Energy Victory. Check out this book;
http://www.energyvictory.net/. It explains exactly how the USA and the world can destroy the OPEC nations grip on the world economies.
If the USA government would mandate that all cars sold in the USA were Flexfuel vehicles capable of running on 100% alcohol (ethanol or methanol) or any combination of gasoline and alcohol, the price of oil would drop to $40-$50 per barrel. Such cars are already manufactured by all auto companies including the ones in the USA. They are sold in Brazil. No new research and development is needed. The technology is already used in millions of cars.
Creating fuel from corn does not raise the price of rice or wheat. It only makes corn more expensive. Sugar cane is a better fuel source. Switch grass and other bio waste products will be fuel sources as soon as scientists improve the energy conversion process.
The amount of unused farm land in the USA is tremendous. With the money incentive created by the Flexfuel mandate those unused lands will be profit sources for more farmers.
This plan will also free poor nations from the high price of oil for fuel because the technology will trickle down to the remainder of the world. It will create a market for fuel production in even the poorest countries. It will give poor farmers a way to earn more money by supplying their own nations needs. Creating alcohol as a fuel will actually help the poorest people on Earth to make their countries stronger and remove the stranglehold oil has over their countries
The mandate will create a boom in auto sales because people will want to purchase cars capable of using cheaper fuel.
Fueling stations will begin switching over to different blends of fuel and eventually have 100% alcohol available. The government already has a tax incentive plan available to gas station owners who want to convert pumps to alcohol.
The Flexfuel mandate is actually an ingenious solution that could be implemented with just a simple regulation signed into law. I have already contacted my representatives about it. I hope they read the book, but I can't make them read it.
There is a video link to a C-span talk by Robert Zubrin about his book Energy Victory at the bottom of the page on
http://www.energyvictory.net/.
He goes into detail about why this plan works and why it is in our best strategic interest to mandate all cars sold in the USA have Flexfuel motors.
He says to let the marketplace decide which fuel is wanted by the consumers. Until people worldwide have a choice other than oil there will never be energy freedom. Until cars can run on alternate fuels there won't be a choice. By mandating that cars have Flexfuel capability the world will finally have a choice.
All new cars sold in Brazil must be Flexfuel capable from 2008 onward.
Robert Zubrin also shows that conservation of energy will not bring down the price of oil. In his video he shows a graph of exactly why that is.
He addresses the claim by only one scientist that it takes more energy to produce alcohol fuels than they put out. He shows that most other scientists disagree with that claim.
All of the arguments I've read here and elsewhere that are against alcohol as a fuel are addressed satisfactorily in the video at the C-span site. It has information that you might not know which makes you against alcohol as a fuel source. Please watch it. It is more than an hour long.