1. Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1923), pp. 188–200; Henry Ford, “Automobiles and Soybeans: An Interview with Arthur van Vlissingen, Jr.,” Rotarian, September 1933.

2. Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, pp. 1–13 (“wonderfully clean-burning,” “rapidly depleted,” “direct route,” “potential speakeasy”); Reynold Wik, Henry Ford and Grass-roots America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973), p. 249 (secretary).

3. Washington Post, October 13, 1977 (Birch Bayh); Fortune, October 1, 1990.

4. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), pp. 46–52; Jimmy Carter, White House Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), p. 382 (“sharpest message”); Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation, January 4, 1980.

5. New York Times, January 7, 1980 (Warren Christopher); Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, p. 105 (high scenario); Washington Post, August 3, 1986 (“very inefficient”).

6. Interview with Richard Lugar; Brent D. Yacobucci, “Fuel Ethanol: Background and Public Policy Issues,” Congressional Research Service, March3, 2006 (E10); Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey, “The New Petroleum,” Foreign Affairs 78, no. 1 (1999), pp. 88–102 (mandatory targets).

7. The New York Times, November 7, 2005 (“good old-fashioned”); “President Bush and President Lula Discuss Biofuel Technology,” White House, March 9, 2007 (“truly obsessed,” “couldn’t have lunch”); George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, January 31, 2006 (“addicted to oil”); “Bush, da Silva Deliver Joint Remarks,” CNN, November 6, 2005; Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2006 (“kind of startled”).

8. Interview with José Goldemberg; Frederick Johnson, “Sugar in Brazil: Policy and Production,” The Journal of Developing Areas 17, no. 2 (1983), pp. 243–56 (prices collapsed); William S. Saint, “Farming for Energy: Social Options under Brazil’s National Alcohol Programme,” World Development 10, no. 3 (1982), pp. 223–38 (“wartime economy”); Werner Baer and Claudio Paiva, “Brazil,” in The Political Economy of Latin America in the Postwar Period, ed. Laura Randall (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pp. 70–110 (no prospects); Marc Weidenmier, Joseph Davis, and Roger Aliaga-Diaz, “Is Sugar Sweeter at the Pump? The Macroeconomic Impact of Brazil’s Alternative Energy Program,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 14362, October 2008; U. S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy Development and Applications, 96th Congress, Venezuela and Brazil Visit – January 13–20, 1980 (Washington, DC: GPO), January 1980.

9. Interview with José Goldemberg; José Goldemberg, “Ethanol for a Sustainable Energy Future,” Science 315, no. 5813 (2007), pp. 808–10; UNICA Sugarcane Industry Association Web site, at  (flexfuel).

10. The sometimes intense debate about the energy balance for ethanol has been going on since the late 1970s. John Deutch, Energy Policy in Crisis: The Godkin Lecture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), ch. 5.

11. Corn Farmers Coalition, “Factbook,” at ; U. S Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, “U. S. Domestic Corn Use,” at .

12. Interview with Georgina Kessel Martínez; Washington Post, January 27, 2007.

13. International Energy Agency, Technology Roadmap: Biofuels for Transportation (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2011), pp. 16–20.

14. Bernton, Kovarik, and Sklar, The Forbidden Fuel, pp. 74–75 (Leo Spano); Washington Post, Outlook, “Some Trash Can Be Really Sweet,” November 11, 1975, p. 1011 (“lowly fungi”); Norm Augustine to author (“quantum leap”).

15. Nightline, ABC, aired January 23, 2007 (Bransby); Bush, State of the Union Address, January 31, 2006.

16. Government of Canada, “Iogen – Canada’s New Alchemists,” Innovation in Canada Series, February 15, 2005.

17. Tiffany Groode, “Breaking through the Wall: Identifying the Main Barriers to Increasing Biofuels Production,” IHS CERA, 2009 (“daunting logistics,” “local nature”); Paul A. Willems, “The Biofuels Landscape: Through the Lens of Industrial Chemistry,” Science 325, no. 5941 (2009), pp. 707–10.

18. Interview with Richard Hamilton; Newsweek, October 27, 1980.

19. Interview with Steven Koonin.