Home Heating Concerns

With oil prices over $80 per barrel, the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association in its press release today Record Home Heating Prices for Heating is expecting the average home heating cost for the ’08-’08 season to rise 9.9%. For homeowners using oil heat, heating costs are expected to increase 28% and for homes using propane, a 30% increase is expected.

With rising energy costs driven by costly oil extraction, the potential impact from carbon emissions with our continuing use of oil on climate change and rising sea levels, as well as the potential for fuel supply disruptions, could exacerbate our tenuous relationship with energy.

Eventually, as price rise dramatically, alternative energy becomes more compelling. The problem is our economy is so inextricably link to oil, that our energy security is based on securing foreign oil.

Figure 1 Oil Prices and Home Heating Costs

Without support and research on alternative energies such as solar and fuel cell technologies, we are hostage to oil. The U.S. economy is facing one of the most crises since the Oil Embargo of the 1973. Inflation driven by escalating oil prices is impacting the cost of home heating, transportation, production, materials, and food, particularly as corn is diverted to ethanol production. The housing market is in turmoil with falling home values, rising foreclosures, and a credit crisis that is making it more difficult to secure a mortgage may lead to slower consumer spending. With rising inflation and slower growth we may find ourselves in an economic world described as stagflation that was coined in the ’70’s to describe the bleak environment when gas stations rationed fuel, unemployment grew and the Federal Reserve raised rates dramatically to quell inflation.If we could limit our dependence on foreign oil through investment into solar energy and fuel cell technologies, we would not be impacted by the exogenous events in oil producing nations.

We believe there are a number of catalyst that could serve to dramatically lower the cost of alternative energies. It takes initiatives from all of us to change the balance. After all, oil is becoming more costly to extract, new oil discoveries are in difficult and challenging environments, and oil will eventually run out – it is finite. If we wait to long, our ability to make a difference may not be available.