It's a safety and vehicle design concern to use compressed gasses as fuel. That's one of the reasons that hydrogen development has been so slow. (And speaking of nazi Germany, they managed to run hydrogen fuel through gasoline-powered cars as well.)

I know the University of Michigan was using a fleet of natural gas vehicles a few years back and we had a few stations which carried it, but that seems to have not picked up any steam. I haven't been on that side of town in a while to see if the stations still carry it.

 

-----signature-----

That's just it. They might export diesel. It wouldn't necessarily cut the domestic cost.

 

-----signature-----

Vehicle fuel (whether gasoline, diesel, C.N.G., L.N.G., or hell whatever) is traded on the world market. At this time, the US already produces more gasoline than we use. We export it. Same is true of diesel. World demand is growing like crazy and domestic demand is shrinking. No company is going to spend money to produce more product for the US when we already produce more than we need, so any planned new production is going to be done with export in mind.

That's why the "drill baby, drill" crowd is so out of touch. Simply producing more here wont do a damn thing for prices, as all oil is traded globally. They wont sell it here simply because they produce it here for less than they could sell it for to China or South Korea. Why the hell would or should they? They are in business to make money, not lower domestic gas prices.

As far as producing alternative fuels that could help the US....well that's not their job either. If there is no demand, they wont make it. Which comes first, supply or demand. In the normal order of business, demand drives supply not the other way around. People will make a product once other people are willing to pay for it. With almost no vehicles using alternative fuels, no oil company is going to make it. On the other hand, no auto company is going to mass produce a car that you can't fill up anywhere. So there will be no demand because no one will ever create one.

Tough situation, it will take decades for demand to trickle up to the point where it's economically feasible for oil companies to create alternate fuels in large quantities and thus at low cost, Sometimes these things have to be pushed if they are to happen in a time line that helps anyone currently alive.