Energy Probe

Is the United States running out of natural gas?

With most things we buy, the price isn't much of a moving target. It can vary between one store and another, but once we've decided what to buy, the only big decision left is where.

For some products, however, the choice is not as easy. With mortgages and natural gas, for instance, the sellers have given us some additional options – to lock in at a certain rate for years ahead, or take one's chances with the current rates and hope they don't go up too much.

Lately I have been a two-time loser when it came to selecting a mortgage and deciding how to pay my natural gas bill. I made the wrong choice – or so some would argue – on both over the past five years.

I chose a five-year fixed-rate mortgage, as usual, thereby paying substantially more in interest than I would have paid if I had opted for the bank's floating interest rates or short-term rates over the five-year period.

Toronto: Re NAFTA Lets The Gas Out Of Canada (June 12) - Eric Reguly, in promoting the view that "Canada made the grave mistake of not figuring out its own energy needs before it handed the entire [natural gas] industry to NAFTA," would have our politicians decide how much natural gas we should use.

Toronto: Re NAFTA Lets The Gas Out Of Canada (June 12) - Eric Reguly, in promoting the view that "Canada made the grave mistake of not figuring out its own energy needs before it handed the entire [natural gas] industry to NAFTA," would have our politicians decide how much natural gas we should use.

Turn down the thermostat, seal the cracks around the windows and be thankful you're not in Alberta.

That's about all homeowners can do in the short term if they heat with natural gas and are caught in the upward price spiral. Even those who have to replace their heating systems soon have no obvious alternative if they're trying to flee the cost of gas.