ARTICLE: "Thais Lead Drive to Natural-Gas Cars: Subsidies, Volatility of Oil Prices Spur Move Even as a Campaign Starts in U.S. to Get Americans to Switch," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 21 October 2008.

Tycoons and environmentalists combine to try and talk Americans into switching to natural gas cars. Success is unlimited--outside of Utah.

But in many developing countries, the switch is already on, driven by the volatile price of gasoline, the accessibility of natural gas, hefty consumer subsidies and concern about the environment.

Thailand, SE Asian emerging market is a prime case: 40k n.g. cars and trucks bought in the last six months. Predictions of a rough tripling of the n.g. fleet by 2012, to 330k.

They are hot seller. One local prof pays less than $2k to have her Nissan sedan converted. She now fills her tank for $3.

Here's the leadership of the New Core: Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina each have more than 1.5m such vehicles. India is closing in on a million, and China is promoting the cars heavily in cities.

T. Boone is excited.

Honda has n.g. Civics for sale here, but few buyers for now.

Thailand has oil, but has even more natural gas.

When we did our energy futures game with Cantor Fitzgerald in 2000, one thing I remember hearing from many experts is that we have no idea how much gas is out there, because we don't really look for it, instead just finding "associated gas" as we search for oil.

So maybe T. Boone is barking down the right hole.

Tell me otherwise.