Oil alternatives remain elusive: Could we not just try to use less?

In the early 19th century, while a young Charles Dickens toiled for six shillings a week in a decrepit London boot-blacking factory and went home to a darkened room, the wealthy enjoyed the fragrant glow of spermaceti oil candles burning in their chandeliers. This remarkably clear and aromatic oil was harvested from the huge head of the sperm whale, driving the creature of Moby Dick fame toward the brink of extinction.

The beginning of the end of the whale oil age came in 1858, when James Miller Williams managed to produce what was then called "natural rock oil" from a well near the present-day towns of Oil Springs and Petrolia, Ont. The following year, in Titusville, Penn., Edwin Drake filled a 42-gallon wooden whisky barrel with the first U.S. oil production. Initially, the oil was refined mainly into kerosene, and before long, kerosene lamps lit up the night in more than just the homes of the wealthy.

Electric lights eventually replaced kerosene lamps, but when the first Model T rolled off the production line in 1908, Henry Ford launched the modern personal transportation revolution and fuelled it with oil. Today, the world uses over 85 million of those 42-gallon barrels of oil every day, and the U.S. Energy Administration forecasts consumption will grow to 120 million barrels by 2030.

There are important reasons to keep that from happening. Many would say reason No. 1 is the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Another important cause for concern is that, with the exception of self-sufficient Canada, Western countries are increasingly dependent on volatile or untrustworthy oil producers. The other side of that supply-dependency coin is just as worrying ... the transfer of trillions of dollars of the West's diminishing financial resources to these same governments.

Then there are the peak oil analysts, who believe the world's oil resources aren't capable of sustaining further production growth, and I think they have a valid case. One would think skyrocketing prices would temper oil demand but rapid industrial growth, combined with vastly improved personal buying power throughout the Indo-Asian region, has kept oil demand on an upward slope.

While natural rock oil came along just in time to save the whales and light up Charles Dickens' writing desk, attempts at its displacement are proving futile. A decade ago, the prospect of fuel-cell vehicles powered by hydrogen emerged as the big green hyped hope. But the hydrogen highway has become a road to nowhere, owing to the cost and technical challenges of fuel-cell vehicles combined with the fact that hydrogen is manufactured from already tight supplies of natural gas.

The latest green bullet aimed at oil is biofuel, in the form of adding ethanol to gasoline and vegetable oils to diesel fuel. The ethanol production process, basically the same as for whisky, involves fermenting a cereal crop and then distilling it to produce alcohol.

U.S. energy policy targets the displacement of 36 billion U.S. gallons with biofuel, a whopping 20 per cent of gasoline consumption by 2017. Meeting this biofuel target would require the cultivation, harvesting, fermentation and distillation of enough corn to produce the equivalent of 450 billion bottles of whisky a year. A sobering prospect, so to speak. Canada and the European Union have mandated somewhat less ambitious, but still substantial, levels of biofuel production currently derived mainly from seed grains and corn.

Until recently, the most damaging criticism of fuel ethanol has been that the hydrocarbons consumed by farm tractors, fertilizer and in alcohol distillation takes almost as much hydrocarbon energy as contained in the ethanol produced, while subsidized intensive-farming practices result in the destruction of wildlife habitat and unsustainable water use. Vegetable-oil-based biofuels have been widely criticized for causing rampant burning of rain forests for palm oil plantations. Previously supportive environmental groups are finally adding their voices to the chorus questioning whether biofuels are doing more environmental damage than good.

Now, the smouldering debate has erupted into full-fledged attack fingering biofuel as one of the causes of a global food shortage threatening the world's poorest and most vulnerable. The "renewable fuel" solution has been transformed into a "food for fuel" moral and social pariah. Food riots are erupting, Indian and African leaders are calling for a halt to the West's biofuel programs; a UN food envoy is calling biofuels "a crime against humanity."

In the face of this growing firestorm, American and Canadian politicians are stubbornly defending their biofuel laws. EU spokesmen do the same; although France, Germany and Britain appear to be close to breaking ranks. It's only fair to point out that the degree to which biofuels are contributing to the world food crisis is unknown. But there can be no doubt that the diversion of grains, corn and edible oils from food to fuel will dramatically increase if the enormous biofuel targets of the United States, the EU and Canada are to be met.

The bottom line is that oil is a very difficult fuel to replace, and the alternatives tried so far have been ineffective or damaging. Yet, continuing growth in world oil consumption is a recipe for environmental stress, financial dependency and supply vulnerability. It is a basic human trait that we seldom change our habits if we can find any excuse not to.

When it comes to oil, false green panaceas only delay the fundamental changes needed to just use less.

Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO of EnCana Corp.