the conversion easier in the long run. It’s all about numbers at this point and achieving a critical mass is key — the more hydrogen cars that are sold, the more refilling stations that will appear, and, eventually, the lower the cost to consumers.

In the meantime, it’s possible that gas prices will climb to $1.40 a litre this summer, and will stay high for the near future. For Whistler, which relies on rubber tire traffic to fill rooms and restaurants, an affordable alternative to fossil fuels can’t come fast enough.