Economy Shifts, and the Ethanol Industry Reels As producers of ethanol navigate a triple whammy of falling prices for their product, credit woes and volatile costs for the corn from which ethanol is made, an economic version of “Survivor” is playing out in the industry. Last week, VeraSun, one of the nation’s largest ethanol producers, announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection after its bets on the price of corn turned out to be wrong — and costly. Several other small producers have filed for bankruptcy this year, and construction plans for several Midwestern ethanol plants have been postponed or shelved. Shares in the handful of publicly owned ethanol companies have mostly been slumping all year. Aventine Renewable Energy and Pacific Ethanol, for instance, have both lost more than 80 percent of their value since the beginning of the year. While producers pin their hopes on rising government mandates for the use of ethanol, analysts who follow the industry voice concerns that more companies could go under. They expect a wave of consolidation to sweep the ethanol business once the credit crisis eases....