alt Hacker News> So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people?
I'm not sure it's all that wasteful. The waste product from biofuel production is distillers grains [1] which are just fed back to animals afterward for the protein, fiber, and fat content.
It's wasteful in the sense that we are exploiting lots of land for the limited value it brings.