Ryan Porhola's Facebook page, "Alaskans for an All Alaska Gasline," is only a few weeks old but already has more than 1,900 members.

In Alaska, it's just as likely to be about state politics mashed with oil and natural gas.

A 32-year-old Fairbanks man is bringing the heart of that debate to the Internet's most popular site, the social networking phenomenon Facebook, with a page called "Alaskans for an All Alaska Gasline."

Ryan Porhola launched the Facebook page three weeks ago, and never imagined this kind of response.

He's acquired more than 1,900 "fans" on the popular social networking site, and has brought on a friend to help manage the flood of posts and keep those threaded exchanges flowing. The onslaught of response is testament to the passion Alaskans have for natural gas and to their worries for the future.

The all-Alaska gas pipeline is one of a handful of proposals that's been on the table since Alaskans first anticipated a natural gas pipeline as the big oil pipeline started flow in the late 1970s. Forty years later, the debate is still on over a range of issues including state sovereignty, providing cheap energy for Alaskans, exporting energy to raise money, and extending energy relief to areas that aren't likely to intersect with any pipeline.

Porhola was looking for a way to lay out -- and collect -- information that could help drive solutions to the energy problems he's seen all over the state, from Southeast to the North Slope, through the Interior and on to King Salmon in Southwest.

Most of all, Porhola sees a long term fracture widening into a deep divide between Alaskans who, in the most general terms, all want the same thing -- less reliance on the oil industry, which supplies 90 percent of the state's revenue. More focus on cleaner energy, like natural gas. Jobs offering better than minimum wage. Opportunity. An economic foundation, aside from oil, that will afford people like Porhola a chance to raise a family in a state he loves.

"I'm just a guy who wears his name on his shirt," Porhola said. "I'm socially liberal but I'm fiscally conservative. I don't want anything for nothing, but I want opportunity. I want people to be able to stay here."

But without reliable energy and a fresh economic base that doesn't divide the state like oil has, he's not particularly optimistic.

His mission, as posted on the Facebook page: "We created this ‘Fan Page' to get people talking about our future in Alaska and why this issue is so important. This is not an issue about Republicans, Democrats, Liberals or Libertarians. This is about those that want to put Alaska First. Alaska's Sovereignty is at stake."

Whether you agree with Porhola's particulars -- advocacy of an all-Alaska line and resistance to letting Alaska's oil flow to Alberta's tar sands -- the discussion is an enlightening look at the pressing thoughts of some of the 700,000 people living in the 49th state.

Porhola, a commercial pilot, has made a living flying in support of many Alaska industries, especially those engaged in developing natural resources. But he's also the poster child for a key Alaskan demographic -- an independent, strong individual who saw opportunity in the Great Land.

The opportunity is there now, he acknowledges, but he fears it won't extend to the future unless natural gas is available to the state's residents.

Porhola lived in Southeast and watched friends, some with young families, vanish along with timber industry jobs. He loves Alaska for its remote and wild places, the moose and wolves and eagles and rivers running with salmon, and wants to protect those. Yet like so many others, his paycheck comes via the industries that mine the state's other resources -- be they timber, gold, or oil -- and he supports that, as well.