I agree with Cruz to not burn our food. That is senseless and expensive.
If ethanol can be made from petroleum feedstocks that cannot be made into gasoline, that would be a good source of ethanol.
I do not know chemistry. Please, an engineer help out with information.
Ethanol can be made from oil. The process is called cracking: transforms heavy molecules left after oil distillation into smaller molecules, one of which - ethylene - can combine with water and produce pure ethanol. Most likely, the cost of ethanol from such a process is higher than it’s production from corn.