Environment Editor Tony Henderson on why fuel at £6 a gallon may one day seem like peanuts.

THE grumbling has started as petrol prices reach £6 a gallon. But what happens when it costs £1,000 to fill up the tank of your car? That is the question posed by Durham University professor of energy Richard Davies.

He will be among a panel of experts at a public debate at Durham University on Wednesday, entitled Is Britain Prepared for a Life After Oil?

The day will come, says Prof Davies, when oil is so prohibitively costly that it will only be used for specific, important purposes and the idea of burning such a highly-concentrated form of energy is regarded as simply mad.

But people continue to consume oil as if there was no tomorrow.

“We need a debate to get people’s heads out of the sand,” says Prof Davies, who is also head of the university’s Durham Energy Institute, a world leader in research into renewable sources of energy, energy security and the efficient use of energy resources.

Wednesday’s high-powered debate will include environmentalist Jonathon Porritt and Alistair Buchanan, chief executive of Ofgem, which regulates the electricity and gas markets in Britain.

The event, which is being hosted by the Durham Energy Institute and the university’s Institute of Advanced Study, will examine questions such as:

Should we already be weaning ourselves off fossil fuel dependence?

What will be the shape of our economy and everyday lives when oil is no longer widely available?

How will we meet our transport and domestic energy needs? What are the alternatives?

“This is one of the biggest challenges we face,” says Prof Davies.

“It will get to the point where it costs so much to get oil out of the ground and it is so expensive that demand will drop.

“Oil will become such a very precious resource that to burn it, as we have done for the last 100 years, would be crazy.

“But at present we are using a huge percentage of oil for transport and heating.”