Only a few people (mostly agribusiness like Archer-Daniels-Midland or Con-Agra) have ever made much money from ethanol production, and that was only because there was a subsidy paid for its production. The farmers are indirectly encouraged because the market price of field corn as grain was artificially propped up, encouraging the planting of WAY more corn for grain than would otherwise be done. This has seriously impacted the costs of feeding harvested corn crop to animals for meat and milk production, and caused some overuse of resources better diverted elsewhere.
The whole corn plant is run through a harvester that chops the whole plant up into pieces no more than about three-eights of an inch long, hauled to a silo, sealed away from outside air, where it pickles in the natural formation of lactic acid, and is fed out later to dairy or beef cattle as roughage feed. The stuff is rather sour, but cattle relish the taste of it (rather like pickles), and it has a high energy content, which transforms into heavier milk production and greater rates of growth for beef animals.
Corn used in this manner, of course, unless the ears are harvested separately, cannot be used for ethanol production. And the corn grain used for ethanol is only partially available, later, as wet brewer’s grains, the part left over from malting and making ethanol from the corn grain. While the product is a good source of concentrated protein and some fiber, the starch portion is missing, and the cost of producing this “sour mash” in and of itself, makes it less competitive with simply using whole-grain crushed corn kernels as part of concentrated cattle, swine and poultry feed mixes. But here again, the production of ethanol competes directly with animal feed, and the costs of operating a feed lot, egg production, or dairy facility are increased commensurately.
The thing is, none of these additional steps are really “for free”, as these extra steps require extra money and resources input to the cost of producing the ethanol from corn grain, and the overall process is pretty much a wash, in terms of the energy produced.
Much of what you write is true, but explain the scientific article excerpt I posted. How is 400 gallons of ETOH per acre not a net energy gain. The paper proves it is indeed.