I really don't understand why anyone supports ethanol. It's a poor fuel compared to gasoline and any minor improvements to fuel ignore the externalities.
It's another massive subsidy to the farming/fertilizer industry.
The EREOI of Corn as a fuel is pretty bad.
If all this subsidy money were used to instead move to EVs, it'd be better spent.
The idea was that you could reduce US dependence on foreign oil imports, and also make a positive impact on CO2 emissions (since biodiesel is CO2-neutral) by gradually switching the US over to biodiesel. Corn was an obvious choice since the US already subsidized farmers significantly to produce that crop. On paper that didn't seem terrible at the time.
Later it was noticed that the US biodiesel program had had a substantial impact on global corn prices, which probably causes deaths in developing countries[1].
I think it's widely considered to be a bad idea at this point, but as late as 2009 I can find reference to expansions in the program[2].
Completely agree that redirecting our subsidy dollars into modern tech would be a much better investment; the default should be no subsidies, and we should pick strategic investments to ensure our relevance in the coming decades.
So the whole "biofuel" conflation has me confused. I know about a dozen years ago, it was a good meme, but there are big differences between ethanol vs. biodiesel [1]
Corn isn't used to make biodiesel. Also biodiesel allowed usage of existing waste product (e.g. sludge from a McDonalds) would work with biodiesel converted engines.
Luckily hybrids and EVs entered the scene and now we have zero-emission vehicles that are far more sustainable than ones using any liquid fuels.
There is no reason to push for anything but EVs and hybridized fleets everywhere. EVs are faster, less maintenance and the range issue is pretty much resolved for the vast majority of use cases. I'm frustrated when I have to drive an ICE vehicle - pickup is slow and no regenerative charging means it stops slowly as well.
Immediate cessation of ICE vehicles is not realistic. The changeover will necessarily be gradual. Dumping all of the cash over to EV tech from ethanol production causes a different set of problems.
It also has a lower energy density than gasoline and problems with gumming up fuel injectors, and collecting water in fuel tanks which leads to corrosion.
edit: ethanol is hygroscopic; meaning it attracts and collects water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygenate