You make some good points.. and I don't have the time to respond other than this:

It is my belief that all forms of energy are Solar.. There are 2 schools of thought about petroleum

a) Hydrocarbons are formed from dead/decaying plant/animal material buried over time and "cooked" into Coal and Petroleum by Pressure and heat.. over Millennia.

b) A much Smaller theory is from Russia that Hydrocarbons come from deep in the earth and are renewable..  ??

I'm going with A) that Petroleum comes from Plants.. and or Animals which Eat Plants.. or other animals with eat plants.. and the Plants grew with soil.. moisture.. and Solar energy.  Thus Petroleum is BANKED solar energy from Millennia..

Ethanol.. is Solar energy from.. this past summer.. banked.. as we can store the Grain in a silo until we need it like now in the Winter..  Whereas Solar Energy also drives Wind Currents and hence Wind Power.. and of course.. unless it's a cloudy day.. you can use Photovoltaic cells and convert Sunlight directly to Kilowatts.. IF a) you have sunshine.. and b) you have a beaucoup amount of land.. (like a parking garage on ASU's campus) to do it.. makes more sense in the US Southwest Desert than say.. New York City.

So since all forms of energy are Solar..

a) how do you bank it? 
Batteries from Solar.
Pump water uphill during the day to release down hill at night to power the grid.
Use it to grow grain.. then harvest and convert to ethanol later.
Wait for the earth to bury it and convert it to petroleum a couple million years from now..??

b) Thus we have banked Solar power resources..  How do we BEST MANAGE them?

Europe... the cradle of MODERN Civilization has pratically exhausted it's natural Resources.. so much so that now Germany is going to rely upon a pipeline from Russia.. ( A country which it previously invaded..) to supply it's natural Gas needs...

...?!?

.. and this is the best idea they can come up with?

Actually the Trump administration wants to support LNG where we compress Natty Gas from here in the US.. chill it.. and ship it across the Ocean.. losing a lot of it in the energy transfers to do this..

...?!?
.. marginally better I guess.

And yet a Cold snap hit the energy markets this past week SPIKING Natty Gas Prices.. as well as fertilizer prices derived from Natty Gas.

So we're back to square one on the banking Solar power thingy.

My point is that NO ONE Source OWNS the Markets.. Although the Texas Congressional Delegation and Scott Pruitt THINK they do... but with the Democrats coming into power.. I suspect that we will be hearing ALOT MORE about Climate Change and Carbon Taxes et all..  "lovely."   Cow farts and all of that are some day going to turn mother Earth into an inferno..

However, our local ethanol plant is now shipping ethanol to Cali as it qualifies for a Low Carbon Fuel.. dryland Sorghum.. and the new plant coming online next Spring is also going to ship to that market..

Does the Low Carbon Fuels market expand under the Democrats?

"hmmm.."

we'll come back to that one later...

But for now.. we probably have hit a point of re evaluation about the future of energy policy.. with the Democrat's turn coming up.. maybe this isn't going to be all bad?

I think Petroleum interests are gonna have their hands full.. do they want to compromise with Renewable Groups like us who have a vested interest in sustaining MOSTLY Petroleum based liquid fuels.. such as e-10, e-15, e-30 and e-85.. even though the Aromatics in gasoline (Benzene et all..) cause cancer...???

Or should we look to stricter environmental standards for the future?

"hmmm"

There's a lot to consider there...

later.

PS the world is still going to demand a growing protein market.. such as the DDGs in Distillers by products and the Next Generation bolt on ethanol technology will move in THAT direction.