Originally Posted by aurgathor
Another thing, many of the sources that can be used to make ethanol or butanol can also be used as a human or livestock feed, and at some point, it might be more important to use them to feed people or animals.
That part of the aargument is easy, it doesn't take away any of the food produced, rather, the fuels are a by product of processing the grains for food. Ethanol is not the only product of the distillation process, it only uses the starch. In the process of making corn sweetener, ethanol is produced anyway, it is just a matter of separating it out.I imagine butanol is the same. Livestock feed is also a byproduct of processing the grains for it's particular use.