“Renewable” energy sources, such as biofuels, are only ever going to be a niche market, as a way to dispose of waste vegetable or animal source fats from deep-fat cookers, that is no longer suitable for consumption as human or even livestock feed. To divert the freshly produced oilseed crops into fuel use is a poor allocation of resources.
The same goes for producing ethanol from food crops. Only where there is a HUGE surplus of crop, depressing the overall market, should ethanol be an alternative product of processing of the crop.
And that only as whiskey.
If industrial quantities of ethanol are necessary for any purpose, than taking the fraction of natural gas, known as “ethene” or “ethylene”, and combining, in the presence of a catalyst with water, then a very pure form of ethanol is produced WITHOUT using biological process.
C2H4 + H2O —> C2H5OH
FAR less expensive in terms of production costs and impact on the environment.
Please don’t confuse the environmental zealots with science. You’re challenging their religion.