It cost me $800 to fill the oil tank this week - this is the third fill this season - the average PEI home uses 3,000 litres or over $3,000 a season right now.
This chart shows the cost of gas since 1920 - in effect the costs since we started using oil as the core of our system.
It does not include 2011 when prices went right back up to the highs of 2008.
What does this tell us about what we will face in the next 5 or 10 years?
I think that we need to start to all talk about what our dependence on oil and electricity from away means. For PEI spends $200 million a year on heating oil. A double means that we are sending $400 million off the Island each year at a time when about half of Islanders will be living on a meagre pension.
I don't have a magic plan - other than we have to become ebergy self sufficient. I have not a clue of how we might pull this off - but surely we have to start to talk about this?
