Turning Oil into Salt

In Turning Oil into Salt (2009), energy security analysts Gal Luft and Anne Korin argue that oil's monopoly over transportation fuel gives oil-producing states too much power over world affairs. The authors compare oil to salt, which once had a monopoly on food preservation and lost its strategic importance once alternatives appeared. They call for an Open Fuel Standard requiring new cars to run on alcohol fuels such as ethanol and methanol as well as gasoline, so that competing fuels can break that monopoly.