In this case, the ethanol process would be extremely energy negative.
Eventually you will have pumped all the aquifers dry so as to increase harvest yields via irrigation. You want to charge refining only the extraction rate and charge ethanol at post extraction rate. They don't mind getting burried in the garbage dump with everybody else as long as they "make it better". The problem with ethanol production is one of sustainability, not so much with efficiency. Without the lender signing off on such purchases that also will not happen. Thank you, the integriy and clarity you've brought to this discussion is invaluable. You can simplify this enough to do a cute little chemistry 101 exam question, but that doesn't mean it is right.
In fact, I spoke with their project manager this week for an hour on the phone. In either case you start out with one of them coal or oil and at the end you don't have them anymore, but you do have a liquid fuel. Say you want to eat and what is available to you is a good steak or a bunch of edible tree mushrooms. In Brazil, ethanol operated with minimal government support and is unsubsidized.
According to my brother in law the ethanol plant he's working on will produce ethanol not from grain but from corn stalks and other fibrous plant products. Ethanol is Brazil has been produced for thirty years and production is increasing. When sugar prices are high and fuel prices low if you think this will be the problem, the ethanol portion can be reduced. Just as it happened with animal power, wood, wind, coal etc. Efficiency of production is one of the most misleading arguments out there. If you were to make these comments to me, I would tend to disregard you, too. In the case of gasoline, you have not burned or used up that original gallon of oil to get that gasoline. Ethanol plants are buing built in record numbers around the country .
My brother worked as a quality engineer breaking the manufacturing process for a car down and reporting on them. However, in practice, there are a number of reasons why this may not work like this for ever. But I want to point out exactly why I believe you are not sincere. It couldn't hurt to tone down the more harsher critiques such as 'they are wrong', because if you're talking to a politician, he will respond better to persuasion, rather than clubbing. Refining and ethanol production are equivalent steps. This is tacitly recognised by the fact that commerce and industry are already heavily regulated.