CALGARY — Skyrocketing oil prices and global concerns about carbon-dioxide emissions doesn't appear to be helping the cause of alternative fuels a Calgary oil conference was told Monday.

"Why is it that at $75 U.S. a barrel we're not seeing any important pickup of alternative options for energy?" asked Luis Giusti, former president and chief executive officer, Petroleos de Venezuela and senior advisor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The reason that we are not seeing that is people are not certain that this is permanent - that this is not here to stay and that we're going to see more moderate prices," he said.

Other conference speakers said there is a reluctance on the part of consumers, mostly in the U.S., to embrace the alternative fuel sources or the use of hybrid vehicles.

"Is everyone in the U.S. going to trade in their SUV's? Absolutely not," said Kyle Cooper, vice-president and energy analyst for Citigroup Global Markets, based in Houston.

Even legislation in the U.S. to blend ethanol with regular gasoline has been a problem because of a shortage of the fuelstock according to Shirley Neff, the president of of the United States Association of Energy Economics.

And incentives to automotive companies to foster the growth of sales of hybrid vehicles are going to be short-lived too, she said.

"There were a series of incentives for hybrid vehicles and new technology vehicles. The incentives for Toyota vehicles aren't going to last much longer," said Neff, who is also an adjunct research scholar at the Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy.

"There was a deal cut by the auto manufacturers to make sure Toyota didn't get too much of the tax credit. Some of the companies didn't even know if they were going to have vehicles coming into the market but they wanted to make sure no one else got a head start with U.S. tax dollars."

Implementing significant alternative fuels into the marketplace could take another decade said a University of California researcher.

Dr. Anthony Eggert, associate research director at the Institute of Transportation Studies, said previous attempts to convince the American motorist have failed.

"We believe there's been a failure for alternative fuels because of the higher first cost for the vehicle, there has been fuel storage issues and probably the most important thing is the competition, that being gasoline, did not stand still," said Eggert.

"It became dramatically cleaner with the introduction of low emission vehicles so the environmental benefits that were being claimed by the alternatives were not nearly as significant," he said.

Although Eggert is hopeful about the use of cleaner fuels and hybrid cars, there is a limit to the ultimate benefits that can be attained.

"Even if implemented on a worldwide scale they can no more than slow the growth in road transport CO2 emissions and hydrocarbon emissions in the period for the next 45 years," said Eggert.

"Only the use of carbon neutral hydrogen fuel cells or advanced bio fuels can offset this growth in CO2 emissions."

The three-day conference sponsored by the Canadian Energy Research Institute is examining the current and future impact of high oil prices.