Author sees oil crisis coming -- Page 1 -- TimesUnion.com


ALBANY -- It may be time to start riding your bike to work, if you believe what author and academic Richard Heinberg said Friday at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Albany.
Heinberg is author of "The Party's Over," a book about the impending oil crisis and is a faculty member at New College of California in San Francisco. He was at the hotel to address the Capital Region Energy Forum. The event was organized by the Center for Economic Growth, an Albany-based economic development group.
It's not that Heinberg doesn't appreciate what fossil fuels such as petroleum and natural gas do to power the global economy, he just isn't sure there's going to be a lot around much longer. He said that by some estimates, the world's demand for oil could start outpacing production within two to four years.
"It looks to me like it's very close in time," Heinberg said.
So what does that mean to consumers and business owners in the Capital Region? High gas prices with no end in sight.
He said long gone are the days of oil selling for $20 or even $30 a barrel. The current price of oil is about $70 per barrel, and in the Capital Region, the price of regular unleaded gasoline is $2.89 per gallon, up from $2.19 a year ago, according to AAA.
"We are going to be experiencing price increases," he said. "We are in a new pricing era for oil."
Heinberg also said that supply constraints for natural gas would push up the price on that fuel, which is increasingly used to heat homes and generate electricity.
So what are we to do? Heinberg says we have to invent new energy technologies and conserve fossil fuels, which is good news for Capital Region companies like DayStar Technologies Inc., PlugPower Inc., Mechanical Technology Inc. and General Electric Co. that are developing alternative energy technologies such as solar cells, fuel cells and wind turbines.
"We should start getting to work immediately with a crash program," he said. "I think we should be developing wind and solar as fast as we can."
He also said we need to start driving our cars less.
"We need walkable communities," he said. "This isn't just about being green. This is about surviving as communities."