Can we break the oil habit?

Ohio’s dirty coal can become clean. Hydrogen can supplant gasoline. Fuel cells can replace today’s car engines.

But time is running out to find a way to do it before fossil fuel use reaches a crisis point, warned speakers at a national energy conference Thursday on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

The real crisis isn’t the increasing costs of fuel. Speakers said that is almost a given. Instead, they fear widespread climate change might be unavoidable without alternative energy sources and new clean-fuel technologies that are affordable.

Surging industrialization in the developing world threatens to nullify any gains of conservation efforts here — pushing the Earth toward an environmental emergency.

More than 1,300 people from 10 nations and 22 states attended the conference. The video of the daylong program will be available for three months at http://www.cwru.edu/. Afterward, the National Academy of Engineering will archive the event at http://www.nae.edu/.

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