As winter nears and barges drift in with the final fuel loads of the season, people in the village of Napakiak in the Kuskokwim River Delta are anticipating a bit of relief from the roller-coaster ride of oil's highs and lows over the past 18 months.

Walter Nelson, who serves on the city council and is the tribal housing administrator, is hoping that energy-efficient improvements, fuel tank upgrades and the addition of wood stoves as a backup for Napakiak's 350 residents will offset heat and power costs this winter. And he's counting on lower oil prices to be reflected in utility bills that reached $500 a month last winter for electricity and $1,000 a month for heating oil.

In recent years, many rural Alaskans have found themselves struggling to make ends meet amid crippling fuel prices, with little relief in sight. Although Alaska sits atop the largest oil fields in North America, residents of the more remote parts of the state pay some of the highest fuel prices in the nation.

Energy costs in the state's rural areas increased from about 16 percent of household income in 2000 to 47 percent in 2008 for the lowest-income residents, according to the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

On Monday, the Alaska Senate Finance Committee approved $49,958 to expand an ISER fuel-markets study that bore bleak news in 2007 and 2008. The study will analyze fuel costs and prices in more communities and is expected to pinpoint inefficiencies. Due to the Legislature in January, the report will include potential policy shifts, said committee co-chairman Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka.

Fuel is no simple matter in hundreds of remote villages. Many of these villages aren't on roads, and that means fuel, groceries and other supplies must be transported by barge or plane during short, ice-free seasons. Unconnected to the power grid, villages rely on bulk shipments of diesel to feed local power plants.

"Alaska's big problem is that we have a huge state geographically and a tiny population," said Meera Kohler, executive director of the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative (AVEC), which provides power to 53 rural communities. "They (the villages) are spread out over a vast area. To get to any of them, you have to surmount distances that are unprecedented in this country, and there are no roads."

AVEC spent $26 million in 2008 for diesel to generate power, netting 68 million kilowatt hours. The cost of each kilowatt included 38 cents for fuel alone, up from 22 cents in 2007. Kohler anticipates a 25-cent cost beginning in November, reflecting lower oil prices than last year.

When oil prices hit a record high of $147 a barrel last year, it was good news for the state treasury, which derives about 90 percent of total revenue from oil taxes and fees. But in rural Alaska, soaring oil prices hit hardest as barges delivered annual fuel supplies in late summer 2008. And that nearly broke some families and drove others to Anchorage, Fairbanks and other urban parts of the state.

A world away

In Napakiak, Nelson can count at least five who left the village. Napakiak is only eight air miles or 14 river miles from Bethel, a regional hub of about 5,660, but sometimes it feels a world away. The quick flight linking the two communities costs an "astronomical" $65 each way, Nelson said, and electric power routed from the Bethel hub to the village results in bills ranging from $400 to $500 per month for an average home in the winter.

With an $80,000 grant from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Napakiak replaced old, single-pane windows in homes with more energy-efficient options and switched out interior and exterior doors. Wood stoves were added to every house -- a back-up in case oil furnaces quit like they did under the extreme cold last year, Nelson said. Last fall, the Coastal Villages Regional Fund paid for two barges loaded with wood for the stoves -- a boon for Napakiak.

Efficiency and conservation may lighten dependency on expensive fuels, but some factors driving unsustainable costs aren't likely to go away. Among them are transportation, regulations and infrastructure.