But come on, guy. Over 50 yrs don’t you think money was being spent? It didn’t happen. Compressed natgas is a fraction of energy density to diesel.
Look up the range of a CNG Honda Civic vs a conventional Honda Civic. And note you give up the CNG’s trunk to have even that inferior range.
Oil became oil for a reason. Physics. That doesn’t change.
Of course money was spent. I'm talking about the INCREASE in amount spent and the things it is being spent on. The spending now is on dedicated vehicles and infrastructure to run them, not R&D or engineering. I can look out my car window and watch CNG fueled buses pass by on a routine basis.
I did a wee bit of Googling since this conversation started, and one thing that surprises me is marine usage. CNG ferries are in real-world use.
"Look up the range of a CNG Honda Civic vs a conventional Honda Civic. And note you give up the CNG’s trunk to have even that inferior range."
True enough, but temporary. You don't think that a Honda Civic designed from the ground up to run on CNG won't be "just a bit" different in tank design and placement? And auto usage will probably be the last thing to change over, if it doesn't turn out to be more practical to synthesize gasoline from methane.
And in the final analysis, once widespread infrastructure is in place it will be a matter of fueling up every 300 miles instead of every 400. As a Honda Civic owner, I doubt that the very minor inconvenience of more frequent stopping to fuel up will be a bother. I already stop more often than refueling to drain another liquid reservoir.
"Oil became oil for a reason. Physics. That doesn’t change."
Yup, but economics does. And it is economics that is and will continue to drive the change.