You can't believe what you read. I used to own parts of Bio-Fuel & Ethanol plants. The USA raised the about same amount of corn & soy before these Bio-Fuel & Ethanol plants were installed as they do now. We also export about the same amount of feed after these plants went into production.
When grains are processed in these plants for fuels the bi-product is animal feed with the same nutritional protein value as the grain that they ate before. Each bushel will lose some weight & volume from the oil & starch that was converted to fuel but all the protein & feed value remains. It is actually beneficial to the animals to not eat all that starch & fat that caused methane gas in cows upsetting their digestion & causing them to burp & fart methane gas that is 15 times worse for the environment than CO2.
Ethanol also replaced the toxic pollutant MTBE in gasoline. The anti ethanol people just calculate that all the corn is raised just to be turned into ethanol so the energy returned on the energy invested is not very positive. The fact is we are already raising this for feed anyhow, now we just squeeze some fuel out of it using very little energy.
Fact is I can farm with about 3 gallons of fuel per acre. That acre will yield well over 100 bushel of corn. That corn will yield 300 gallon of ethanol per acre. That equals about a 100 gallons of fuel return for every gallon of fuel used to raise the corn.
As I recall, the MTBE issue was one of product storage and not of point-source or end-use concerns.
The reason Ethanol "won out" over MTBE is that the former is made from corn and the latter from hydrocarbons. It was Big Ag's finest hour, a lobbying coup, and one of the biggest bullshit hoodwinked pranks ever played on the American public.
Nice post, can you link to your source.
MTBE, Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether, derived from Methanol, which is derived from Methane, which is separated from Natural gas.
MTBE does not come from Oil.
MTBE in California was banned for a number of reasons to include leaking storage tanks. MTBE found its way into the water supply, through Jet skiing, boating, even cars exhaust which got washed into the environment.
MTBE did not reduce emissions, just created different emissions.
MTBE lowered milage (as ethanol does)
MTBE was expensive, (as ethanol is)
MTBE is not a hydrocarbon although it does pollute the snow.
Given detectable atmospheric levels of MTBE, the Lake Tahoe Basin could
have detectable amounts of MTBE in precipitation, due to the typically cool air
temperatures in the Lake Tahoe Basin (elevation 6,225 ft at lake level). Colder air
temperature markedly increases partitioning of MTBE from air to the aqueous phase
(Squillace et al., 1995) and could result in MTBE levels as high as a few μg×L-1 in
rainfall (Squillace et al., 1996a and 1996b) and thus lead to MTBE contamination of
shallow groundwater (Pankow et al., 1997, and Squillace et al, 1997). A rainwater
sampling system was readied April 1998 for collection of rain samples for VOC
analysis. Rainwater samples were obtained on June 12, 1998. Unfortunately, due to
laboratory error, the sample vials were destroyed, so that VOC testing could not be
performed. No additional rainwater samples have been obtained.
MTBE has been found in snowfall at very low levels (0.01 to 0.1 μg×L-1) in the
Denver urban area (Bruce and McMahon, 1996). On June 5, 1998 we obtained snow
samples near a Soil Conservation Service “snotel” data site located at 8,600 ft
elevation within the Heavenly Valley ski resort. Heavenly Valley is located within
several miles to the southeast and east of the urbanized areas of South Lake Tahoe
and Meyers. Prevailing winds in the area are toward the southeast and northeast, so
that Heavenly Valley is often downwind from major urban areas in the Tahoe
Basin. Snow samples were obtained and stored in accordance with methods utilized
in investigations of the Donner Lake area by the Tahoe Research Group (John
Reuter, personal communication, 1998). Samples were obtained at depths of 0.1, 1, 2,
3, and 4 ft depths below the top surface of the snow. Ground surface was
encountered at a depth of 4.4 ft below the snow surface. The snow texture was dense,
crumbly, and glazed at all depths, suggesting prior partial melting and refreezing.
There was no evident layering of the snow. Each snow sample was assayed for
MTBE, and was found to contain <0.1 μg×L-1 (detection limit).
Then I would head out to sea...kill as many whales as possible and corner the lamp oil market. With all my new found cash, I would buy up most of the southwest and drive cattle back and forth to wherever people wanted a steak. When I retired, I would invest in a buggy whip concern (huge demand re-emerges after 100 years) and watch even more cash come in....Is this a serious question? hahaha....Because if you libs ever read a history book you would know what life is going to be like if oil were to "suddenly" disappear. I especially like that lib movie where all the Mexicans "suddenly" disappear...Supposedly, us fat lazy Americans wouldn't be able to survive without cheap labor...That had to have been the most racist movie ever made...Or at least the 30 minutes of it that I watched 
