Manufacturers working on making natural gas vehicles affordable

“Ninety-six percent of our transportation is run off of crude oil. That's bad energy policy,” Pinkerton said at the Shale Gas Insight 2012 conference Friday in Philadelphia. “That's like putting 96 percent of your 401k in one stock. We have to diversify our fuel supply.”

To that effort, the country's natural gas industry and vehicle manufacturers are working to make natural gas-fired cars and trucks a feasible and affordable option for American consumers.

The industry is moving in that direction, said Todd Campbell, vice president of public policy and regulatory affairs at Clean Energy, a California company that is building a system of liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueling stations for trucks.

While some have pushed for natural gas-fired vehicles for decades, the effort has only recently gained significant traction, he said.

“It used to be that natural gas was driven by air quality,” Campbell said. “The South Coast Air Quality Management District started using compressed natural gas because they couldn't meet air quality requirements otherwise. But now it's being driven by the price, and now you have shippers and truckers demanding production of natural gas vehicles.”

Priced about $1.50 per gallon equivalent below gasoline or diesel, natural gas could save customers thousands of dollars each year in fuel charges, Campbell said. The effort has gained the attention of vehicle manufacturers.