Wow.. you guys went nuts over the past couple of days.. who was minding the place?

First off I'm a free market guy so whatever works.. Ya wanna talk Natty.. let's talk Natty.  Conversion of existing vehicles run..??  Would have to look it up.. but something on the order of $7500+ ( I vaguely recall one site listing costs as $12,000..??)  You have to install a fairly large tank and put it in a safe location from a crash perspective.. all fuels burn but a Natty leak on your vehicle.. especially near the motor would be.. "unpleasant."  So after spending the $7500 or more.. (divided by $4.00 gasoline or even the $3.83 e-10 would give you 1875 gallons or 1,958 gallons.. or almost a year's supply of FREE Gasoline before you would start to see a return on investment..) THEN you have to find a source of Natty supply... hmm.. gonna take any LONG TRIPS with your Natty fired vehicle..???

Next Natural Gas is cheaper.. currently.. about $2.30'ish down from $15.78 in Dec of 05 as well as $13.60 in July of 08.. How long is this "cheap gas" gonna last?  Most of the drillers say their breakeven's on the shale frack stuff is in the mid $5.00's.. That doesn't mean prices have to head higher tomorrow.. (although some would like that..) but I'm not sure I believe that the current environment.. where you could export Natty Gas to the Middle East and make $$ on it is gonna last either..   What happens when all the import facilities of Natty get switched over to Export...??

Next.. about the ONLY way to move significant volumes of Natty is through pipelines.. so if you are talking about any SERIOUS percentage of the transportation fleet.. then you are gonna have to incease Pipeline capacity.. and we ALL KNOW how EASY that is... "Good luck."

I'm not opposed to any of this.. but even a year ago I wouldn't have guessed that the Natty market could break like it has.. We are in a sweet spot of finding Natty while searching for $100 Crude.. eventually things will even out and the Crude vs Natty spread is gonna come back in.. then your gonna have to incentivize drillers to develop Natty on it's own.. see the $15 and $13 spikes from above.. although that was extreme.. but that IS where the natty that now sells for $2.30 came from...  "golly if I'd have known then what we got now.. I never would have drilled the field..."

I included CNG as part of my energy solution a couple of threads below.. so I'm onboard.. just as I'm onboard ethanol as well as conventional petroleum products.. heck if someone can make it work.. I'm even for that flux capacitor thingy from "Back to the Future".. take me back to 1969 for a fill up from time to time.. ;-)

The Crude Realities are that the world population is growing.. and even though we are producing The MOST Crude.. the MOST Ethanol as well as the MOST Natural Gas EVER... in the HISTORY OF THE PLANET.. uhum.. it's still expensive.. We got 6 billion people on the planet as she turns.. and we're headed to 9.. so.. I guess I would strap the ol seat belt on firmly as I suspect we got a few more twists in the road ahead of us..

I could be wrong.. but jmho.

Ethanol causing high gasoline prices..??!?!!? about as significant as jelly beans causing high gasoline prices.. or martians.. take your pick.