At one time I thought ethanol was a good idea. It and some of the other pie in the sky solutions to the ‘big oil/big satan/big energy’ sure didn’t pan out.
If corn wasn’t being used for ethanol, it would leave more in the market place to be sure.
Over supply has one result in the market place.
The value of the goods in over supply drops.
It’s another government dislocation in the market.
The acres devoted to corn had been trending down for decades before the ethanol boom. Corn devoted to ethanol is grown to meet the demand. With ethanol less profitable now, corn acres will trend down again.
Without ethanol subsidizing animal feed, corn production would dramatically decrease and become more expensive, but not before a lot of less-nimble producers get forced out altogether. Likely we would end up importing animal feed from China instead of exporting it.