THE CAR OF THE FUTURE - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 120

by partly cooling it i rst, ei ciency improves. It could knock another
30 percent of fuel consumption, and the U.S. Department of Transport
projects it could move from the fringe of the U.S. l eet to as much as a
third of new U.S. cars by 2025. 40

T he other big reason for the decline in U.S. oil use in recent years

has been the rising consumption of ethanol, which now comes
close to a million barrels each day, up from barely a hundred thousand
ten years ago. 41 Most of that ethanol, which can be added to gasoline
or used instead of it, is made from corn. People have tried for over a
century to turn crops into fuel, ot en using technologies that aren't so
dif erent from those used to brew beer. h e task has been challeng-
ing primarily because of its expense, which has let biofuels in general,
and ethanol in particular, largely uncompetitive with fossil fuels. Recent
gains in ethanol production have been driven by strong support from
governments, which have mandated minimum levels of ethanol use
and provided direct subsidies to producers, helping production suc-
ceed despite its relatively high costs. For this reason alone, if for no
other, ethanol has come under particularly heated at ack.
h e big question now is whether biofuels will make big gains in
the future. A few years ago, many people were bet ing on it, but more
recently, enthusiasm has faltered. Technologies haven't matured quickly
enough to make biofuels competitive without government support—
and the political appetite for biofuels mandates has faltered, a trend that
problems with corn ethanol make worse.
Perhaps the most controversial and politically dii cult issue with
ethanol is its possible ef ect on the price of food. h e outrage comes
from every part of the political spectrum. One let -wing website put
the tension starkly: “Drive 1,000 Miles or Feed a Person for a Year?” 42
At the other end of the spectrum, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas,
at acked ethanol in 2008 for hurting cat le ranchers in his state. 43 Perr y
and others like him were also allergic to federal mandates. Most oil
producers, prominent in his state, disliked biofuels too.
h e scientii c debate over the links between biofuels production
and high food costs is murky. Between January 2002 and January
2008, world food prices more than doubled; the i nal year alone saw