Al Gore: Supporting Corn-Based Ethanol Subsidies Was A Mistake

Politics Daily:

Now he tells us. Al Gore says his support for corn-based ethanol subsidies while serving as vice president was a mistake that had more to do with his desire to cultivate farm votes in the 2000 presidential election than with what was good for the environment.

Read the whole story: Politics Daily

Comments

[aplusd]

12:13 PM on 12/31/2010

At least he admits his mistake. Could this be his next project? http://www.ItSavesEnergy.com

[Bobby Fontaine]

02:49 PM on 12/17/2010

Ethanol: First Big Challenge for the Tea Party
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/204172

[AuldLochinvar]

11:27 PM on 11/29/2010

Biomass was the largest source of energy in the 18th century, together with watermills and sailing ships. Ethanol and biodiesel are not the only rubbish in the whole biomass promotion scheme. The fact is that although forests are renewable, they are historically hardly ever cultivated renewably. They are cut down, and/or burned, and the land is used to grow grain, cattle, or even sugarcane, which is the basis of Brazil's E85 fuel.
You can go to any website promoting renewable short-term harvesting of wood, e.g. willow (three year cycle, the roots re-sprout) and compute how many square miles you need for an annual harvest of a gigawatt-year of energy. It comes to between 400 and a thousand square miles. Then you can shut down one baseload 1000 MW coal plant. But you can do it cleaner with a baseload nuclear, which produces a thousandth of one percent of the mass of waste the coal burner does.
It makes no difference how sophisticated your fermenter bio-organisms are, they need to use some of the energy of the photosynthesized carbohydrates.
Yeast releases one molecule of CO2 for every two carbon atoms remaining in the alcohol it produces from sugar.

[Tsunami effect]

05:22 PM on 11/29/2010

OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL
"First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore"

So CLIMATE CHANGE (or whatever the favorite term is this month) is what we knew it to be all along - SOCIALISM...........................

[Tsunami effect]

05:47 PM on 11/29/2010

Another nice link to ClimateCon

http://cfact.eu/2010/11/27/cfacts-climate-depot-on-climate-redistribution

[NamithaSF]

04:36 PM on 11/28/2010

Obama sold his soul in the Iowa caucus and ethanol was a big issue he caved on as well.
The corn ethanol subsidy is just another farm subsidy.

[trinity]

11:45 AM on 11/28/2010

I wonder when our "anti-federal subsidies" Senators Elect Kirk (IL) and Coates (IN) are going to stand up and end federal ethanol subsidies to all the corn farmers in their states....Ethanol production is a huge business here in Indiana...

[annie2foo]

03:34 PM on 11/27/2010

FOLLOW THE MONEY!!

[kpos101]

02:49 PM on 11/27/2010

liar liar pants on fire

[xstevejx]

09:14 AM on 11/27/2010

Well, part of the problem was also that corn ethanol was what was easiest to support at the time and there was a lot of conflicting information earlier on how much better the energy conversion ratio could get w/ corn (though I think only the corn lobby still says it's great and can get a lot better). This is hardly an admission of trying to defraud anyone, but just that they perhaps rushed into it too quickly, partly for political reasons.

[stumanchu35]

08:55 AM on 11/27/2010

We've known the whole time Al. Enjoy your McMansion in Malibu.

[GenosseJoe]

08:52 AM on 11/27/2010

Tens of millions of poor people in India, Bangladesh and Africa are eternally thankful to Gore for the years of hunger caused by ethanol subsidies in the industrial countries. Many died from that gore-made disaster.

But now he is telling them "Sorry".

How many cold Winters should we wait until he will admit his mistake about Global Warming?

[KateinAZ]

09:03 AM on 11/27/2010

I can tell you one thing, praying to the false idol Al Gore is no different from praying to the false idol which is known as Sarah Palin. Let's start with fact based arguments from the scientists and not personality driven naratives about what is best for us. We are all doomed until we start to listen and think.
So very many people suffered because of Gore's ethanol fiasco and most people don't even know about it.

[Jan Moore]

07:52 PM on 11/27/2010

Gore made disaster? He wasn't the only one speaking about it. Do you have words of disdain for the Cargills and Archer Daniels Midlands of this world that foisted this upon us while lying to people about it? Your remark smacks simply of political bias. What have YOU done of late to help the hungry form behind your modem?

[Chili Chili]

10:49 PM on 11/27/2010

@Jan Moore: If Gore had not voted in favor of requiring ethanol in gasoline, the regulation would not have passed. He had the deciding vote - not Cargill or Archer Daniels. If Gore had voted against the regulation the corn would have been available for food rather than being inefficiently converted into ethanol.

[katooom]

05:29 AM on 11/27/2010

"I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."

Like most of what AlGore does, it is all about the sellout.

[moose and squirrel]

04:54 AM on 11/27/2010

hey maybe we can get those farmers to drop corn and grow bell peppers and lettuce. i'm tired of paying $1.69 for those items.

[Rayme]

04:07 AM on 11/27/2010

This is what happens when you have politicians trying to run a command economy. It's a waste of money and resources. People never learn.

[moose and squirrel]

04:49 AM on 11/27/2010

the only time we ran a command economy was during world war II.  and as i recall, that worked out pretty good for us....

[Rayme]

02:46 PM on 12/01/2010

Great, so you're a 100 years old.

[Ogg-the-bear]

12:25 AM on 11/27/2010

Rich guys. Sheesh.