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Oil companies are reinventing themselves as 'Energy companies'. F'rinstance, BP (which was British Petroleum) is now promoting itself as 'Beyond Petroleum'. If there was a chance that we could run our engines on Doritos, they would be cornering the corn chips market for the next generation of drivers.
There is a lot of oil left in the ground and there is a lot of money to be made digging it out and selling it, so the status quo will remain in place, at least until the end of this US administration. In any other business, you would think that an American inventor with a new concept would have American companies beating his door down to try to do a deal. Too bad GM and Ford are in the money business, and not in the ideas business.