the question is, do you want less dependence on foreign oil, or do you want something else?
There can be ethanol production in a sustainable, albeit not very efficient manner. But it is the end result that you are buying. It is a stopgap solution. People who think they have the world figured out in being anti-ethanol are just as dumb as those blindly buying onto the ethanol bandwagon.
Have you considered the well to wheels efficiency of crude oils??? Not that much better in the real, final analysis, unfortunately there is so much spin, that even decent engineers dont always get the full calculation.
If the bandwagon says to buy less oil from the mid east, and the investment/timeframe to use tar sands or whatnot is too great (remember, big pushes usually flop in a few months/years, and sometimes results in lack of investment from a corporate standpoint), then perhaps those in the know and in control of money found ethanol to be the best intermediate-term stopgap solution, which it seems to be. Couple that with the loss of MTBE, and the requirement at least in most areas for an oxygenate for the fuel, and you have a requirement to make it.
personally, I desire to refrain from having to use ethanol, and I would prefer 100% gasoline when I buy it by the gallon - the only ethanol I want in my tank is what I buy and put in myself... But I desire this for other reasons than because of politics or because of some numbers with so much spin and assumptions put on them that they have no more real validity... But politics and whatnot says otherwise, so we use ethanol. As much as we might dislike this current status quo, we also tend to like our right to buy 8 MPG vehicles, stomp on the go pedal at green lights, and living 100 miles from work. we dont do much in the end all to reduce our consumption, and really not much either to reduce our pollution levels, we want it all and dont want to pay for any of it, and all at the same time want to complain because we think we are so smart and magically became experts on different areas.
I suggest that those who seem to think they are so smart and have everything figured out find a solution, and refrain from driving (or go serve in Iraq) until they do...
JMH