You’re right, we all should always believe Al Gore, particularly when he says he’s wrong about something. Which he has indeed done. This appears to be the very first time that he’s done so.
It’s a lot better to subsidize the “bone-idle bums” (as P.J. O’Rourke called them) in the OPEC countries by buying overpriced oil, than it would be to reopen some land to ethanol production as part of bringing about not only US energy independence, but also an end to the financing of our own demise by the world caliphate.
There are better ways to do that than wasting time/money on pipe dreams like ethanol.