Even best case scenarios aren’t much better. Leaving aside Pimentel, see this: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/biofuels/4237539
“The National Renewable Energy Laboratory states that, “Today, 1 Btu of fossil energy consumed in producing and delivering corn ethanol results in 1.3 Btu of usable energy in your fuel tank.””
Add in the water costs, and it’s a big WTF situation.
Now, if you want to talk cellulosic ethanol, that’s another story. But corn ethanol is STUPID.
IF all the fossil energy were oil then the output would be about 1.6 gal ethanol per gallon of oil (0.63 gal oil to one gal of ethanol). That blasts your " it takes at least 1.3 gallons of oil to make one gallon of corn ethanol" right out of the water!
From your link:
“
Producing enough ethanol to replace America’s imported oil alone would require putting nearly 900 million acres under cultivation—or roughly 95 percent of the active farmland in the country.”
At 450 gal per acre, that would be over 21 million barrels a day. We import about 14 million barrels a day.