Detroit — With his alarmist call for American oil independence (“Breaking OPEC’s Grip”), Robert Zubrin joins a long tradition of pundits who have used national security as an excuse to abandon consumer markets in order to forward their Big Government schemes. Add the Mideast “oil cartel” to Japan and China as declared threats to our manufacturing base requiring protection.

Whatever the merits of his argument, Zubrin sadly uses the same rhetorical device to sell flex-fuel mandates as Gore & co. make for Kyoto: if you disagree, you are a proponent of petroterrorism, or in the latter case, a polar-bear killer.

Zubrin claims that the solution is a “simple one.” He says that all Congress has to do is “pass a law requiring that all new cars sold in the U.S. be flex-fueled” (that is, alcohol-fuel compatible) and — voila! — alcohol fuels will become competitive.

Brand this scheme, not simple, but “simplistic.”

Brazil, in fact, has followed just the path Zubrin subscribes. But it took that country — led by a military dictatorship — much more than just a flex-fuel mandate to get it to an energy market where home-grown ethanol is currently 40 percent of its transportation fuel.

Heavily dependent on OPEC oil, Brazil embarked on a national plan of oil independence during the last oil price panic in the 1970s. Dubbed “Proalcool,” the central government nationalized its largest energy company to goose ethanol production, massively subsidized sugar ethanol, mandated the production of ethanol cars, and mandated at least a 25 percent mix of ethanol in gasoline. In effect, government took over its domestic energy sector in the name of national security.

A one would expect from government decrees, there were unintended consequences. Inflation soared thanks to government spending and an agricultural economy now skewed towards fuel — not food — production. Brazil suffered widespread environmental degradation with the rush to convert cropland to fuel, and ultimately — with the collapse of oil prices a mere decade later — the program failed because ethanol is fundamentally an uncompetitive fuel source relative to oil.

Why? Because ethanol — whether corn, sugar, or cellulosic (the current U.S. fad) — contains just 70 percent of the energy content of a gallon of gasoline — a fact Zubrin blithely ignores. A recent EPA test of 31 flex-fuel cars (FFVs) found they averaged 26 percent fewer miles per gallon when filled with E85 ethanol. For example, the fuel economy of a gas-powered Chevy Tahoe SUV (17 mpg) plunged to 13 mpg on ethanol. Methanol (another so-called alcohol fuel) is even worse, with just 60 percent of gasoline’s energy content.

With the rise of democracy in Brazil in the 1990s, much of Brazils’ ethanol program was dismantled and pure E100 ethanol use evaporated. But the mandated 25 percent (E25) ethanol mix in gas remained. So as oil prices rose again this decade, the temptation to utilize Brazil’s unique sugar resource (the most efficient crop for ethanol) returned and the government has once again intervened in the name of energy independence.

Though not as comprehensive as the 1970s’ intervention, make no mistake, Brazil’s fuel sector today is government-run. There is Zubrin’s flex-fuel mandate — and much, much more.

In order to overcome ethanol’s energy shortcomings, E100 is taxed 30 percent less than gas (a gallon of gas costs about $4.50 a gallon, E100 about $2.85). According to a 2005 World Bank Study, ethanol production is subsidized to the tune of $1.20 a gallon (the much-maligned U.S. corn subsidy is “only” 51 cents). And yet . . . even with these artificial sweeteners, diesel fuel is still a cheaper alternative than cane ethanol. So the Brazilian government has simply banned diesel-fueled cars.

U.S. prosperity is due in part to free markets determining our most efficient fuel sources. Indeed, as oil topped $50 a barrel, Canadian oil sands have become viable, making that country our leading oil exporter (hardly Zubrin’s caricature of a terrorist oil country holding us hostage).

Left alone, free markets might ultimately determine that coal-to-oil is the best alternative to gas, or hydrogen, or even ethanol. . . . But Zubrin would rather strangle the U.S. economy with subsidies and decrees for an ethanol technology that has not yet proven itself worthy in the marketplace.

If Zubrin truly believes our national security is endangered, then government should declare America a wartime economy and take over the energy sector. But pretending that alcohol is a viable fuel that can be brought to market by a flex-fuel mandate is folly.