Alternative Energy

Here's what I don't understand: why is it that the big greedy oil companies aren't rushing around trying to get ahead in the alternative energy markets. Not because they care about the environment, or because they're trying to make all us commie-pinko-liberals happy, but because they could make so damn much money doing it. Won't whoever has the patents on new fuel technologies and the like become like Bill Gates or Henry Ford? It's clear to everyone that the world has a limited supply of fossil fuels, and that we're going to run out of them one of these days - and that even before that, they're going to become incredibly expensive to extract and process.

I can't see why Toyota and Honda are the only companies making hybrid cars. Car companies could be competing to make the fanciest, trendiest hybrid cars and marketing them to the people who are now buying Range Rovers and Hummers (ok, maybe not Hummers... ). It seems to me that it would make financial sense for these companies to be trying to milk every last penny out of the touchy feely liberals out there.