Environmentalism: What do global warming believers think of the failure of corn alcohol to substitute for gasoline?

I'm not sure if I'm a "global warming advocate" (I do accept the current scientific consensus about the likely anthropogenic origin of the observed warming). But for myself, and pretty much everyone informed on the subject that I talk to, we have known for a long time that corn ethanol subsidies were an ineffective way to reduce carbon emissions, and that the only reason they were being implemented in the United States was as a political favor to the corn states. There have been several studies over the past decade (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=eroei+corn+ethanol) that show that corn ethanol is basically energy-neutral (EROEI ~ 1), if not actually net energy negative! This is because with modern intensive agriculture, it takes so much energy to run the tractors and make fertilizer, and then to process the corn into ethanol in an industrial plant, that you basically burn a joule of oil for every joule of ethanol you get out. It was basically a matter of sighing and saying "yup, another stupid thing the government is doing". Nobody informed has believed in corn ethanol as a carbon mitigation strategy for at least the past several years. Even Gore, apparently. From the article you link: [Gore] went further, saying that he supported ethanol production because the first presidential primary is in Iowa, which produces more ethanol than any other state: “I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president," he said. Gore also said that the “massive subsidies” given to ethanol are not “good policy.” Yup, sounds about right. Now, cellulosic ethanol, that might make a real difference, if it can be made to work economically.

Using corn crops to fuel engines was political, not scientific. Some people converted vehicles to run on ethanol, but the environment did not benefit. Burning stuff is bad for people and the stuff burned. Lots of gases contribute to Global warming. Methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, gaseous water,... greenhouse gases make life on this planet possible for us. Global warming is necessary for human life. It the amount of the warming that is troublesome. Excessive warming is uncomfortable for people, but it won't kill us. Malnutrition kills. Hurricanes, stress, accidents, wars, droughts and floods kill. We need to stop burning stuff, but want to be comfortable. To be comfortable, we'll keep burning stuff. This is an argument over who's stuff gets burnt.

I am not a "global warming believer". The description betrays an ignorance of the science. I maintain that the simplest answer is the more likely. Greenhouses get warm, the Earth gets warm. I fail to see how Brazil and Sweden "failed" to make effective use of alcohol-gasoline blends. They haven't. Ethyl alcohol is a better fuel than gasoline. Ask the German rocket scientists - it has a higher caloric value. It also has a high octane rating. The advantage of ethyl alcohol is that even lazy and stupid Americans can "switch to it" without having to work too hard. What is harder to do is to convert to a methanol based infrastructure, generated from garbage, crop waste, and dirty coal. Like the Nazis did at the end of WW2, after they lost the Romanian oil fields. That takes some competence in basic science and in basic project management, beyond the capabilities of the typical American high school graduate. Of course any sort of "subsidy" is bad - which is why there is a problem. The oil infrastructure is subsidized by still having lots of cheap oil that is pumped out of the ground, for the benefit of a few, There is no point in replacing one form of unsustainable subsidy for another. It is probably unfair to blame America too much. They don't have the advantage that Nazi Germany had, in having no alternative to Romanian oil except their own coal. They don't have the advantage that France has, with no coal or oil at oil at all, and thus having to build nuclear powered trains that run at 300 kph instead of just waiting three hours at the airport for security checks to go on a 900 km flight. The last thing that Americans would want is to move away from private transport to public transport, to move to using bikes, to move to high efficiency electric rail freight transport, to move to renewables that don't need imported fossil fuels, to move to home-produced fuel, and to find a use for their crop waste and garbage. Or to even go on an energy diet - to get on their bikes and  burn off some of that fat. The vested interests, of both the typical American, and of the companies whose fossil fuel products will be exhausted in less than 50 years, are still far too strong.

There is no "global warming believer", first of all, as it makes it sound like a matter of opinion. AGW is occurring. That is not subject to "belief" any more than that 2+2=4 is a matter of "belief". It's simple fact. That aside, we'll ultimately need to go to a non-carbon energy source. For personal vehicles, the best way forth is electric (or hydrogen, but the infrastructure on that is trickier). Ethanol was never anything but a bridge.