The only way alternatives are going to be fully embraced is for the average American to be hit really, really hard in the pocket book. $7 - $10/gallon gasoline would probably do it.

because in fact natural gas is a suitable replacement for gasoline. If that nice sweet Brent Sea crude were the only stuff on earth suitable for making everything else then I'd agree that the price could some day rise that high, but that is simply not the case, we can make lubricants, plastics, and diesel fuel out of all sorts of lessor crudes. So the short story is, it, ain't gonna happen. Oh, I guess there is another way it could happen, simple inflation. But the just at a glance the old rule of 72 tells you it would take 10% inflation to get the price that high, and that too is nowhere on the horizon.

You can do natural gas conversions of internal combustion engines. I believe that is done frequently in places like Turkey. But now you are limited in range by your tank of compressed natural gas.

You can easily convert methane to methanol. Although that is burned very efficiently in ICEs, it require a completely different compression ratio in order to do so.

You can convert methane to ethanol. Ethanol doesn't have the energy density of gasoline, and besides, the environmentalists will not let you use ethanol derived from anything but plants.

Converting to gasoline or diesel is hard. Normally, you crack long chain molecules into shorter ones, not the other way round.

Admittedly, nat gas can substitute for some transportation fuels. But not well enough or fast enough to keep the price of gasoline or diesel below the marginal price of production from expensive crude oil.

Which is in fact happening right now.

One truck stop operator has committed one billion for fueling station build-out over the next ten years.

The changes are rapidly being implemented, and the rate of change is increasing.

price rebounds to that level are likely in themselves to trigger another major recession and accompanying demand destruction (high oil prices were a major driver of the 2007/08 financial crisis).

The pattern of demand is that the developed countries will get along with less and less, while emerging economies will buy more and more. They can afford the price, since they are using it for more essential purposes than going to the mall.

and demand suppression in the US (which still uses nearly 20% of the world's oil) removes a lot of demand pressure, especially absent significant increases in crude supply.

The US share of imports had been declining fairly rapidly due to increased domestic production of shale oil and due to decreases demand due to substitution, efficiency and conservation.

However, Japan, several European countries and others do not produce crude oil, so they have no alternative but to pay. LNG shipped by tanker is not cheap, and the world price of LNG is far above the US price of pipeline natural gas. Furthermore, other countries have very high taxes to discourage consumptioon, but that means that demand is less affected by an increase in crude prices. If you are already paying $8/gallon for gasoline, an increase to $10 / gallon doesn't hurt as much as going from $4 to $6 / gallon.