Gasoline in Helena reached $3.50 a gallon this week, setting a somber backdrop for Earth Day festivities at the Department of Labor and Industry.

“This is one of the Earth Days that people are paying more attention to, and it’s more than lip service,” said David Scrimm, chief of Labor and Industry’s Hearings Bureau, who organized the department’s Energy Conservation Fair Tuesday at the Capitol. “We can’t continue to use energy the way we have been and leave a planet that our children will be able to live in.

Tom Livers, deputy director of the Department of Environmental Quality, told a gathering of about 200 state employees and Helena citizens that a global convergence of market, political and economic factors are pushing energy prices higher at a rate faster than most thought possible.

“This is what we thought, years ago, would be the worst-case scenario, and we didn’t think this would happen,” he said.

But here we are, with gas up nearly 20 percent since mid-winter, and as a result, makers of energy-efficient products of all types say demand for their products has never been greater.

John Boller of Northwest Pipe Fittings in Great Falls said in his decade of selling continuous hot water heaters, wall furnaces and high-efficiency boilers, he’s never fielded so many questions from customers about saving energy.

“Any more, it’s number one,” he said. “With rising gas prices and heating, it goes on with electricity, and it’s what everyone wants to know.”

Makers of solar systems, low-use plumbing fixtures and other energy saving devices were on display, alongside NorthWestern Energy and the DEQ.

Behind the Capitol, Lockey Street was closed for a display of cars that get 30 miles per gallon or more, including light cars and trucks from Miles Electric Vehicles in Bozeman, traditional four-cylinder cars and gas-electric hybrids from both Toyota and Honda.

“Montana’s a weird place,” said Mike Murry of Grimes Motors, the local Honda dealer. “You still have that population that needs their trucks, but we have seen more interest in the hybrids.”

Late last year, Gov. Brian Schweitzer set a goal of reducing energy use by state agencies by 20 percent by the end of 2010. Scrimm said planners hoped to gain half of those savings from increasing the efficiency of state buildings, and half through changing the work habits of state employees.

“The employees are already over 10 percent on workplace practices alone,” he said.

Keith Kelly, commissioner of Labor and Industry, noted that the country faces an energy crisis similar to what America went through in the early 1970s, around the time Earth Day was founded. Among other things, he’s got a sticky note on his computer reminding him to turn the monitor off at the end of the day.

“We want to draw attention to the things we can do in our individual lives as well as here at work to save energy,” he said.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com