St. Petersburg Times: A year ago, the ethanol industry was riding high on spiraling gas prices that made corn-based biofuel a highly attractive home-grown supplement to costly gasoline. Federal mandates were in place to more than triple ethanol production by 2022. Since then, the bottom has fallen out of the industry. Newly built refineries are shutting down, and some ethanol companies are facing bankruptcy. “We are all struggling, there’s no hiding that,” said Scott Pearce, president of Biofuel …