Natural gas prices have been rising faster than oil.

It's not only that. If you map local natural gas availability against use of oil for heat in New England (where most of the oil heating occurs) you'll note that natural gas isn't even an option without a local NG infrastructure build out first. So what's going to happen in short order is this: Once heating oil passes about $5 a gallon (that is, about 40 cents from now) it will be more expensive in New England than passive electric heat (heat pumps not being efficient in New England's cold winters). Those who can least afford the oil will quickly switch to space heaters, not just to save money, but because electricity, unlike oil, is generally billed after you use it, not before.

There are also a lot of wood pellet systems - both stoves and furnaces - being installed in New England. Unfortunately, pellets are in large part a byproduct of lumber production. Lumber production is way down. There will be pellet shortages this winter, driving prices up. And pellet prices historically have risen to near-parity with oil. Regular wood stoves can be fed more cheaply, if you don't count the labor involved even in stacking wood and building the fire.

Still, there will be a large switch to electric heat. That will (1) fry the mains - most of New England is already close to electrical infrastructure capacity even at last year's loads; (2) start fires in badly-wired older houses; (3) cause the utilities to buy more power. As for the last, wholesale electricity prices are largely determined by the price of NG, since nationally many of the newest generators burn that. So this will in that indirect way be a move to NG, pushing its cost up more, pushing electricity's cost up more. If that goes up enough, those of us who can afford it in New England will fire up our oil furnaces again.

What we really need is massive investment in wind, nuclear and electrical infrastructure. Unfortunately there are too many retirees in New England who can't stand the sight of wind mills, and hippies who can't stand the thought of radiation.