I figured they wouldn't last long, because they were converting fossil fuels into an environmentally "friendly" fuel, meanwhile requiring more fossil fuels to produce this "friendly" fuel... which is then added to gas tanks around the country.
So you take a fossil fuel & fossil fuel based fertilizers you -> grow corn. You use fossil fuel powered tractors & harvesters. You convert corn -> ethanol, which also requires energy. And then you have ethanol.
You can then burn this ethanol. Or you could just burn all those fossil fuels.
Back then there was also a glimmer of hope around the idea of cellulosic ethanol. Using manmade enzymes we could break down the tough walls around certain plants into ethanol and harvest solar energy directly into liquid fuels via god & man made plants.
Well they are still talking about this, 15 years later, with very much the same tone & words. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biofuels/ethanol.php
Ethanol is a scam. It's got something to do with farm votes. Maybe something to do with 2 votes per state for Senators. 15 years later we still perform this ritual nonsense.
This post makes me sound a little bit against green energy. That's not what I'm saying. I'm pointing out that ethanol is not more green. It's less green because it simply wastes energy.