Ethanol is not crap.. true it has less energy per gallon, but it burns cooler, with virtually no detonation, which means you can turn up the timing advance skyhigh and the boost if you're running a blower, and make killer power with ethanol.
As for cost, I'm not going to give specific names and locations, but I know from relatives that used to make it for "consumption" purposes and also used it to fuel the runner vehicles, when the figured production cost, that it cost about $30 to set up everything to have the materials to get started, but once it was running, it cost 2 cents per gallon to make, when gasoline was costing 15-20 cents per gallon.
If the powers that be (whom I term Sneakyman Inc.) wanted cleanliness, efficiency, etc., we would have had HPFI (high pressure fuel injection) 60~70 years ago & would never have needed Mid-east oil.
It's not about what we think it's about.