Mideast unrest points out need for energy diversity

It's deja vu for those of us who remember the oil crisis of the early 1970s.

Instead of OPEC against the United States, however, it's the people of many Arab countries against the families and dictatorships that have ruled them for decades.

The effect will be the same, however, pain at the gasoline pump.

We already saw record high gasoline prices for February, and thanks to the unrest in Libya, we'll probably watch the numbers climb as warmer weather arrives -- light, sweet crude oil for April delivery climbed almost 9 percent on the New York Mercantile Exchange, to $97.64.

That's not all bad news for Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas, where prices spur more activity in the oil patch; and it's also more momentum for the TransCanada Corp., trying to push a crude oil pipeline across Nebraska.

But higher oil prices also hurt most of us living on the Golden Plains -- we rely on diesel fuel to deliver our food, clothes and other necessities, as well as haul away the grain and other products we create to earn our livelihood. It takes many gallons of gasoline for us to make it to work and get our kids to school in our sparsely populated region.

Nebraska's survived the "Great Recession" relatively well, but like the rest of the nation -- make that the world -- we'll have a difficult time climbing out of the economic hole with the weight of higher priced gasoline slowing us down.

It seems free market forces -- cheap gasoline -- conspired with inertia and perhaps more sinister powers to keep us from properly preparing for the next oil crisis.

Like any aspect of energy, there is not one single answer to higher oil prices. Yes, we need more exploration and production, as well as ability to deliver crude to the refineries like that which will be provided by the oil pipeline across our state.

But we also need to reduce our dependence on gasoline. Hybrid and all-electric cars are poised to boom in the coming years, and state governments are already being forced to supplement highway construction funding that has been provided by fuel taxes.

Until we truly diversify our sources of energy -- and that includes wind, biofuels, hydro, solar and nuclear as well as coal and oil -- we can only watch unrest in oil producing countries with alarm.