Wrangell Sentinel -

One proposal to solve the impending energy shortage for Alaska’s population centers is to go back in time. To the 1970s, when coal was king in the U.S.

The governor, legislators, municipal officials and business leaders are worried that the Railbelt — the population corridor stretching south from Fairbanks, through the Matanuska Valley and Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula — will run short of natural gas before the end of the decade.

The region has lived off the nearby underground warehouse of natural gas from the Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet for decades. The energy has been plentiful and gen...