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INHO Corn Ethanol was instituted to keep corn prices high even after the producers flooded the market with high fructose corn syrup. Like most agricultural sybsidies this favors the bankers more than the farmers or the consumers. It should be dropped along with the EPA requirements driving the scam.
Ethanol from corn is one of the more inefficient methods. South America uses sugar cane. Corn ethanol in America is just politics and subsidies for the factory farms.
The production of any Alt fuels at this time requires a lot of fossil fuel support. Jim Kunstler in his book, The Long Emergency, made a good case for the fact that most alt energy systems rely heavily on the presence of our current manufacturing oil usage. Metals are also on the oil teat for the fact of their production requirements that rely heavily on oil, same with most of our stuff that would be needed to create alternative energy generating constructs. Solar, wind, wave, and batteries, all rely on oil to produce the generating infrastructure that is made from our current list of oil based materials, Most of the time the oil/dollar tradeoff doesn't pencil out. The cost of producing energy from Alt sources has a direct corollary to the cost of oil, unfortunately. With the advent of electric cars some are thinking that electricity is now widely available without the burning of fossil fuels that power so many of our electric generating plants. I don't see a future with alternative energy being the norm, not when it is so reliant on oil.
Given that 10% of most the gasoline in the US is ethanol it is certainly providing a great deal of energy. Efficient production and distribution is another matter entirely.
I suggest we grow Cannabis as a fuel and oil seed source. We could even smoke the flowers and leaves for recreation while the pulp is burned for fuel and the fibers made into long wearing cloths.
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