New options

INDIANAPOLIS — Speaking here this week at the Green Truck Summit, an event held in conjunction with the Work Truck Show, Steven Chu, the head of the Energy Department, called on commercial fleet owners to consider converting their vehicles to run on natural gas, which he characterized as a “no-brainer” alternative to gasoline and diesel.

“We want to diversify our source of transportation energy,” Mr. Chu said. “If you are a meat-eater, and beef is the only thing you ate, if the price of beef goes up, well, you got to pay for it.”

Chrysler, Ford and General Motors readily obliged, introducing pickup trucks at the trade show that would run on compressed natural gas and gasoline. The manufacturers expect this niche to grow more appealing, particularly to fleet customers, as oil prices rise and domestic reserves of natural gas are discovered and exploited.

On Thursday, a public pump here offered compressed natural gas, or C.N.G., for the gasoline-gallon equivalent of $2.15, according to the Web site CNGprices.com. Gasoline prices in Indianapolis, meanwhile, averaged $3.77, according to IndyGasPrices.com.

But pricing and supply advantages of C.N.G. have historically not been sufficient to convince fleet owners of its utility and safety. Heavy tanks capable of holding fuel compressed to 3,600 pounds per square inch typically cut directly into a truck’s cargo space and payload capacity. Limited access to filling stations and potential buyers’ concerns about the highly pressurized tanks exploding in a crash have kept adoption low.

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