Al Gore: I Was Wrong About Corn-Based Ethanol

Al Gore regrets supporting subsidies for corn-based ethanol when he was in office, he revealed during a speech in Athens yesterday, confessing that he’d done it more to bolster his presidential ambitions than to help the planet. “First generation ethanol I think was a mistake,” Gore said, according to Reuters, arguing that “it is not good policy to have these massive subsidies.”

“One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee,” Gore admitted. “And I had a certain fondness for the farmers in Iowa, because I was about to run for president.” First generation ethanol, Gore explained, took too much energy to produce, and had a real impact on food prices. But he said he still supports second generation fuels based on farm waste, switchgrass, and other non-food sources. (Read more ethanol stories.)