Sure, if the US wanted to destroy five sixths of its economy to match Brazil's $8000 per capita GDP then I'm sure that would reduce US energy usage considerably

Sure, if the US wanted to destroy five sixths of its economy to match Brazil's $8000 per capita GDP then I'm sure that would reduce US energy usage considerably. I'm not sure it would be a worthwhile tradeoff. There's also the fact that Brazil has a great sugar cane growing climate which the US lacks... I'm not actually sure whether ethanol production is a significant enough factor to cancel out the fact that US oil production is nearly twice Brazil's.